Youth Sports Insanity

[jmcrae]

I disagree with this. During my free time as a kid, as early as 11-13ish - my friends and I would organize whiffle ball games after school where we would agree to meet at the park or at someone’s house. We would use imaginary things as bases or a fence would be the homerun, if we didn’t have enough people, we would use ‘ghost runners’. It was a great time and stemmed creativity.

This is exactly what I’m talking about. No leagues, no coaches, no exorbitant fees or expensive equipment and uniforms to buy - just kids getting together to play.

In addition to that, we would organize pickup soccer, basekball, and football games at local parks or play tag, or do other things. Just about all the kids who participated in these activities also played organized sports. We would also ask the kids who didn’t play sports on organized teams to join us, but they generally would say no and not come out to play. I am not sure what they did instead.

Probably doing the same thing with kids at the same skill level as them, or else going to the park and doing other things together.

Ultimately, it is the kids who play organized sports who go out and do recreational activities on their own in a creative manner. With a few exceptions…the kids who don’t play organized sports don’t go out and do things on their own.

I disagree.

I never played on an adult-run team in my whole life (I played community baseball for a while, but the people who ran that were only a few years older than me; there were no adults involved) and I was certainly never stuck indoors watching TV - we were outside all the time - not necessarily playing sports, as such, but going to the park and doing all kinds of different things - hunting for frogs and snakes, inventing games of our own, playing on the swing sets, etc., racing our bikes, and that sort of thing.

 

[PatriceA]

I don’t like this trend at all.

I’ve seen it several places lately on CAF, and of course, in real life.

The trend is, you don’t like something, so stop doing it totally.

Where I’ve seen it on CAF is people who get embroiled in a tough issue, and rather than sticking with a thread and working out the issue, they post a “FINAL POST” stating that this will be their last post, that they never should have gotten involved with this thread and often with CAF and all forums in general, and that they will never be back.

I guess that’s easier than sticking to it, doing some research, and working hard to stay civil and charitable while resolving the conflict and ironing out the issues, including any personal issues.

I’ve seen it many, many times in real life. People start a job and then quit. People start a Bible study and quit. People start a diet and quit.

People get their kids involved in an activity or activities, and then when life starts happening, they quit to “stay home and just be a family.”

IMO, this trend is very bad. There is SOOOOOO much value from getting children involved with competitive–yes COMPETITIVE–sports! Teamwork skills, coping with disappointment, hard work ethic, dealing with conflicts, getting along with a variety of people, handling pressure, physical training and fitness…I could take up a huge post listing the benefits.

The benefits of staying sequestered safe at home with family and doing non-competitive activities–well, IMO, this doesn’t prepare kids for real life in the United States of America in 2010. Certainly when children are babies and toddlers, this is the correct approach. But I agree that in many sports, it is helpful to become involved early so that the child is prepared for competition when they are older.

I say let them stick with it, and figure out a realistic way to be involved as parents. Many parents do not attend any games or practices, choosing instead to make sure that the home is a pleasant and organized place for the kids to come back to after the game. And many never miss a practice or a game. You have to decide which approach is better for you, or how you can achieve a blending of the two approaches that works well for you.

But pulling the kids out because it’s difficult–what kind of lesson does that teach them about life?

My daughters were figure skaters from the time they were 3 and 5 years old. We have absolutely NO regrets. It’s a great sport, and it is our privilege to be associated with it. Both daughters still spend several hours a week on the ice (one is working on completing all the ice dance tests and the other is coaching synchronized skating teams and singles skaters, and directing her local ice show).

You’re talking about commitment, and I don’t think competitive sports is the best way for all families to install that value in their children. Competitive sports is just not every child or family’s niche. Every family has to decide what is best for them, and sometimes that means not being involved in so many activities outside the family. Its not one size fits all. There are just as many benefits to doing activites together as a family as having a child in competitive sports. A child can learn many of the same skills in doing volunteer work or in a school activity such as yearbook staff, school newspaper, debate team, playing in a band, etc. There are many avenues and opportunites besides sports to prepare a child for real life in America in 2010.

