Alfiekohn The Case Against Competition Summary

“Are Competitive Sports Bad for Kids?” Mar 31, 2011 | By Rachel Nelson, Web, 20

Youth sports are continuing to be shifted into adult standards, by promoting victory while risking injury. Kids do not have the same physical capabilities of professional athletes on television, yet some parents insist that their kids continue playing extremely harmful sports at a violent level of play. Young athletes should not put constant strain on developing bones and muscles. For example, in baseball, a twelve-year-old trying to throw a curveball puts constant strain on the elbow’s ligaments, and may cause

Competitive sports in some cases are becoming very unhealthy for children. Most children would rather play on a losing team than sit on the bench of a winning team. Youth sports are a great idea to get children up and active, as well as improve their social skills. Just like every other thing in life it is important to practice and work hard to achieve success. However it is unhealthy to push for results over the needs or wants of the child. Aside from the mental stress that young athletes may experience from intense training and physical play long lasting injures is now a growing concern. Fact is competitive sports is a double edge sword if done right it is the greatest thing world, but if done wrong it can be very unhealthy for a child.

That isn’t the case for most kids. For a lot of kids in competitive sports, it doesn’t matter how careful you are, you are bound to get hurt once or twice a year. When kids play competitive sports, they can get hurt pretty badly. A lot of kids break bones, get concussions, or other injuries while playing in competitive sports. Also, since kids are growing more, they seem to have more troubles with injuries than adults do, and according to the NCBI, “Due to the rapid expansion of bones while growing and slowly elongating muscles, tension develops across the growth plates, the apophyses, and the joints. Most injuries happen during practices, and competitive sports teams have more practices than non competitive.”. (NCBI). Concussions are very dangerous, and according to Prevacus Inc., “There are between an estimated 1.6 and 3.8 million sports-related concussions in the United States every year,” (Prevacus). Also, USA Today said; There may be a lot of concussions, but there are also a lot more injuries too, “Sprains and strains, fractures, contusions, abrasions and concussions top the list of sports-related ER diagnoses for kids ages 6 to 19 — at a cost of more than $935 million each year.” (USA Today). Which is why competitive sports are very

Children are the future. When they are harmed, the future becomes less and less healthy. Injuries from sports are especially risky for children, because they’re not finished developing and are susceptible to brain damage that could stop their brains from growing. Mental harm, at times, can be more dangerous than physical injuries. For example, low self-esteem can lead to serious psychological impairments and conditions like depression. While it may be true that physical fitness is important, there are still options and activities that cause a lot less harm and fewer risks are necessary. Parents and coaches both should work harder to keep children safe and out of harm’s way while in sports. Parents should get their children check up on at the doctor’s when something seems wrong, and act accordingly. Coaches should have breaks for rest and to prevent strain between practices and put the players’ health and safety as a top priority, above

Statsky specifies that sports played from six to twelve years of age could have long-term negative and degrading effects in terms of health and the interest and attitude towards the sport for the child as both a player and a fan. Statsky states many reasons for her opinion, which include the risk for physical and psychological harm, and parents who are more worried about their child winning rather than participating in the game. In my opinion, I agree with the argument made by the author that competitive sports encourage children to engage in physical actions. Some of the sports activities are most thrilling and energetic. Players, driven by the desire to win are likely to act in a careless way causing physical injuries. Hence, young children are at great risk of sustaining injuries in the course of competitive sports. Though in football injuries are common, instances of injuries for 12 year olds are severe since the body structure of these children has not developed fully. Competitive sports have two results, either a loser or a

Players are more focused on competition rather than having fun, learning and being with friends, which has created a desire for winning. Especially, while players capability and worth are based on their ability to stand up to their coaches and parents high expectations and win the gold; they tend to take actions in a reckless demeanor, entailed by physical injuries. Sports which require contact are the most common. However, injuries that come with them can be severe for growing bodies of children under the age of twelve as their body has not developed fully. In addition to physical injuries, sports activates can also result in psychological upheaval. The fear of being hurt distracts children from playing to their full potential. This is a fact to which I can relate closely. As an eight-year-old boy, I was very much into soccer, but one fateful day, harsh gameplay lead to me breaking my ankle after which the fear of being hurt again kept me from playing soccer for a few years and even today I hold myself back so that I don’t get hurt

