Monday, June 04, 2007

Avoiding sports burnout for our kids

A new report states the obvious: kids need a break from sports. I think most parents intuitively know this, even if they don't practice it. But I thought this line at the end was revealing.
The pediatricians who wrote the report said aiming for the Olympics or a career in professional sports was unrealistic for most children. Less than 1 percent of high school athletes make it to the pros, the report said.

Of course, a lot of them just know that their special prodigy is a part of that extreme minority. I think it's amazing how many kids say they just want to have fun playing and not be tied to a schedule.

1 comment:

Paul Nichols said...

Hey, Catholic Father, I just got to your blog today by way of RCPStudy.

Good posts all, and this one even more so.

My son (10) is quite the baseball player, yet does not join the "traveling" teams or play in the all-star tournament, even though he's been nominated every year to play.

At that level, it becomes more like a job, and that's just something he doesn't want to do.

And, having coached him since t-ball, I've seen first hand how the boys feel when their fathers make it like it's "work" instead of "play" - they hate it.

I think the whole movement toward "structured" play has evolved from women's notions that boys should be "controlled" to some extent. It's rare that the kids just get together without the parents to dictate all the finer points.

Although we do have the neighbor's kids come to our yard to play "pop-fly", where I hit 'em very high and they scramble and stomp each other to catch it. Good old boy stuff.