 

[Jay82]

Probably doing the same thing with kids at the same skill level as them, or else going to the park and doing other things together.

Possibly, but unlikely. At least in my experiences. We always had a wide range of skill levels.

I never played on an adult-run team in my whole life (I played community baseball for a while, but the people who ran that were only a few years older than me; there were no adults involved) and I was certainly never stuck indoors watching TV - we were outside all the time - not necessarily playing sports, as such, but going to the park and doing all kinds of different things - hunting for frogs and snakes, inventing games of our own, playing on the swing sets, etc., racing our bikes, and that sort of thing.

That is great you go out to do all those things, but I honestly think times have changed a bit and kids just don’t always do that type of stuff anymore. Regardless, I think organized sports are good. They help kids learn how to give/recieve constructive criticism, winning/losing, working towards a common goal, teaching others, working/pushing oneself to improve, etc. Those type of things aren’t always as well learned in pickup sports.

 

[kmuestwin]

My parents had it easy! My twin brother and I were always on the same team and we only did soccer. We played indoor and outdoor but it was fun and a good way to meet other kids. We moved to the area in second grade and played with the same group until 7th grade. It was fun because most of the time everyone was just there to have a good time. It wasn’t over competitive or anything like that. The worst part was the soccer parents. They were the ones who cursed at kids, yelled at refs, and got kicked out. It’s such a shame that some parents go from wanting their child to succeed to hating the other team’s kids or yelling at the refs. The team I was on was a church team as were all the other teams we played. It was amazing to see some of the adults behaving worse than the kids they were “supporting” at the games.

 

[jmcrae]

Possibly, but unlikely. At least in my experiences. We always had a wide range of skill levels.

That is great you go out to do all those things, but I honestly think times have changed a bit and kids just don’t always do that type of stuff anymore. Regardless, I think organized sports are good. They help kids learn how to give/recieve constructive criticism, winning/losing, working towards a common goal, teaching others, working/pushing oneself to improve, etc. Those type of things aren’t always as well learned in pickup sports.

You can learn all of these things in any kind of after school activity, such as art classes, dance, etc. You don’t have to give over your entire free time (and time that is actually not free; your Sunday Mass time) to a sport, to gain these advantages. Once a week drawing classes on Wednesdays will certainly give you constructive criticism, debate skills, organizational skills, and more.

 

[Jay82]

You’re talking about commitment, and I don’t think competitive sports is the best way for all families to install that value in their children. Competitive sports is just not every child or family’s niche. Every family has to decide what is best for them, and sometimes that means not being involved in so many activities outside the family. Its not one size fits all. There are just as many benefits to doing activites together as a family as having a child in competitive sports. A child can learn many of the same skills in doing volunteer work or in a school activity such as yearbook staff, school newspaper, debate team, playing in a band, etc. There are many avenues and opportunites besides sports to prepare a child for real life in America in 2010.

I think what Cat is trying to say is that it is important to do some sort of competitive activity. Something that requires hard work, dedication, practice, and will be rewarding at the same time. Something where they won’t quit when things get tough. It doesn’t necessarily need to be sports, but sports is the topic at hand, so that is the example being used. A debate team, musical instruments, academic teams, chess, etc - these are all good alternatives.

The world is a competitive place and these type of competive activities help children prepare for the future.

 

[Jay82]

You can learn all of these things in any kind of after school activity, such as art classes, dance, etc. You don’t have to give over your entire free time (and time that is actually not free; your Sunday Mass time) to a sport, to gain these advantages. Once a week drawing classes on Wednesdays will certainly give you constructive criticism, debate skills, organizational skills, and more.

Yes, you will get lots of benefits from something like that, but a solitary activity isn’t as good as a group activity.

Lots of projects in college are group projects. In the work place, you rarely work on a solitary task. You are coordinating with others, giving as well as receiving feedback, communicating, etc.

