I thought of this question during a thread about games. More than one person questioned how much kids are involved in structured, organized activities, instead of just playing. I suggest that involving kids in too many highly structured sports activities at an early age can have bad implications.
-The kids are not forced to reach agreement on what to do to entertain themselves, nor are they forced to resolve their own differences. For example, they never have to figure out how to play baseball with 7 players.
-On a related matter, parental involvement is largely limited to chauffering. And parental behavior at games is not necessarily model.
-League play places undue importance on winning.
-Many sports try to get kids to limit themselves to one sport at an early age, preventing experimentation with other activities.
-Sports schedules dictate many families’ weekends, precluding spontaneous and more casual entertainment.
-Sport leagues create an impression (which I disagree with) that if your kid does not paly sport-X sinces he/she is 4-5 years old, he will be unable to play it competitively when he is in jr high or high school.
I think some more appropriate activities for young children include gymnastics, dance, and maybe martial arts – activities that teach strength, coordination, body awareness, balance, but not in a highly task-specific context.
(Don’t even get me started about parents turning pre-teen kids into brand conscious consumers!)
Team sports teach teamwork. This is very important to learn. I played soccer since I was very young, and I learned early on how to work with someone who I did not particularly like. This has helped me almost on a daily basis all my life.
I’ve seen too many kids (little girls in particular) screwed up for life from dance and gymanastics. Dance in particular can lead to unrealistic goals for body image.
I think you my be on to something, Dinsdale. While I think it might be good if kids play * some * structured sports, I think that freestyle play is more of a social instruction tool in the long run. The children collectively have to make up their own rules, and how to work within them, which encourages creativity, and communication skills. Not to metion goal planning, problem solving, etc. Freestyle play has none of the nasty aspects of parental pressure, and the focus is on having fun, rather than on winning.
My entire family does Tae Kwon Do. This fall, the kids will branch out into team sports. They are excited, and so am I. I think a balance is due here. I’ve been to enough soccer and little league games to see the froth parents are whipped into, and what they do to their kids with that froth. My father ( not one IOTA a jock in any way ) took me to little league, as long as I WANTED to go…yes, I had to do a season at a time- I had to finish what I started, even if I was awful…
But, he just sat there, smiling. He didn’t care how I did, and although his lack of cheerleading hurt at the time, I realized a long time after that he was watching ME enjoy it. He had no need to vicariously live…and so, allowed me my space on the field. I hope like HELL I learn from that, and in the fall keep my yap shut, and just smile.
Let’s also not forget the lessons learned by keeping score. Sure, you want kids to get excersise, but I think that kids who learned at an early age about how to win gracefully, lose with dignity, sacrifice personal accolaids for the good of a team and generally compete with a goal in mind will be bettrer adjusted to the real world when the stakes are not a plastic trophy, but a career move, important group project or just life in general.
This whole attitude about “competition is bad” and giving prizes of equal value to anyone who competes in an activity annoys me, because this does NOTHING to prepare kids for life.
Sure, competition can go TOO FAR, like overbearing win-or-else parents and coaches. But that is the exception, and I think of kids who never competed for anything with a team and got awards and prizes handed to them just for showing up are not as prepared for life as a kid who won and lost and learned about both outcomes.
Yer pal,
Satan
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I played organized sports from the time I was 6 until the time I was 18. So from my perspective let me answer you.
– I certainly was forced to come up with things to do myself when I was a child. I wasn’t playing t-ball or soccer 24/7. Even though I was in organized sports I still played several pickup games with the other kids in the neighborhood.
– Parental behavior is not the fault of the organized sports. If they exhibit bad behavior or limit their participation to driving then that is their own fault and can hardly be placed on the feet of the organized sports. My Dad used to take me out back and play catch with the baseball, hitting, and kicked the soccer ball at me.
– I don’t think most leagues place undue importance on winning. But let’s face it everyone wants to win the game they’re playing. I never played a game hoping it’d be a tie.
– I’ve never known any coach or sport that tries to limit young children to one sport only. I played soccer, t-ball, and baseball and never once did the coach tell me to concentrate on one sport over another. Now as I got older I found that I had less time to devote to sports in general so I had to concentrate on one sport alone.