A point of disagreement among the people whose youth play in competitive sports, is that some think they are too dangerous because the youth can get many injuries that can change their life forever. But on the other hand people think that it is a way to learn life skills and have great confidence, because they will need to know those simple key skills when they are out in the real world and have a job. Research shows, however, that competitive sports are good for youth because the children are meeting new people and they are building up their self-esteem.

Sports is part of people’s everyday lives, people even make money off of sports, but how would you like if i told you they are dangerous. You probably would think that is obvious. So why would you have your kid participate in sports that induce pain? Did you know one-third of kids experience sports-related injury? That information was given to me by Stanford. Another piece of evidence is from, Listening To Wisdom From A 10-Year-Old Son About His Head Injury, “ Daddy I’m scared, I only have one brain and I don’t want to waste it playing football.” (Cohen 1) Would you like your child to be frightened like this one? The last thing you want is for your child to have more fears.

The issue that has created intense debate is whether or not competitive sports are good for youth or is there to many bad outcomes that happen in competitive sports. This issue has then created intense debate about whether or not brain injuries should factor in over all the good in sport such as the social skills the sportsmanship, learning how to lose and learning how to win and not brag. Far more often these skills occur than brain injuries or injuries in general. Youth gain muscle in sports by playing and using the muscles that then make more.

Youth sports are like violent attack. Some kid may tackle you or harm you. You can never trust anyone. Studies have shown that youth sports had a significant impact on the health of children all through their life. The texts “Youth sports -- too dangerous? / Are youth sports too harmful?” by Tony Cooper, “The Psychology of Youth Sports” by Marilyn Price-Mitchell Phd, and “Many kids are overdoing it when it comes to sports, and that’s dangerous” by Ryan Basen convey that youth sports have become a huge issue, as more and more children are getting injured and harmed everyday. Youth sports may seem like fun activities that build social interaction and make them personable but, can be harmful since many children can end up in the hospital due to

Looking at trends associated within fitness and wellness I ran across a very interesting article entitled "Pushing Too Hard Too Young" written by Jacqueline Stenson for MSNBC (see link below). This article presents the idea that children at an early age, sometimes as early as three, are being pushed too hard to play in sports. The claim in this article is that these children are sustaining unnecessary injuries, and enduring psychological pressure at a higher level than their skill lever for their age. For these kids training is to the extent, they are required to maintain intense training schedules and practice year-round or on multiple different leagues in an attempt to develop them for future fame.

Have you ever been hurt so bad that you you cried out a puddle? Think of anywhere your whole body or just a part of your body that you hurt. Kids from all the way around the world have been getting hurt that bad in there life & stopped doing their dream because of some of the injuries. In 8 articles it says some tragic things that can happen to you while playing a competitive sport. But it also says what it does to you when you play a competitive sport and how you shouldn't play a sport. My opinion is kids shouldn't play competitive sports. This is important because kids all the time if they play a competitive sport get bad injuries that can scar them for life and other things to.

Competitive sports can bring dangers upon children. The article, “Violence and Athletic Children” states, “Young athletes are often pressured to perform and achieve at ever-increasing levels,”. This pressure on kids can lead to careless acts of aggression and violence. Injuries from competitive sports are one of the leading causes of emergency room visits for maturing youth. While Physical activity is needed for growth in children, the activity level can become too excessive

Do you have a passion, something you love to do more than anything? Imagine people trying to stop you from doing what you love because they think it’s not useful or a waste. Some people say competitive sports cost too much and they are way too dangerous for young kids to participate in. However, for many youth, competitive sports play a positive role. When kids play competitive sports, they are happier and they learn how to be healthy. Also, they learn life lessons that they will need for the future.