Pushing Children In Sports

Parents often send their children mix signals by telling them they love them the way they are, they only want them to be happy, and later, on the field they must win. These same parents go so far as to yell or even curse at the officials and even argue with other parents. Parents of today have a growing pride in their children’s accomplishments as if their children’s’ victory belongs to, in part the parents. Sometimes parental pride and investment goes too far, and the child’s victory belongs totally to their parents. This undue stress starts early in life and gets complicated later at a time when the young teen is coping with changes they do not understand.

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.

Occasionally in some athletes’ lives, the parents pick the sport their child participates in. They may do this because they want to envision themselves and their child participating. Athletes’ parents push them to go to practice and games, and they end up quitting due to the parents “gap between the child’s desire to have fun and the misguided notion among some adults that their kids’ games are a miniature version of grown-up competitions, where the goal is to win (Atkinson). This problem can lead to psychological and anxiety issues in children. If a child believes they have to be the best, but they physically and emotionally can’t, it can make the relationship between the parent and child distant and not as strong. Parents hope to see their children in the professional sports; however, only “one in six thousand high school football players will make it to the NFL” (Atkinson). With these statistics, the odds are very low for athletes to make it that far, and parents pushing their children to be that .0001 chance can stress a kid out and strain their academics. In bigger schools, it is more competitive to be on a school sports team, which can cause heartbreak if an athlete does not make the team, but the parent can take it to a whole new level believing that the child did not work hard enough. This can sometimes lead to the student being punished, with

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 recent studies, there is a proven fact that the participation of youth sports is plummeting; more than 70% of adolescents quit sports by the age of 13, and the cause: parents. The young athlete’s psychological state is at risk due to the fact that parents beat up on their children and make them quit because of the reassurance of their failures and inability to pursue their dreams due to their parents negative focus. Michael S. Rosenwald, author of “Are Parents Ruining Youth Sports? Fewer Kids Play Amid Pressure” explains that if “we reinvented youth sports from scratch by putting the physical and emotional of kids needs first.” In other words, the author implies that the child’s voice is never heard over the overbearing parent as they continue to push their child to their breaking point, never acknowledging the fact that children are suffering mentally. The child’s mental health is never questioned because “no parent wants to unilaterally disarm and acknowledge that the system is broken,” meaning the parents avoid the situation. But even so, this relationship is sensitive because the child can never fully escape the parent, without the proper communication techniques and respect between the two, the parent will continue to overshadow the child and the self confidence will continue to

Parents and coaches may be a key factor as to why youth sports are becoming an issue. A major concern is that parents and coaches are popularizing and supporting the idea of “always win at all costs” (Christensen). There seems to be a growing fear among parents, and that fear is that if your child doesn’t start seriously training in elementary, they will have no chance becoming athletes good enough for varsity in high school (Matz). Parents want their kids to succeed and do well, but many are now going way overboard (Exchange). Many coaches are now treating their players like ‘Military recruits’. This makes kids take the game too seriously. It’s not good for kids to be treated in such manor. Parents and coaches pushing their kids isn’t a bad thing, but make sure it is encouraging and not demoralizing (Stenson). When it is not encouraging, this pressure from coaches and parents becomes extreme and adds a huge amount of stress to the youth athletes. The expectations are

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.

many young athletes’ perceptions that their parents expect them to be extraordinary and would criticize them if they failed to deliver. The added pressure from coaches to be perfect can also deter young athletes’ focus on doing what is right or doing what will allow them to succeed and ultimately satisfy their parents and coaches desires (Madigan, Stoeber & Passfield, 2016).

Sadly, dealing with unreasonable, loud, obnoxious parents can be the most challenging part of coaching. Many coaches just want to make a difference in young lives instead of having to deal with the extra baggage of a high-strung parent. “If a parent does not like what you are doing as a coach, then there is no reason that parent can’t become a coach. One of the most difficult problems in coaching youth sports is dealing with an irate parent, but this problem can be diminished by holding parent meetings before and during the season.” (Put ‘Em In Coach, 33)

Fewer kids play amid pressure” by Michael S. Rosenwald, it tries to explain how parents are taking sports for their children too seriously. It was said in the article, “The number of children playing team sports is falling, with experts blaming a parent-driven focus on elite travel clubs, specialization in one sport and pursuit of scholarships for hurting the country’s youth sports leagues” (Rosenwald 1). What this means is that parents are so diluted into making their child into elite athletes through almost drastic methods such as scolding their children for everything they did wrong. Though it could be argued that the consequences are not to big due to the quote from “Are parents ruining youth

At age ten, many kids have private coaching and attend specialized clinics in the off season. The coach is usually someone with a background in sports, either a retired professional player or coach. Practices are now scheduled for twice a week and attending a weekly clinic is strongly recommended, with a strength conditioning workout schedule between practices. All of these changes mean more involvement time for the parents. Parents are now spending up ten hours a week watching their children compete with other children, and this pressure can sometimes be too much for the parent.

There are many opinion about pushed hard children athletes some of the parents think positive and some of them think negative to pushed hard their children. Nowadays success is very important so, sport is one of the most important thing there are some reasons to pushed the children athletes. First of all, to makes a strong body shape and healthy body because it is far away from diseases. Secondly children can teach themselves when doing sport and protect themselves such as fighting obesity. Before the end children must learn sports from youngest ages to be easy to them in adult like swimming. Finally, children is most important thing in life. Should parents take care about them and pushed them to the right way same as athletes. We must meet

An increase in the number of reported instances of parents engaging in abusive, violent, and controlling behavior toward coaches,

The purpose of this study was to determine the positives and negatives of a parent-coach/child-athlete connection in today’s realm of athletics. To determine which factors of the relationship were beneficial and which ones were harmful or disliked, boys in youth sports, their parent-coaches, and teammates from each of their respective teams were given questionnaires discussing the aspects of the sport/relationship they enjoyed, they disliked, and/or felt indifferent about. The authors found that there were both positives and negatives to the parent-coach relationship, with the positives including many motivational benefits and feelings of support, and some of the negatives were added external pressure, the awareness of preferential tendencies,

Raising children in today’s society is not for the faint of heart. Raising children has never been easy, but it is especially difficult in youth sports today. Coaches and parents are putting a lot of pressure on our young sons and daughters. The pressure to succeed in sports at