– I don’t think sporting events would intefere with family fun any more then other activities. Since most games are planned far in advanced it is very easy for schedules to be made. And since most sports aren’t played year round it isn’t like they never have weekends free.
– I don’t think sports leagues create any impression about being able to compete when you’re in junior high. Contrary to what some believe I think most kids playing sports are there because they want to be there. Not because someone is making them play.
Of course I did not intend to say ANY involvement in team sports is bad. I do believe, however, that in many instances it seems to have gone too far.
A view observations I believe support my theory.
-It simply amazes me when I see tiny little kids playing tee ball, wearing complete uniforms, including pants and sanitaries. Why is that needed? Does it add to the kids’ enjoyment of the game? Or perhaps is it motivated by the parents? If the latter, for what reason?
-I am very glad none of my 3 kids (girl, boy, girl ages 12, 10, and 8) have expressed a desire to be on a traveling team. In my area, it is quite common for soccer, baseball, and softball teams to have games both weekend days, often requiring considerable driving. My experience is that it is tough, if not impossible to make social plans with certain families during certain sports seasons. I have also heard friends and families object to soccer and hockey being presented as year around committments - indoor soccer in the winter, outdoor in the spring and fall, camps in the summer.
-I am frequently surprised to drive by neighborhood parks, with no kids playing on the ballfields. It is very rare to see pickup ballgames, either baseball, soccer, touch football… The exception seems to be the basketball courts, which are generally quite busy. Yet the park district says they need more fields. Sure, they are really busy on Saturday mornings, but empty much of the remainder of the week.
-My sole coaching experience was for my son’s 4-5 year old soccer program. The kids loved practice, because we goofed around and had fun. But none of the kids could play a lick, and we got demolished every game. The kids would ask me after the game, “Did we win?” My hokey response was, “Did you have fun? If so, you’re a winner in my book.” And the kids were fine with that. Yet, the parents would ask me when the kids would win a game. I wanted to say, “When your kid learns which goal to shoot at, or pays attention to the game instead of picking dandelions.” But the important thing for me was for the kid to associate having fun with being involved in athloetic activity. What I stress to my kids is that there are only 2 things that matter in any athletic activity, team or individual. 1. Do your best. 2. Have fun.
-I heard of a park district program in a nearby town I thought sounded interesting. They have one class for 3-4 graders, and another for 5-6. Each week they learn and play a different sport. Thought it sounded like a neat idea. I wonder what the interest in that program is?
-Finally, when you have 8 year olds wearing complete uniforms, with expensive gear they will instantly grow out of, practicing a couple of evenings a week and travelling for games every weekend, they lose track of the fact that SPORTS JUST AREN’T THAT IMPORTANT! Neither participating nor watching. Team sports do impart good lessons. They also help glorify the star athlete. And they take time that could be spent learning a musical instrument, travelling, going to museums, etc.
Lance, I agree anything taken to extremes is unhealthy, dance and gymnastics definitely included.
Cartooniverse, sounds like you had a super dad. Good for you. Quite a challenge to live up to. Sounds like you are giving it a good try, tho.
Satan, you hit on a really interesting point. It astounds me when my kids get trophies for essentially just showing up, whether it be in a bowling league or the pinewood derby. I agree, it certainly devalues the acknowledgment given those who truly put in the effort and succeeded.
MGibson, I appreciate your experiences and point of view. I think I responded to many of your observations above in this already overlong post. A couple of final observations I’d like to run up the flagpole, tho. I think many parents have their kids participate in sports, and require fancy uniforms, equipment, etc., because they are living out their childhood fantasies. They compete through their kids, same as they compete through the acquisition of consumer goods. Some parents use teams as babysitters, and feel by driving their kid to games or dumping them off at practice thaey have done their parental duty. It is easier to slip into the league schedule, than to actually try to identify what activities would be best for YOUR kid on a day-to-day basis. Having a child’s sport involvement dictate the family’s schedule inappropriately skews the dynamics of the family. Final only slightly overstated opinion – if child participation in sports prevents the family from sitting down to dinner together, it is undesirable.
How different is this from Cub Scout and Brownie uniforms? And why are those things, which have been around for several decades now, such a bad thing? And how different is this from school uniforms, which many private and now public elementary schools have always had their kids wear?
