The Reasons that Kids Quit Sports
• Practice is boring (too many drills)
• Emotional stress from excessive performance demands (too focused on winning too early)
• Feelings of constant failure, typically due to negative coaching
• Not playing enough
Play: activity, motion, fun, sport, freedom. Everyone loves to play, to move, to have fun, to be active. Sport is a form of play. Today’s teenagers embrace skateboarding, snowboarding and motocross for the freedom, motion and fun. “According to a study in January’s Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, teens who skate or Rollerblade more than four times per week are half as likely to become obese as inactive peers and twice as likely to remain at a healthy weight as teens who play team sports. ‘Noncompetitive sports are the ones people tend to continue to participate in,’ says John Hopkins professor Robert W. Blum,” (Angel). Organized youth sports lose participants because they ignore play and turn into a structured, adult-centered, goal-oriented activity. Too much competition too soon drives players to more active pursuits.
Kids initially play informal games. They chase each other around the school yard, play keep away or shoot hoops at a park. Nobody tells the child to participate; he chooses to play. These games differ from organized leagues. Adults control organized leagues and superimpose their values on the league, not the kids own feelings, beliefs or motivations. These leagues socialize the kids to accept the adults’ way, or they decide they dislike the environment and drop out. Competition, winning, standings and all-star teams dominate leagues.
In grade school, we played games at every recess. We raced up and down the court and called our own fouls. If there was a dispute, we settled it. We did not stop to shoot free throws and we played the entire recess; no timeouts to set up strategy. We imitated our TV heroes and used our imagination. We played freely, had fun and stayed active. Everyone played, nobody suffered from stress if he lost and nobody worried about failing. We competed, but we quickly forgot the score once class started. We created our game, used our imaginations and explored our environment. We gained confidence through trying new skills and moves and grew socially as we interacted with our peers.
Our school team ran plays and had defensive assignments. We rarely scrimmaged. We ran sprints. We did defensive slides. Some players rarely played. We no longer explored new moves and had to shoot “good shots,” which meant no three-pointers. We stopped using our imagination and followed directions.
We loved to play and compete. We learned to enjoy practice as we developed new skills. Our recess games motivated us to improve and inspired our love for playing the game. We had a balance of free play and coaching. We used our imagination to expand our skills, while our coaches harnessed our skills and gave us tools to compete. We loved recess for the fun, freedom and exploration, and our school team for the challenge, hard work, teamwork and competition. Unfortunately, many young athletes today lack free play. Schools limit recess time and few parents allow their children to walk to a park to play pick-up games; kids miss the opportunity to develop the love for playing through playing.
While organized sports offer many benefits, playing organized sports too early in one’s development has drawbacks. Rae Pica, author of Your Active Child, believes kids under 12-years-old should not be in organized, competitive team sports because their bodies are not yet developed to safely accomplish certain athletic tasks. Furthermore, she and other experts say kids in their primary years “simply aren’t mentally equipped” to understand the complex rules and strategies. In free play, children create the rules and develop their own strategies. They engage their imaginations and negotiate the appropriate rules with the other players, developing interpersonal skills, conflict resolution and teamwork.
Three-fourths of pediatricians surveyed report that the time their young patients spend on unstructured play has decreased in the past five years. According to Sport Sociologist Jay Coakley, “Childhood has been changed from an age of exploration and freedom to an age of preparation and controlled learning.” Furthermore, “playing informal sports clearly involves the use of interpersonal and decision-making skills. Children must be creative to organize games and keep them going,” while “organized sports demand that children be able to manage their relationships with adult authority figures,” (Coakley).
Many parents rush their children into organized, competitive leagues because they want their child to succeed. We value competitive team sports, but overlook the importance of free play. Young athletes (ages 6-12) should focus on fun, playful activities like tag, dodgeball, kickball, stickball and other neighborhood games and acquiring a multitude of different skills, irrespective of the sport or score. Speed expert Lee Taft says, “When we are talking about kids, tag may just be the greatest game ever invented…There is linear speed, lateral speed, angular take offs, moving backwards, avoidance skills, cutting, change of direction, faking skills, breaking down skills, reaching skills, body control skills, balance, flexibility, coordination, raising and lowering of the center of mass, setting up opponents, strategies, team work…Basically tag will force you to reach deep into the movement bag of tricks your body has stored, or better yet, not stored and force you to use it or learn it.”
When kids develop athletic skills through play, they can adapt and improve quickly when playing a new sport. Young children need more play to develop a wide array of skills and inspire a love of sport and activity. Strength Coach Scott Phelps wrote that “at the beginning of first grade my oldest son did not know how to play soccer, but by the 3rd or 4th week of school he was one of the kids that was at the same level as all the other kids.”
Kenyan distance runners are among the most dominant athletes in sport. However, there is no performance pressure; Kenyans run because they love to run. “Kenyan runners, instead of pushing themselves until they are uncomfortable, use comfort and enjoyment as the key to the success. With enjoyment as their bottom line, performance unfolds gracefully. Loving what they do gives them a built-in desire to train. Their outstanding achievements are more a side effect of enjoyment than the result of an obsession to win,” (Douillard).
Before we develop elite athletes, we must create a fun atmosphere. The focus must switch from a competitive model with national championships to a more playful model which encourages participation, develops an athletic base and nurtures a love of sport for a lifetime of health and fitness.
Organized League
• Only five players per team play at a time
• Best players play a majority of the minutes
• Coaches criticize mistakes
• Coaches coach to win
• Coaches run plays
• Coaches attack the opponent’s weakest players
• Game stops for timeouts, free throws, etc.
• Officials control the game
• Game played for a pre-determined amount of time
• Play with the assigned team as picked by the coaches
• Keep score and track winners
Kids Pick-Up Games
• Everyone plays
• Balance the teams to make them fair
• Players try new moves
• Players play for fun
• Players’ movement is unrestricted
• Players help the weaker players
• Game never stops
• Players control the game and resolve disputes
• Players play as long as it’s fun
• Play with friends
• No performance demands
