Are Sports Too Intense For Children

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.

In “Children Need to Play, Not Compete,” Jessica Statsky argues that younger children should not be involved in overly competitive sports. Statsky wrote that organized competitive sports were to the disadvantage of children both physically and psychologically. In youth athletics, some parents and coaches put their own dreams in front of their children 's’ well-being by stressing winning. Statsky concludes “all organized sports activities” to be remade as a more enjoyable game regardless of each athlete’s ability and athleticism. The author states many issues that kids have when they are forced to play a sport just to win or that they don’t enjoy. Some kids just don 't enjoy sports, but their parents force it on them. Certain organized sports programs promote winning over physical skills and self-esteem. Statsky brings up valid points that early childhood shouldn’t involve intense physical competition, which is associated with the risk of injury to the body and mind.

In the article “For Children in Sports, a Breaking Point” by Jane Brody the author discusses the underlying problem on whether or not young athletes should be encouraged to push themselves to their physical and mental breaking point in sports from their coaches, parents, or even themselves. Meanwhile, in “Why Parents Should Let Their Kids Play Dangerous Sports” by Jeb Golinkin the writer deliberates why parents should let their children participate in risky sports to understand the significance of failing, teamwork, striving, and succeeding.

Jessica Statsky, in her essay, “Children need to Play, Not Compete” attempts to refute the common belief that organized sports are good for children. She sees organized sports not as healthy pass-times for children, but as onerous tasks that children do not truly enjoy. She also notes that not only are organized sports not enjoyable for children, they may cause irreparable harm to the children, both emotionally and physically. In her thesis statement, Statsky states, “When overzealous parents and coaches impose adult standards on children's sports, the result can be activities that are neither satisfying nor beneficial to children” (627). While this statement is strong, her defense of it is weak.

In my past, competitive sports has not been a great memory of mine. I had an experience while playing indoor soccer where the competitive aspect of the game made it less fun to play. However, after reading the article, “Have Youth Sports Become Too Intense?”, where the issue of competitive youth sports becoming too intense or extreme is debated, my perspective was changed. The benefits of participating in competitive youth sports are worth the drawbacks because athletes learn to use pressure to their advantage later in life along with how to block out negativity.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to argue the fact that youth sports are not becoming too intense. After reading the New York Times article I decided to pick this topic and argue against this theory because as a division one athlete I have my own opinions. I picked three sources which can back up and prove that sports being too intense is very much your own opinion.

You walk into a high school classroom, you see students half asleep, some bored with the material, maybe even a handful being attentive and studious. You do not know these students and they do not know you, you are just a fly on the wall here. You look in the back corner, trying to hide away from the classroom, a student in a sweatshirt way too big for their body, baggy jeans and sneakers. You assume that the student doesn’t want to be there, and wants to go home as quickly as possible. But, you are just an observer here. As the class leaves to go on to other subjects, you see that student appears to have feminine features hidden under all the baggy apparel. You might even think to yourself, “why is that girl dressed like she is wearing her

In their article, Bruce Kelley and Carl Carchia give a multitude of reasons why many kids aren’t cut out for sports. For example, they said, “Nervous types appalled by the incessant yelling by adults from the sidelines can be excused for believing that all the competition turns off as many kids as it turns on. Sabo found that 45 percent of the students in his survey who started a sport had quit it. Yet as you can see, the reasons for quitting aren't that youth sports are necessarily bad” (“Hey, data, data—Swing!,” 2013). This demonstrates that while some children can thrive off of the pressure put on them, some find it mentally taxing. Additionally, as pointed out by Jacqueline Stenson in her article, “Pushing Too Hard Too Young,” “Kids with a strong internal drive may thrive on the competition. But the pressure can be too much for others, particularly grade-schoolers who aren't as equipped to deal with the stress as older athletes” (2013). This suggests that if too much stress is put on them, children can become extremely uncomfortable while playing sports, and might even start hating sports because of it. Correspondingly, Jacqueline Stenson mentions in her article that “Not only are these youngsters at risk for emotional burnout,

In society, there is much stereotyping and stigma surrounding the issue of mental health. Stereotyping happens because humans take common characteristics and behaviours, and link them to groups in society known as social groups; because of the amount of stereotyping that exists in today’s society there is a great deal of stigma surrounding mental illness and the mentally ill. A common misconception about individuals suffering with mental illness is that they are all unintelligible and are a danger to other members of society, this opinion has been largely criticised by mental health professionals as it is viewed as narrow minded and potentially very misleading. Stereotyping mentally ill individuals causes them to lose a sense of identity as

Each year in the United States, more than 36 million school-aged children participate in an “organized sport” (“Youth Sports Statistics”). Especially over the past few years, many studies have proved or disproved the idea that sports are beneficial for young kids. Those studies have found that youth sports have both positive and negative effects on young children, and research shows parents and coaches have the greatest effect on a child’s experience.

In “Children Need to Play, Not Compete”, Jessica Statsky talks about the different kinds of students and their approach and mental and physical ability and pressure towards Sports. Statsky differentiates between two sets of children who have physical and mental attributes and towards sports. She gives a few examples and changes that have taken place in the past decades in the sports scenario. When overzealous parents and coaches impose adult standards on children's sports, the result can be activities that are neither satisfying nor beneficial to children. She further states that children should not be pressurized or forced upon their performance and improvement rather they should first be given a chance to understand the sport, their potential and the way in which they develop

What makes Jessika Statsky’s “Children Need to Play, Not Compete” an effective piece in the arguments on whether the competitive sports may harm children both physically and psychologically, is her use of clear thesis statement and a full forecast of the reasons she offers to justify her position. Statsky carefully picks her key terms, such as by sports, for example, she means to describe both contact and non-contact sports that emphasize competition. Also she clearly defines to her audience that she is mainly concerned about children of age six to twelve years old.

Not everyone believes competitive sports are good for kids. Some people believe competitive sports are harmful to kids. Competitive sports are good because they improve overall health, teach life lessons, and positively impact kids lives.

In 2012, 804,000 people had committed suicide. In other words, one person killed him or herself in every 40 seconds.(“Japan’s suicide rate”) Since death has always been obscure to humanity as none of them know what it truly is, many of them consider it to be unimaginably frightening and a notion of taking one’s own life appear them to be incomprehensible. However, for a terminally ill patient who is going through agonizing treatments, death can mean relief from endless pain. To those people, physician-assisted suicide may be desirable as it provides relatively painless death. Physician-assisted suicide, according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is “suicide by a patient facilitated by means or information (as a drug prescription or indication of the lethal dosage) provided by a physician who is aware of how the patient intends to use such means or information”.(“Physician-assisted”) Some people seem to misunderstand that euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide have identical meaning. However, that is a misconception as who puts an end to life is different. While it is usually a doctor who administrates its final act in euthanasia, the conductor is a patient in physician-assisted suicide although a physician is mainly involved by providing a mean of killing oneself. Some say one should live as long as the life goes on while others say one shall be allowed to die under some circumstances.