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Well, I doubt that there are many areas where the only sports or athletics involve this travel you speak of.
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Pretty selfish that you would put “social plans” head of your kids enjoyment and also growth. Kids are inconvenient for a lot of reasons, and there are a ton of “social plans” which stop entirely upon starting a family. Maybe you shouldn’t have kids if you are worried about “social plans” being disrupted.
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Well, first of all, nobody is making your child sign up for a sport year-round. That said, what is the difference between baseball in the spring and football in the fall and two seasons of baseball?
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I don’t know where you are, but my experiences in New York, the Virginia suburbs of DC and Raleigh are the exact opposite, especially in the afternoon and evening hours after school.
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That’s like complaining that your jurisdiction bought some new snow plows even though they will never be used during the summer and only occassionally during the winter. And if there are already play areas which are being underutilized, I don’t think there are many parks commisions - who are usually underfunded as is - getting dollars for more.
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In response to that I will say that as long as the kids were having fun, then yes, they won - especially at that age. It also shouldn’t matter that they couldn’t “play a lick,” right? Your attitude towards the parents shows me that maybe you were the one who was too competitive, certainly not the kids.
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Well, I know that kids want to do what is fun for them, and for some this is sports and not learning the tuba. But other kids manage to do both. I also find it interesting that you say here that travel is both bad and good. When some of the teams go out of town, they do get to see and do things outside of the game itself, and this is a cool way to accpmolish that, don’t you think?
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Which is why sports are good in that they award achievement, something I think is good to instill upon kids.
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While there are some parents who fall under this umbrella, no doubt, I think that’s a minority. When you are part of a team, you wear clothing which shows this. I would not want my kid to be playing football without a cup, helmet and pads, do you?
You then go on about the many “bad” motivations for parents to put their kids into sports and “bad” outcomes as a result. There are many more “good” outcomes than bad, IMHO, and if a parent is doing something for the right reason (ultimately, because the kid wants to and it fits in with everything else the kid wants/needs to do), the benefits far outweigh the negatives.
Yer pal,
Satan
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Dinsdale…I can see where you are coming from here. But I also must say that like with anything you do in life there are the good and bad. I got my daughter first into organized sports because she was academically challenged but a big old tomboy and good on her feet. Softball and basketball gave her something that she could do with a certain degree of success. Yes, we’ve both seen some over the top parents. We’ve experienced some disapointments, but by and large it has been a very good experience for my children. Now my son is playing. We had two games on Monday, both playing at almost the same time, and she had a game last night. As far as limiting our unscheduled family activities, we consider organized sports in our town to be one of those family activities. Last night the whole family was at the field, cousins, aunt, uncle, and grandma. The kids also play ball in the yard all the time. Every kid that plays gets a medal or a small trophy. Then the regular season champs get another. We have tournaments at the end of every season and a tournament trophy is given.
My son and I started Tae Kwon Do last fall. I can tell you one thing about this…it can be gruelling! The schedule is far less flexible than team sports. If you don’t attend enough you will have to stay back until the next belt testing. There is pressure to go on through the program to obtain a black belt. There is pressure on adults to attain instructor status, and give up free time at the DoJang helping out. There is great pressure to make Tae Kwon Do more than just a sport, or form of exercise, it must become your life! Not to mention the fact that you must sign a legal contract to pay, and it is deducted from you checking account each month. We haven’t been in two months, but I’m still paying. For some I am sure it is the perfect tool for strength and discpline but the way it appears to me it is pretty much a money making operation. Black belt testing from what I hear went from 40 dollars a few years ago to about 400. I loved it myself, but my son didn’t he wanted to play ball. (I loved it because it helped me lose 19 lbs. and made my butt look good.)
I don’t blame you for the rant really. But you cannot say that team sports are any more “evil” than dance, or martial arts or anything else a parent might get their kids into. I have seen some pretty nasty stuff from moms who have their girls in dance, gymnastics, cheering and beauty pagents. There are gonna be assholes no matter where you go and what you do.
I appreciate your thoughtful response. Yeah, I’m probably exaggerating somewhat to phrase a proposition that makes for interesting discussion. And I probably am visiting the sins of an obvious view upon the many. Just wanted to make a couple of limited responses.
