Fun is gone, kids now
must play games
Sports
used to be a healthy pursuit for children, but have we turned it into a
harmful obsession?
By Alvin Rosenfeld.
Dr. Rosenfeld delivered the keynote address at the International Youth Sports Conference
in Atlanta last year. Published February 8, 2004 in the
Chicago Tribune
Something about
raising kids has changed; parenting is now America's most competitive
adult sport. Once upon a time there was a children's world, as in Mark
Twain's "Tom Sawyer," where kids were the bosses who could do what they
wanted. Playing fields used to be part of this children's world, even for
parents who loved sports. Today, many have become places where adults
congregate to see how their children measure up in the early race to
Harvard.
It is never too early to give your kid a leg up. Especially since the
success of Tiger Woods and the Williams sisters, ambitious parents believe
that you have to start sports enrichment early and combine it with intense
devotion. Maybe that will convince elite schools that their kids have a
passion. So they enrol 6-year-olds in competitive soccer, even though
these kids are too young to understand its rules or master the challenges
of controlling a ball while running down a field--or even which goal they
are aiming at.
Today, everyone is piling more work on kids.
To give them a head start, school and homework have intensified, and
family time has been sacrificed. Kids participate in so many scheduled
activities that many are sleep-deprived. In just the last 20 years,
structured sports time has doubled, unstructured children's activities
have declined by 50 percent, household conversations have become far less
frequent, family dinners have declined 33 percent, and family vacations
have decreased by 28 percent.
Thankfully, in part because of the National Alliance for Youth Sports,
many coaches remain committed to kids having fun and athletics making
children better people. But for families who believe that winning the
parenting Olympics is everything, coaches hold keys to success and a
valuable college scholarship. For these parents, demanding, intense--even
abusive--coaches who train "winners," are sought out. Marriages are put on
hold. A parent who is serious about winning will sacrifice a romantic
Saturday night dinner for the 10-year-old's ice hockey practice, every
week if need be.
What also gets sacrificed is the fun kids can have playing, the ease they
learn with their bodies, and the idea that everyone can get pleasure from
athletics at every age, whether chosen first or last, whether in
childhood, adulthood or old age. Kids want to play. As Fred Engh points
out in his wonderful "Why Johnny Hates Sports," children would much rather
play on a losing team than warm the bench for one that wins.
The American Academy of Paediatrics warned parents about the dangers of
competing in demanding, incredibly competitive sports. They strongly
advised that children play multiple sports and specialize in one, if they
must, after puberty.
I can't speak as an elite athlete. But my friend Donna deVarona won 2 gold
medals in the 1964 Olympics. She feels that specialization and the
competitive demands it puts on youngsters too early in life leads to
burnout and physical problems. She refuses to let her children train and
compete in only one sport year-round. She also makes family time a
priority over practices. Her kids do not play travel soccer because she
insists on family dinners and on vacations where her children can take a
respite from the pressures of a rigorous academic schedule.
Is anyone listening?
Take elite gymnastics again, where my daughter excelled. Many youngsters
are practicing five, seven, nine times or more a week. Though few will
ever make the Olympics and many will do lifelong damage to their joints
and spinal columns, coaches tempt their parents with stories about how two
of their last level 10 gymnasts got into Brown.
Should we be concerned that 90 percent of competitive female gymnasts get
their first period a year or two late? A 1996 study reported eating
disorders in 100 percent of elite female gymnasts and osteoporosis in more
than half. Are they chosen for their short stature or does gymnastics
impede height? No one can say for sure. What should I say to the elite
gymnast who had both shoulders replaced, twice, in her 30s? Is she an
example for your daughter to follow? Should we be concerned that
orthopedic surgeons recently reported a worrisome increase in
recreation-linked injuries among children? Should we really be teaching
"heading" to our 9-year-old soccer players when we suspect it can cause
brain damage? Does empirical evidence support the "winning is everything"
notion?
If we put so much energy into organized kids' sports, we end up devaluing
true play, which needs no purpose beyond the pleasure of being. Today's
children are so tightly scheduled that many have never invented a
back-yard game or had time to just lollygag with friends.
We act as if a child being bored is a dread enemy; parents become akin to
cruise ship activities directors. Actually, in moderation, boredom can
stimulate kids to think and create. America's economic success is based on
people such as David Packard, Bill Gates, and of course, Steven Spielberg,
who daydreamed and tinkered with visions of their own. I know several
professional athletes. All are very gifted athletically; I admire and
respect them. But not one had a background I'd wish for my kids. Each
became passionate about athletics because it was the way out of a poor
economic or family situation. Furthermore, only 1 percent of kids who
start as competitive athletes get sports scholarships. The real scandal is
that numerous kids, usually from minority groups, are recruited as workers
in the multibillion dollar industry we call college sports. It is the last
place that workers are used without pay--what was once called slavery.
But these athletes are used as professionals and often leave the
institution used up, with no degree, no severance pay, no career, no
useful skills and no way to make a living.
Achievement can be a spectacular thing. But holding up the fanaticism that
goes into winning Olympic gold as a model for every other kid to emulate
offers a dangerous psychological message. Many play, few win. Most of us
will enjoy sports; few of us will be pros. We will have peak experiences
in our lives, but only every decade or two. Our ads tell kids to "just say
no" to drugs and premature sex. But then our cheering for the gold says
that life is about super-highs.
Furthermore, we forget about teaching children character. It is like
discipline, which comes from the word "disciple." Christ's disciples
followed him because they wanted to emulate the way of life he
personified. Kids emulate parents and coaches in the same way. Are they
modelling admirable behaviour? Are their words and actions consistent? Do
they encourage you to play your best but actually act like only winning
counts? Do they shout expletives at the umpire for a bad call, or do they
criticize the parent who does so? Do they secretly praise a player who
injured the other team's star or do they punish unsportsmanlike behaviour?
If coaches and parents say a kid ought to work constantly to be
excellent--no down time or fun for fun's sake--our children may conclude
that we don't consider joy and family time to be important. Yet an old
Jewish tradition holds that, in the afterlife, we will have to answer to
God for every pleasure He permitted us in which we did not partake.
Parents who can't relive their childhood need to let their kids live
theirs in the first place.
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