Sports or problem solving group activities (academic teams, etc) are good for this. You experience people relying on you and vice versa. If something doesn’t go well at first, you react and change strategy as a group. In a solitary activity you may understand how to receive feedback from an instructor, but you won’t have a chance to provide feedback to peers or others unless the instructor provides you with such an environment. The teamwork aspect is also missing.

 

[jmcrae]

Yes, you will get lots of benefits from something like that, but a solitary activity isn’t as good as a group activity.

Lots of projects in college are group projects. In the work place, you rarely work on a solitary task. You are coordinating with others, giving as well as receiving feedback, communicating, etc.
.

There should probably be a combination of solitary and group activities, since in the workplace, you often are working on your own, and have to make important decisions on the fly by yourself. Yes, you are coordinating with others, but they are busy doing their own tasks, most of the time. Even if there are staff meetings every day (and in my experience, this is rare) you still spend the majority of your time working on your own, and having to make your own decisions - your boss is there to help you with major problems, but you’ll drive him crazy if you’re running to him for every little thing.

 

[Jay82]

There should probably be a combination of solitary and group activities, since in the workplace, you often are working on your own, and have to make important decisions on the fly by yourself. Yes, you are coordinating with others, but they are busy doing their own tasks, most of the time. Even if there are staff meetings every day (and in my experience, this is rare) you still spend the majority of your time working on your own, and having to make your own decisions - your boss is there to help you with major problems, but you’ll drive him crazy if you’re running to him for every little thing.

I’ve had to create presentations with 2-3 others which are then given jointly to the client. I’ve had to teach training courses with another co-worker/instructor. I’ve had to write documents/proposals with several others. I’ve had to develop project plans with other team leads, all of us providing (name removed by moderator)ut to determine required tasks, resources, budget, timeline, responsibilities, etc. It isn’t until then that we can hand individuals their tasks to work on independently (or in a group).

It does depend on work environment/industry…my field requires lots of teamwork. I’ve done a number of solitary tasks, but the completion of my tasks is usually dependent on someone else’s work or someone else relys on my work.

 

[Cat]

In my experience, school gym class is a joke. You have about 25% of kids actually interested in playing the game that the teacher selects. Another small portion of kids who may contribute or ‘try’ and then the rest just stand around and socialize and only do something if the ball comes near them, if at all. They just make sure they change clothes to get credit for attending and get their A+ or A for the marking period.

Gym class gives very few kids exercise.

I disagree with this. During my free time as a kid, as early as 11-13ish - my friends and I would organize whiffle ball games after school where we would agree to meet at the park or at someone’s house. We would use imaginary things as bases or a fence would be the homerun, if we didn’t have enough people, we would use ‘ghost runners’. It was a great time and stemmed creativity.

In addition to that, we would organize pickup soccer, basekball, and football games at local parks or play tag, or do other things. Just about all the kids who participated in these activities also played organized sports. We would also ask the kids who didn’t play sports on organized teams to join us, but they generally would say no and not come out to play. I am not sure what they did instead.

Thinking back, it is remarkable how much we were able to accomplish at such a young age without e-mail, cell phones, etc. We did this all by word of mouth, handing out hand made flyers at school, or knocking on doors to round up people to play.

Ultimately, it is the kids who play organized sports who go out and do recreational activities on their own in a creative manner. With a few exceptions…the kids who don’t play organized sports don’t go out and do things on their own.

I agree with this. I think it’s real life in the U.S. At this time in history, unless a child comes from a large family that can form its own team, I think that very few children can find enough other children in their neighborhood to play sports. Maybe a game of catch, or maybe they can kick a soccer ball back and forth, or shoot one on one hoops. But an actual game–that’s really rare these days in most neighborhoods. And then there’s the liability issue–people sue at the drop of a hat. If a child is playing in my backyard and gets hurt, I’m scared–I know the parents will probably sue me. Sad, sad.