-The “social plan” most in my mind when I wrote that was getting my family together with the families of my and my spouse’s siblings who live in the area. Last Sunday we had my spouse’s mom over for Mother’s Day brunch. (That’s about as thrilling as my social life gets.) Guess why my spouse’s sister-in-law’s family couldn’t make it?
-Great for NY, VA, and NC! I am limiting my comments to the western burbs of Chi.
-re my coaching experience, I tired of having dads ask when their kids would win. So one practice, I had a scrimmage between the kids and the dads. The dads were shooting at a goal 3’ wide, while the kids had the width of the field, and I instructed the dads to let the kids win. Outcome? Dads 3-kids zip. Why? The kids kicked it through their own goal 3 times! I didn’t hear that question much after that. Yet, in the last game of the season, I heard one dad telling his cute little boy, the kind of kid who would run away from the ball if it came at him, that he would pay him a couple of dollars if he scored a goal. No, I don’t think I was the one who was too competitive.
Needs2know - there are definitely some problems with that TKD school you are attending. I and others on the board would gladly discuss it in detail should you wish.
Sports teach “teamwork” if “teamwork” means there is a winner and a loser, and the ONLY important thing is winning. They also teach klutzy, uncoordinated kids like myself that they are useless schlemiels who have no place in society. Not too bitter, am I?
Kids should have the opportunity to play team sports IF THEY CHOOSE, but they should also have the chance to participate in other physical activities, that do not involve becoming a social outcast and having the tar whupped out of you after class because you didn’t catch some goddam ball.
Yeah, I hate sports. Wouldn’t you hate grand opera if you were tone deaf and had been forced to sing the aria from “Aida” in front of the whole class three times a week?
Ranting is fashionable, it is kind of like the organized sports way to approach a debate.
I have both participated in organized sports as a kid (in the 60’s and 70’s) and coached/refereed them as an adult. I speak from experience when I say that balance is the issue.
When I was a kid, I bowled Saturday mornings in league. I also played basketball in the winter in a league. Because of the attitude of local parents and coaches, my parents kept me out of Little League baseball. I also had weekly piano lessons from age 6, played golf extensively from age 8, and engaged in numerous activities of both scholastic and extra-curricular nature in jr. high and high school. This, I assure you, did not preclude me from active involvement in ‘play’, nor did it unduly impact my family. How was this true? We balanced the needs of my activities with the needs of the family and the needs of being a kid.
Playing on a team doesn’t require your presence at every game. When I played basketball, I usually made the games, but if we went out of town, I didn’t. Bowling was much more likely to be pre-empted by other activities; the season was several months long. As an adult you make the same choices; no one expects you to make every game or non-work-related activity. When you get the mind-set that the child must make all activities, be it practice or game, you already lose the balance.
Playing on a team doesn’t preclude doing other things the same day as games. Yes, big families all doing something can make it difficult; did it occur to the parents that sometimes it might be okay to miss a game because you are doing other important parenting things (like playing with your younger son or going to a relative’s house)? A game usually takes up a discrete block of time; keep the balance by making sure that one activity doesn’t obtain a strangle-hold on the rest of the day.
HOW a team sport is approached has as much to do with the issue as the fact of playing on a team. Indeed, it is here that the main battle is often lost. The approach of the program or team usually falls either in the we’ve-got-to-win-and-be-the-best-or-else camp or the kids-should-just-play-and-have-fun-and-not-try-to-learn-too-much-or-be-pressured camp. Missing from this mix is the preferred (in my opinion) why-not-teach-them-to-do-it-as-well-as-they-can-without-letting-it-get-too-important camp. That middle way lets children have fun at the level they wish, by making sure they understand the game they are playing, are equipped to play it properly (meaning they have the needed skills for basic play), and not placing a premium on the result.
