Why Do Children Need To Play Not Compete Persuasive Essay

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.

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.

One reason that competitive sports should be allowed is because they help kids learn important feelings and lessons, vital to know in real life. To illustrate, one benefit of competitive sports is improved self-esteem. If a child wins whatever game they are playing, they feel important and accomplished. But when they lose, they still, learn something important: that it 's okay if you do not win every time. Losing with their team increase the chances of a much higher level of self esteem, and they learn how to not be to sad and to still be proud of what they did well (Davis). This piece of evidence is essential to kids because self-esteem is something many kids do not have, which is a huge problem. Self-esteem is what makes a kid believe in them self, and if they do not have that, they do not have anything. Another problem is not having anyone to rely on, which is another contributor that competitive sports help with. Playing competitive sports is a great way to ensure a

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

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.

A main concern of these people are the fact that children’s self-esteem might be hurt if they fail or lose in sports at an early age. These people believe that losing or being “left out” of a game could cause long lasting self-esteem issues in children and that's why competitive sports should not be in physical education in schools. Pawlak’s “The Thrill of Victory… The agony of Parents” talks about losing and how it affects self-esteem when she says “I was deemed such a poor player i was not even good enough to play one moment of the first win of the season.”(Pawlak 2014) This is showing how hard it can be on a kid to lose a game or even be left out of a game where their team wins. Which is why some people argue that for the stake of children’s self-esteem, schools should take away competitive

There are some people who think being competitive is a good thing. Those people do not realize they are hurting the children in more ways than one. Adults “hurt child athletes emotionally and physically, often without realizing the degree of their hurtfulness” and “if adults continue to deprive children of fun and equal opportunity in sports . . . child athletes will not put up with lost fun for long” (Abrams). When children lose their opportunity for fun they lose interest in sports. Without sports, children often result in being on the internet or watching television instead of being active. If parents and coaches continue to push their children out of sports, they may end up in gangs or in a group of people they should not be with.

Competition can be healthy when it provides feedback to kids about their performance and improvement, when winning is not the primary objective and when kids get to learn about themselves under challenging situations. That way, win or lose, children will learn, grow and be better prepared for life which provides continual opportunities to play well with others and treat opponents with dignity and

In conclusion, kids shouldn’t do competitive sports. Three important reasons state, kids are doing it for the wrong reasons, self esteem is badly impacted, and too much competition for such a young age. Even though there are some good things about competitive sports, there are more harmful things. We should care about this because if this keeps getting worse, kids are going to start to have better gear and it’s going to start to cost a lot of money. Also, maybe if it gets so bad they will wipe out competitive sports in all. Then the world would have less problems and

Another case being that competitive sports can lead to stress, anxiety, and depression at a young age. People who can't handle pressure well especially during sports usually tend to get stressed out quickly or have anxiety even at a young age this is possible. Sometimes being put under too much pressure can cause you to second guess and do other decisions based on what you think others would do or like. Other thing similar to this is that other kids could start bullying your child if he can't play as good as them which might lead your child to depression or even

One reason that competitive sports are beneficial to children is that they could learn a lot of useful life lessons. Lucy Calkins, an expert in writing, says in her article "Get off that Couch and Play!" “Students learn important life skills such as how to accept criticism, how to handle oneself under the pressure of competition, how to work hard toward a goal, how to win and

To begin, the pressure to win all of the time overwhelming and will be too much for them to handle at just a young age. In particular, there is a stress symptom called distress that comes when somebody is trying to juggle too many negative demands all at once. For example, let’s say right before a game you hurt your ankle, and it’s an very important game so all your coach does is scream. That’s causes of distress, all because of one game you turn into a completely different person, and can barely play because of how much stress the game has put on you. Moreover, sports can be all fun and games, “But because somebody wins and somebody loses, competition also can make kids feel pressure.” Whenever children feel pressure they tend to get emotionally broken down and never want to play another sport in there life. One theory is, that when children get broken down it takes a lot for them to come back to where they started, so when doing competitive sports it’s too difficult for children to even

“Children need to play, not compete” explains Statsky’s multi-layered assessment of competitive sports. The author starts by putting forth the idea that competitive sports and their “adult standards” have a highly negative impact on the healthy growth of the children. Moreover, the pressure of winning put by the parents and coaches on the little shoulders might also make them anxious and burdened. She strongly comments against the contact sports that arouse the fear of getting hit and act as a discouragement for the child. They also trigger the aggressive nature of some children and can cause life-long injuries. She categorizes these kind of sports as job-like and hectic for the children. She further admits that the competitive sports can benefit the children in the adult life but losing in a competition makes them physically and mentally unhealthy. The author is also of the view that the sports that these

In “Children Need to Play, Not Compete,” Jessica Statsky puts light on the severity of competitive sports for children. She is of the view that these sports can prove to be highly damaging and there are fewer advantages of playing such sports. The great pressure of winning that is imposed on children by their parents and coaches is also caused by the nature of such sports. This pressure may cause persistent psychological issues and can greatly affect a child’s performance in life. These sports also provoke physical aggression among children which may result in injuries that can last for the whole lifetime. The writer categories such sports to be job-like and less fun for children. The focus of these sports is only competition. Though being competitive can help the children later in their life but losing in a competition may affect their health and performance. She uses strong sources to back up her idea that competitive sports, especially the ones that include physical violence, must be avoided. She ends her argument by concluding that the focus of sports for children should be just to let them play and not compete. For this purpose, we need to make amendments to the children sports. (203 words)

In the U.S. today there is a sport crisis. Kids suffer from burn-outs and injuries while their family is dealing with the skyrocketing cost of sports. Kids playing competitive sports is a complicated issue because there are many arguments for both sides. This argument, however, is misguided because the media glamorize the top 1% of lucky athletes. They don’t mention the millions of kids that are suffering from the financial, physical, and mental issues. The actual question is to be debated is whether kids want to do an activities that have much safer and just better alternatives. Kids should not play competitive sports because they are expensive, they can severely injure kids, and they can cause many mental problems.