Youth Sports Are Too Intense

The amount of children participating in competitive sports has been on a steady decline in the past decade. Between the years of 2008 and 2013, the total number of children participating in competitive sports has dropped by approximately 2.6 million. This is mainly due to the many negative impacts that young athletes face when partaking in these sports. Competitive sports involve sports where competition is encouraged, and where winning is more important than anything else. Competing in these sports causes the children to be vulnerable to many risks and many other negative impacts. Children who participate in competitive sports at a young age experience more serious negative impacts than positives, including a risk of severe injury, losing

Naval Officer Robert Ballard once said, “Follow your own passion- not your parents’ not your teachers’- yours.” In today’s society, what a parent thinks affects what a child thinks. Children often values a parent’s happiness over their own. More than twenty-six million kids play sports around the world starting as young as age six. Forcing a child into doing a sport can damage a child’s well-being, physical-being and can cause them to not have any interest in the sport. Research has shown that children that are forced into sports can be affected negatively in a physically, mentally, and emotionally way due to parent performance expectations.

Health and contact sports are something parents worry about as over 500 deaths in the past 3 years from contact sports alone are making parents stand out against these sports and if the government doesn 't do anything about it the number of 7% overall contact sports drop will just keep getting lower and lower each time. Dr. William Speight also had this to say “Many other kids have suffered paralyzing spinal injuries”(Pennington). Kids being paralyzed is the fear for many athletes these days and the number f kids getting paralyzed has increases 2% which is equivalent to about 8,000 kids each year which is crazy to think about kids can 't play sports for the rest of thrie and maybe not be able to live their life because of it so next you hear mom or dad i wanna play sports your answer should be a simple NO. Kids under 10 need to stop playing contact sports because 45% of kids under 10 getting hurt are from contact sports and 5% of the time its ending that kids chances to play sports in the feature, Not to mention contact sports can also make kids go to their fullest and being burned out and although contact provide some kids will useful tools in life most of the time there is more negative than positive. Health, Age, Contact, parents, are some of the many reasons contact sports can be very dangerous for the youth.

Children have strived for years to make their parents, teachers and coaches proud of them. Kids have come to practice Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday, and Friday to get better, while their academics are suffering. Students have pushed their bodies to the limits, causing extreme injury that will hold them back from sports in the future. Student athletes are not getting the opportunity to play multiple sports during the year, because they are expected to spelize in one sport and focus on it year round, leaving no opportunity to play other sports or do other activities. Youth sports are becoming too intense for young children to keep up with.

These not only influence their physical health but also deteriorate their psychological health. The author is also of the view that the high hopes of parents and coaches need to be lowered as well. These burdening high expectations can cause trouble to the innocent mind of the child. The author also claims that the rules,

“In the U.S., about 30 million children and teens participate in some form of organized sports, and more than 3.5 million injuries each year” claims Stanford Children’s Health. It’s definitely true that competitive sports can cause all sorts of injuries from big to small. The media teaches people simply that sports leads to horrific injuries and can cause stress, but what the mainstream media hardly discusses are the great benefits of competitive sports. While there may be some negatives to competitive sports, that’s just life, and to add on to that; there are plenty of benefits which are sure to override to media’s facts. Kids should play competitive sports because competitive sports teach children powerful life lessons, contributes to their social and mental stability, and because of the physical gain competitive sports provides.

When it comes to playing sports, it can be both fun and dangerous. Playing sports is not all that it is cracked up to be, it can have serious consequences that could affect a person’s entire life. No matter what sport anyone signs up for, they are taking a risk of getting seriously injured. Anyone can get seriously injured during sports, no matter what age and gender. Everyone deserves to have fun while playing the sport they love while also taking safety into precaution.

Most parents believe that if they start their children off young, then their children will be more successful in whatever sport they are put into, but it can also cause their children to burn out and drop the sport by the time they are a teenager. Also, what parents sometimes might forget and do not understand is that, if their child does not like the sport they are playing, they are more likely to not try and find a way out of not playing in the game. In Statsky’s essay she explained how there was a child about seven-years-old who was playing a Peewee Football game and no longer wanted to play. The child told the coach that his “tummy hurts” in order to not play, but the coach did not accept his statement, so the little boy made himself vomit right onto the ground. This action from the little child shows how competitive sports have psychological dangers and can cause children to harm themselves in order to stay out of the game.

To most kids and students, competitive sports are a gateway to blow off some steam or to have fun. To parents, the sports that their children play and the lessons that they teach are an important part of their development and life. Despite what many ‘experts’ would like you to believe, both of these statements are completely true. I believe that kids should be allowed to play competitive sports due to the health benefits, the lessons that they can teach, and as a result of the advanced equipment and rules that are focused on making sports safe, as well as the fact that sports can keep kids out of trouble.

Summary “Children Need to Play, Not Compete,” by Jessica Statsky is a thoughtful insight on the competitive sports for children. She is of the view that the competitive sports can ruin the enjoyment that games are supposed to provide. These methods of playing the games like adults can prove to be lethal for physical and psychological health. The author quotes from an authentic source that “Kids under the age of fourteen are not by nature physical.” (Tutko)

Youth sports are an intricate part of our society. They teach kids from a young age how to work together as a team, which they can then build on and use in other facets of their lives. Concussions in youth football are at an all-time high, only because they weren’t (B3)kept track of until recent years.

Football, although fun and exciting, plays an immense role in many long term health issues especially for people who start at a young age. The sport’s injuries include long term health issues such as chronic encephalopathy, ALS, Alzheimer’s disease, and dementia; it also can be a reason for domestic violence, and on some occasions, unnecessary death. There are many factors that can persuade parents to believe that football is a safer sport than it was before, but the long term effects of a simple injury from the sport outweighs it all. In Ed Riley’s article, High School football’s benefits outweigh risks, Riley talks about the concerns that any parent would have when it comes to their child playing football.

Summary In “Children Need to Play, Not Compete,” Jessica Statsky tries to demonstrate the negative effect of organized sports on the physical and psychological health of growing child. She claims that the games are not festive but they end up in the wrong development of a child’s brain. The coaches and parents have high hopes for their children that result in the pressure building. This changes the purpose of sports from teaching tolerance, teamwork and sportsmanship to merely winning by all means.

Now I wanted to help him make the right choice — if only I knew what that was.” (Buckley, pg 1). This shows that injuries can be crucial of what happens and it can be quite scary of what will happen from the example of the concussion to a 10 year old 's life which can turn around in a split second from just getting a blow to the head from a simple sport. In addition the findings also showed that injured athletes began specializing in one sport at an average age younger than 12 years. In addition, nearly two-thirds of these athletes in highly specialized sports sustained a repeat injury.

In this day and age with professional athletes being at the top of the social spectrum, youth sports have gotten very popular. “More than 26 million children ages 6 to 17 played team sports in 2014(Rosenwald).” Youth sports are very popular because it brings the great feeling of being on a team. When you are on a team you feel like you can do anything together, and nothing is stopping you. There are also many flaws in youth sports.