As an example, I’ll take the beginning level soccer team for 5 year olds (e.g.: the team coached by Dinsdale in the OP). If as a coach your approach to this age group is “run around on the field kicking the ball aimlessly and have fun”, don’t coach the team. They learn nothing from this approach. About 25% of the team gets to do touch the ball, because they are faster than the others, about 25% of the team picks daisies, because no one expects more from them or gives them something fun and interesting to do, and the remaining 50% spend the game chasing in a pack after the ball, never quite catching up to it, and feeling a certain faint sense of regret they can’t quite understand. MUCH better for this age group is to have a coach with either the AYSO Youth Coach patch or the USSF “F” license. Then, the kids hopefully will get some basic instruction in the game they are attempting to play, so that they don’t just run around the field, but actually get to have responsibilities they can handle ("Tommy, you’re a fullback, stay behind the ball and stop the other team from kicking it at your goal; James, you’re a forward, stay ahead of the ball and kick it into the goal when you can). Everyone gets touches on the ball, all kids participate, and everyone stays happy. I’m coaching my third such team this year; I know it works, and we have way more fun than the beehive teams.
In the end run, your child will learn invaluable lessons from team sports. But if you let the tail wag the dog, you have no one to blame but yourself as a parent; certainly not the sport.
I live in a cookie cutter neighborhood - the houses are kind of alike and stuck on little pillows every so few/many feet apart. There aren’t a lot of kids playing outdoors, kick the can or even riding bikes. There are no parks within walking distance nor are there any empty lots for spontaneous play.
I think the games that used to be played in tree houses are now played in bunk beds, chases that occured in the yard are now done in the house, and who knows where these poor kids play with waterguns - in the bathtub?
It’s illegal to play in the streets here, so where is outdoor play to take place? Not on these lawns! Phew! Forget it! And don’t put your hopes on the back yard, the pool is there and there might be a boat or some other structure that wouldn’t take kindly to a thrown ball.
If these kids don’t play organized sports, they don’t get outdoors execept for that long walk back and forth to the school bus.
Seems pretty sterile to me.
And skateboarding - a $4,000,000 skateboard (what?) arena? what are they called? was just build somewhere around here. I’ve been getting polite letters from nephews and young cousins 6 states away asking if they can come visit me this summer. Of course, this skateboard rink (?) is ** indoors **.
The idea of playing games without keeping score is just well-meaning idiocy.
I speak from experience- as a kid, I was a Charlie Brown, of sorts. That is, I loved all sports, and played them all, but wasn’t good at ANY of them. Growing up, I heard the words “You suck” more times than I care to remember. So, I was PRECISELY the kind of kid that well-meaning idealists are trying to protect, by doing away with scorekeeping.
But it’s precisely because I WAS a lousy athlete that I know how pointless such measures are. If my baseball league hadn’t kept score, it wouldn’t have mattered- EVERY kid on both teams knew EXACTLY what the score was! Even if the runs weren’t put on a scoreboard, I knew EXACTLY how many runs had scored because I wasn’t fast enough to get to a routine fly ball, or because I couldn’t throw the ball anywhere CLOSE to the cutoff man.
Kids who stink at sports KNOW they stink- you can’t build up artificial self-esteem by doing away with official scorekeeping. Trust me, Kids KNOW the score!
I don’t play sports myself. But I think overall organized team sports are a very positive thing, UNTIL sports become more important then school and family. I think when students start spending more time on the court/field/track or whatever and less time at school, there is a problem.And it happens all the time.
I think Satan is right about this artificial “winning” crap being useless. In sports, in anything, a person has to earn the awards they get, or the whole idea of accomplishment becomes meaningless. I fear for a society who rewards it’s youth for merely getting up in the morning and breathing.
However, I personally am in Eve’s camp:
You and me both, Eve! P.E. in school was utter torture. The best time of my life in school was when I had that terrible kidney infection and couldn’t do PE for a month. That’s how horrible it was for me. A kidney infection was a blessing from God because it meant I didn’t have to go to PE for 4 weeks.
Exactly. I remember getting a softball square in the face, damaging my glasses, and giving me a large bruise on my face. After I was hit, I just stood there in shock, and somewhat stunned. All I got as a reaction from anyone was some classmate yelling at me to throw the damned ball back (which had pummelled me a moment earlier.) Organized sports for those unwilling to be there is sheer Hell. HELL HELL HELL.
I thought I was a lazy, useless slug when it came to PE, until I had a semester of golf and weight training. I loved weight training, lost weight, and realized that I wasn’t the slug I thought I was. Golf was boring, but hey - no one cared how much I sucked. It was such a relief for me to know that there were some physical activities that were not designed to torture me.