I can speak about the sport of figure skating.

Skaters take several lessons from a professional coach each week, so yes, there is a lot of adult supervision.

(Number of lessons depends on how much money a person is willing to spend. Lessons are valuable because if a skater is practicing a maneuver incorrectly, muscle memory will “remember” that “incorrect” technique. A good example is the “flutz”–many kids learn the lutz incorrectly and go into the jump on the wrong edge, hence “flutzing” instead of “lutzing.” Under the new judging system, they receive no points for this, no matter how pretty they look in their shiny dresses.)

But much of the practice is done on their own, with no coach guiding every move. A popular t-shirt in the rinks is “Shut up and skate!” Many skaters spend a lot of time standing around the boards chatting with their friends. Obviously, parents don’t like it when their kids do this, hence the t-shirt slogan.

The point is, figure skaters spend a lot of time free of direct adult supervision (there are always adults present, and always coaches on the ice giving lessons to many different skaters) and they have to make choices about how they will spend that practice time–chatting, goofing around making up their own programs, or practicing the skills that will help them pass tests and skate well at competitions.

When it comes to synchronized skating, which is a team sport, the practices do involve direct adult coaching–it’s not really practical for a team of 16 skaters to work without a coach.

But here’s the thing that a lot of people don’t realize–most figure skaters really LOVE to skate!

For some reason, I get the feeling that some people on this thread are thinking that these poor little children and teenagers are being forced to slave away at a sport (or an art) because of their parents’ need to live vicariously through their progeny! I’m sure this happens in some cases, but in most cases, children and teenagers participate in a sport (or art) because they love it! And we as parents love their love of the sport or art and want to encourage it because it makes life happy!

So when figure skaters are not practicing, they often get together on a public skating session and just goof around and have fun and practice silly maneuvers and make up crazy programs to popular music (often these programs get entered in local exhibitions or in artistic competitions). Sometimes they “coach” little kids who are struggling to skate around without hanging onto the boards, and who think that the “big girls” are Olympians!

Again, the point is that figure skaters have plenty of fun and learn to organize their time without direct adult supervision.

And I haven’t even mentioned all the time in the lobby at the rink! At one point, when my kids were about ten, they created a “figure skating game” during their down time in the lobby. And sometimes the kids will do homework, or play cards, or make up dances, or just sit and chat. Lots and lots of free time, and lots of choices for the child or teenager to make.

I think that the same is true in many sports. I see a lot of kids who play club soccer and who are on track for earning a full-ride college scholarship who also kick the ball around in their back yards with the few kids who still live in their neighborhoods or even with their parents. And I see many high school basketball stars down at the park playing with whoever shows up at the court.

Kids do sports (or arts) because they love it.

 

[Kindness]

As with anything in life I think it comes down to balance. If your child loves a sport and wants to keep pursuing it, great, but I have definitely seen situations where parents are obsessive about their children becoming outstanding athletes/dancers/gymnasts and the balance of family life seems to have been lost. They spend all their time in the car rushing from one practice to another and hardly ever are home to eat dinner together and hang out. Some families thrive on this lifestyle but I would say that many more do not.

As a non-American married to an American husband with American children I would definitely say that America is more sports obsessed than other nations. I think that can be seen in high school where the members of the sports teams have more status than children who achieve academically.

We have some extended family members with three boys. The whole family lived football and the boys were obsessed. As men they have been lost and are still drifting because their whole purpose in being (no exaggeration) was to make the team, when they didn’t make it professionally they had no backup plan. The youngest son plays for a team in the Arena Football League but like his brothers if that doesn’t pan out he has no idea what he will do.

Cat’s family sounds more balanced and healthy but I don’t think it is necessary to be in competitive sports to know how to compete and be successful. In Germany where we currently live there are NO sports in schools (just clubs after school) and most sports are fun, low key and local. However until this year Germany (which is the size of Montana) was the biggest manufacturer in the world (recently overtaken by China). They seem to have learned what it takes to be competitive in the 21st century. Think of all their successful car brands as an example: Porsche, BMW, Audi, VW and Mercedes-Benz.

