Attrition Rate In Youth Sports

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.

Being a professional athlete is one of the most commonly heard dreams of a young boy or girl who currently elementary school. Whether it is realistic or not, these kids will be participating in the sport that they wish to thrive in. But, time after time we hear adults complain about their child’s insane soccer schedule, or how they have to spend their whole weekend traveling for games. The parents complaints shouldn’t be the topic of discussion, in fact the only opinions that matter are the children. The question shouldn’t be asking whether or not youth sports are too intense, it should be asking if it is worth it. If a child loves what they’re doing then they have every reason to continue playing their sport, but if they are not all in, he or she has to question whether or not all the craziness is worth it.

Sports can be viewed as a learning environment that helps individuals learn life lessons, foster strong work habits and develop core values all the while learning a sport skill. Youth sports that truly benefit young athletes should be structured to emphasize participation more than just competition. Children enjoy a sport more when they are able to have fun (Humpries). Despite many excesses some sport programs still manage to promote important virtues like self- confidence, teamwork, personal responsibility, coping skills, and persistence. Through sports kids can learn to stay organized and learn how to prioritize (Ferguson). Sports enables development of physical skills and increasing proficiency makes kids feel good about themselves. It teaches kids that failure is something to overcome and and not to fear (Meyerhoff 8-9). Youth sports has many aspects that are truly benefiting for children, but these benefits are slowly being clouded by the negatives that are prominent in today's youth sports.

All of the publicity that is attained by success, and the possibility of this success, places a great deal of pressure and stress on these young single-sport athletes. This stress and pressure takes the fun out of some sports. Youth sports are becoming serious and based more on winning than on having a great time and learning good sportsmanship. Adu points out the winning mindset of athletes in this day and age when he says, “Teams will do anything to win the game. My coach told me to expect that going in and that is exactly how it was. . .I felt like everybody was out to get me” (Goodall, 2003). This

However, when we talk about youth sports, our main concern is with providing players with a positive, character building experience. Winning is not the only acceptable outcome for youth players, and coaches need to understand this principle. “With a winning philosophy young athletes may lose out on opportunities to develop their skills, to enjoy participation, and to grow socially and emotionally. Well informed coaches realize that success is not equivalent to winning games, and failure is not the same as losing.” (Enhancing Coach-Parent Relationships in Youth Sports, 15)

In light of Jessica Statsky’s book ‘Children need to play, not compete’, she argued that, with the vivid increase of sporting competition lately in the United States, children have been exposed to the adults hard and rigorous training by devoted parents and coaches at their tender age making a game that is supposed to be fun and joy look hectic and strenuous to them due to the standard of training they are made to go through and also the belief that they must always win thereby making them lose the spirit of sportsmanship, and neither gaining satisfaction nor benefiting from them. In as much as sports are good for physical, mental and emotional growth, it should be organized in a manner that the youths will enjoy the game at the end of it rather than the fear of being hurt or defeated by the other competitors.

Winning and losing comes in many different forms and goes well beyond sports as a young child grows up to be an adult. A lot of kids today are getting trophies and rewards that they didn’t exactly deserve. This is happening in other activities as well, not just in sports. There is a certain

Did you know that around 45 million kids in their schools play sports! Around 15 years old 80% of those kids have stop playing the sports in their schools. Some people believe that school sports are a good thing, and they should be in schools like the ConVal High School. ConVal High School should still be in the school because of these reasons. Sports do have positive effects on the children when they play at their schools, and also they could set goals for themselves in the future. Some may have trouble with that and others don’t.

Competitive children sports used to be community sports like Little League and AYSO with fun practices and trips to the snack shack, but now they have been taken over by competitive club sports, private lessons and far away tournaments. In the past 5 years the kids sports industry has increased from a 5 billion dollar industry to a 15 billion dollar industry. Many people think that the growth of children’s sports is benefiting their child for their future, but I believe that children should not play competitive club sports because of time loss, cost, and children being forced to play a single sport. Competitive sports take time away time from family, friends, community activities, and school.

Three out of four American families with school-aged children have at least one playing an organized sport. By age 15, as many as 80 percent of these youngsters have quit. Even though this intensity is necessary for young athletes to develop the skills necessary to compete at college

On the other hand, some people support youth sports being intense. Since the parents do not have the guts to do it themselves, they want the coaches to do it. Parents allow this because they do not want to be the ones to take their child's confidence away, they want to be as supportive as possible. Also, parents make their kids do competitive sports just because they want them to get noticed. According to Detroit Free Press, parents put a lot of time into their kids sports and they automatically think that if they put all of the time in, “they will see a light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a scholarship” (www.freep.com). That does not happen that easily. You have to earn your scholarships by working hard, not just because you think you deserve one without doing anything. At some point, parents will think that their kids need to push themselves to their limits so they can get noticed by college coaches. If kids do this all the time, overuse

Dr. Jonathan Fader is a sports psychologist whose focus of study is working on what motivates people. Fader asserts that " instead of dealing with defeat by telling our kids that “everyone’s a winner at heart,” we should praise them for how hard they hustled, what they did right and how they improved." Praising effort as effort is given is a great way for an individual to feel pride in their work. Intrinsic motivation, that is the motivation that comes from within makes people who love sports instead of just playing them. If a child is intrinsically motivated to help the team to win, then the trophy is of little consequence to that child. Knowing which sport to enroll a child in can be a time consuming, trial and error operation. However when a child finds the activity that motivates them intrinsically the motivation to get better will comes easier than the child that was enrolled in a sport without any knowledge of it. This is also true with adult, as a kid one may be asked to figure out what person loves to do and make that a career choice; the only reason is because the work is more enjoyable and the joy of doing the work will lead to a happier work

This is one of the more obvious reasons as in the higher age groups the goal is more focused on winning than it is on having fun. A researcher Amanda Visik conducted a study on why kids play sport. Nine out of ten kids said that the biggest reason was because it’s fun. The kids were asked what were the fun things about sport. The top six answers were trying your best, when coaches treat players with respect, getting playing time, playing well as a team, getting along with their team mates and exercising and being active.

“Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser,” Vince Lombardi once said. This saying could be the unsung anthem of American sports for children and teenagers. Everyone loves to win. In sports there is always competition. Is there too much emphasis on “the win” for kids and teens? This issue is important because it essentially develops the way children and teenagers think and react; it will affect them later on in life. Too much emphasis on winning is a problem because there is extensive pressure from parents and coaches, and the consequences can be severe.

Rewarding is the best source of motivation, not only for adults but also for the younger stars engaging in a competition; many people grow with this statement in mind and use the notion as a piece of advice that should allow conditioning of hard work in any contest (Wrobel 401-421). One of the people who believe that only winners should be rewarded for their efforts, author Parker Abate, wrote In Youth Sports, “Participation Trophies Send a Powerful Message,” published in October 2016 in New York Times. He argues that while not all participants win a competition, working with the members of the team with an objective of receiving victory teaches them a lesson that in life it is important