I am sure sports are great for some, but all I got out of it was misery. It was a way to make me feel like utter shit for an hour a day, and the teachers and coaches were no help. And I’m not even talking about organized sports, just the damned PE class. Thank God I had unathletic parents…I was never expected to participate in any after-school sports. I had piano and art lessons instead. (That is where I learned about competition, and how to not be the best gracefully, and how not to gloat over others if you are better than they are in a particular skill or activity.)
My son will also start piano lessons in the Fall. My mother plays. She lives 5 doors up and he can practice there.
I let my kids play team sports because they want too, and because I believe that it contributes to making them more well rounded individuals. Of course I would never force them if it were real agony. My daughter has not played softball for two seasons until this year. Last year was rough for us. And even though I do not force them to play, I do expect them to do their best. I will not allow them to sign up for a team and then not pull their weight or put forth any effort. I know what my kids can do.
Believe me…I absolutely HATE watching softball and baseball. To me it is right up there on the bore scale with professional bowling and golf as spectator sports. So sometime down the road I expect my children to realize how wonderful and dedicated their old ma was for sitting through years of T-ball. (I do however love basketball. Basketball season is my fav. And I’m sure this Fall I’ll be very attentive, my son will start tackle football!)
Boy, Yosemite, it’s a shame we weren’t in the same gym class! When I was given the chance, it turned out I was good at non-team things like gymnastics and tennis. But baseball, basketball, sports like that were the bane of my childhood! I don’t think I dread anything as an adult as much as I dreaded gym class when I was a kid.
I’ll never forget my epiphany when I finally refused point-blank to play baseball. “You’ll either play or take a zero!” The teacher told me. “HEY—I can DO that? Wow, thanks—I’ll take the zero!” I said, and strode away happily.
My eldest daughter is 12 - 6th grade. She seems to be quite talented at piano, and plays flute in the school band. She also seems to be pretty good at Irish stepdancing. She takes 4 or 5 dance classes (Irish and ballet) a week. There is not an ounce of fat on this kid (young lady?!) She can drop and pump out 35 push-ups, and she has this incredible v-shaped back. I lift weights quitew a bit. She joins me without my asking, and loves to show off her. Yet I regularly hear her say, “I am such a dork”, or “I’m no good at sports”, because of something that happened in gym class. She’s incredibly graceful and strong. She just hasn’t been interested in investing the time required to manupulate various balls in various manners.
(Aside - I am surprised at the percentage of gym class activities that involve using other students as targets. While I remember enjoying such games when young, my kids do not. It is really rough when my kids come home from school and are all upset about something that happened in gym class. GYM CLASS?!)
My 10 year old son is another matter. He has a neurological disorder, sensory integration dysfunction, that interferes with his motor planning. If you didn’t live with him, you probably wouldn’t notice anything was wrong. But you wouldn’t know that he falls down at least once every day, because he didn’t tell himself to lift his foot high enough - and his system didn’t do it automatically. And that he has a bitch of a time with handwriting, because the message gets mixed up between his brain and his hand. We work really hard at various sports, so he can learn coping behaviors to avoid being by far the worst kid playing. He wants to fit in with his peers. But the alpha males at school make life miserable for him. Did I mention this kid scores off the charts on all the standardized tests? But he has an incredibly low self image, because not a day goes by that some neandertal snot doesn’t call him a dork, or a gayrod, or some other lovely name. He just isn’t interested in most sports (he loves his fencing class, tho). But the pressure on a young boy to participate, if not excel, in team sports is tremendous.
I don’t remember that when I was young. In my Chicago neighborhood there was Little League baseball and Pop Warner football. I guess some of the “ethnic” neighborhoods had soccer. That was it. And parents weren’t constantly chauffeuring their kids. It strikes me that things have changed. And behind my original OP were the questions, “Why?”, and “Is this change entirely good?”
I think maybe the pendulum should swing back a bit. Maybe not all the way to “Children should be seen but not heard”, but maybe somewhat away from “The family revolves around my child’s wants and schedule”. Flame away. But realize that my spouse and kids are the most important thing to me, and I go to great lenghths to ensure that my personal recreational and social activities infringe upon the family as little as possible.