 

[Jerrysgirl]

You can learn all of these things in any kind of after school activity, such as art classes, dance, etc. You don’t have to give over your entire free time (and time that is actually not free; your Sunday Mass time) to a sport, to gain these advantages. Once a week drawing classes on Wednesdays will certainly give you constructive criticism, debate skills, organizational skills, and more.

My oldest daughter was involved in dance and it was just as competitive as any organized sport, if not more so.

But the key is that some kids don’t enjoy these activities. If a child enjoys art and drawing then a once a week class is great but if the child enjoys the sport what is the problem?

No one said anything about missing Mass to play these sports. We have never and would never miss Mass to attend practice or a game. Luckily, our parish offers Mass 4 times each weekend so we are always able to fulfill our obligation and spend time together in prayer.

I have 4 kids. The oldest 3 are in several sports throughout the year. Never more than one at a time though. They are physically active kids. There is no way that they want to stay inside and draw. To them, sports are fun and the competition just makes it more fun.

We all enjoy watching the games and try not to miss any. I think it is important to show up and cheer them on. Sure there are days when we are at the fields more hours than I care to think about but before too long, they will be gone and we won’t be able to share these experiences anymore.

I credit sports with keeping my kids busy and focused and not as likely to get into trouble.

 

[jmcrae]

No one said anything about missing Mass to play these sports. We have never and would never miss Mass to attend practice or a game.

I’m glad that in your case, your kids don’t miss Mass.

We did have one parent come on here and explain that we’re all a bunch of legalists, and that her kids will go to sports on Sundays instead of to Mass, because sports are more important than Jesus, and He just better well get used to it.

 

[Jerrysgirl]

I’m glad that in your case, your kids don’t miss Mass.

We did have one parent come on here and explain that we’re all a bunch of legalists, and that her kids will go to sports on Sundays instead of to Mass, because sports are more important than Jesus, and He just better well get used to it.

Very sad. Sometimes, I just don’t get people.

 

[jmcrae]

Very sad. Sometimes, I just don’t get people.

I don’t, either. Half the kids in my Youth Group skip Mass for sports, too - it’s pretty common. People just don’t understand what’s going on at Mass, I don’t think.

 

[Bluegoat]

I don’t think the issue is that sports are bad, if they appeal to your family. It’s that they seem to demand more and more.

If you sign your child up when they are five or so it seems ok. But in a few years, they begin expecting that the kids will spend huge amounts of time, money, and so on on it. It’s the attitude that if some is good, more is better, that seems to drive the way we parent, practice medicine, and do many other things.

In my parent’s generation, kids played fewer sports and the commitments weren’t as great. Families in general had less disposable income, they didn’t have multiple vehicles to ferry kids around. And there were usually families with moms at home.

Now often both parents work and are in a frenzy delivering kids here and there. But I am not sure what has been gained. Kids have less free time, and parents also don’t have as much private time in many ways.

FWIW, I’ve seen a few articles by professional athletes saying the way kids sports are run is for the parents benefit more than the kids. One example given is that young kids don’t benefit a lot from playing a lot of actual games, because mentally they are not capable of learning and employing strategy. They are better off doing skill building exercises (in a fun way of course). But parents like to see there kids in games, so in many sports that is heavily emphasized even at low levels.

And don’t get me started on Sunday sports. Hockey season has a discernible effect on Sunday School and church attendance around here. Idolatry is right.

 

[jmcrae]

I was talking to a kid recently who wants to quit his football team because they never let him play, but his parents won’t let him because they think he’s getting exercise, and that he will become fit.

But he says, “How in the world am I going to become fit, sitting on the bench, in the cold, eating hot dogs and drinking hot chocolate, just waiting for someone to get hurt so that I can play? I’d be better off at home, eating real food, and riding my bike.”