Ruining Youth Sports

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More and more often you hear about young kids quitting sports due to being burned out. Julianna W. Miner reports, “According to a poll from the National Alliance for Youth Sports, around 70 percent of kids in the United States stop playing organized sports by the age of 13 because ’it’s just not fun anymore’”(Washington Post). This can be caused by the fact that parents are playing select ball at early ages such as 7 or 8 years old. Playing competitively in any sport at such can early age can take a huge emotional toll on kids. At such an early age, kids should play these sports for fun and entertainment, not competition. According to Jenny Sokol of the Arlington Magazine, “A lot of times kids will start out loving a sport and enjoying playing …show more content…

Many parents feel that the only way their child will make high school sports teams is to take part in travel sports, even if that means starting in elementary school (Sokol, Arlington Mag). Rosenwald reports that today’s parents are starting their children in sports as young as 3 and 4 years of age, ___to get them onto the most elite travel teams, and spend large amounts of money on coaching, equipment and travel. Essentially “youth sports is the new keeping up with the Joneses. They parents try to one-up each other” (Washington Post). This attitude is limited to the parents. Coaches are just as guilty. Many times coaches are so focused on winning and running up the score that they miss out on the opportunity to actually teach the players. They don’t teach them how to to play the game, how to have respect for their opponents, or how to have good sportsmanship and compassion (Grissell). As reported on BaseballDudes.com, “Adults are being so consumed with winning some tournament or some national ranking, that decisions are made and actions are taken that are not good for the players physical and mental well-being…these are kids playing a game but too many adults treat it like they are running a MLB team.” It stands to reason that these young athletes are learning more about negative attitudes and behaviors than they are learning about how to be good sport even in the face of