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This has been a crazy week, on Saturday March 30th, the article that I contributed to along with my good friends John O’Sullivan – CEO and Founder – Changing the Game Project, Matt Young – CEO – Personal Sport Record and Producer of Why The Cost of Winning as well as the pioneer for Physical Literacy, Dr. Dean Krielliers among others was released in the Digital Edition of the Vancouver Sun; Fear, greed, broken dreams: How early sport specialization is eroding youth sports brilliantly researched and written by JJ Adams.
The following day, on Easter Sunday, it was the Front Page Lead Story in The Province pictured below under a different title starting with “The End of Fun: Kids Sports is turning off kids”.
I subsequently shared the digital edition and picture above on our social media platforms, as did the other contributors and it has gone viral across Canada, US, Europe, Australia, New Zealand already so it truly is a subject matter that resonates with many parents and coaches in the youth sports sector.
In each of the presentations that I do on early sports specialization, I summarize with a slide called;
Do you know?
- Do you know what you want to do in life?
- Do you know what your true calling/purpose is?
- Most of us don’t figure it out until our 20/30/40/50’s IF we ever do.
- How can we be the adult to tell/recommend to a 7 year old kid they need to specialize and work (vs. play) a sport more than 9 months a year from that day going forward?
- By doing so, we not only deprive kids of having a normal childhood as the prior generation did where we PLAYED sports, both organized and also unstructured free play and myriad of other activities.
- We also are pushing them down the path that all the science and data shows is the wrong path to go due to burnout, overuse injuries and not developing fundamental movement skills if played multiple sports and unstructured physical activities.
Please don’t be that adult to recommend a single sport pathway, rather the one that all the science shows is the right pathway sampling, diversification and then kids can choose to pursue the sport they LOVE in their latter teens.
Running – biking – swimming – pickup games of football, rugby, basketball, soccer, street/pond/outdoor hockey –playgrounds – tag – hide and seek – capture the flag – snowball fights – sandlot baseball – tennis – hiking – hopscotch – dance and the list goes on and on.
““We’re not only depriving them of an opportunity to play other sports and activities but what about things like band, art, drama, music, computer science, reading — all of that stuff that should help them become well-rounded people? If they specialize, they don’t have the time for any of it. We’re making them little robots, really early, and it’s no wonder they burn out really fast.”
Glen Mulcahy
I honestly never thought when I was providing the data, studies and other resources for the article that it would have exploded as it has with numerous people sharing, tweeting, retweeting, commenting on nor as quickly as it has. I also must confess, when I found it was on the front page of one of BC’s provincial Newspapers it was very surreal, as well as reach out already from other news agencies, universities for follow-up interviews.
I do know from all the talks I have done for many years that it still is one of the top issues we face in youth sports and unless we do something about it, it will continue to grow and hurt our kids due to burnout, overuse, and lack of development of all core fundamental skills.
It is also going to continue to hurt families due to the costs of specializing, travel ball, equipment, many are hiring private trainers to work with their kids so they can get to the finish line faster than others.
The sad truth is, it is a race to nowhere, less than 3% of kids that play youth sports will play collegiately, and less than 1% will play professionally.
This is totally disproportionate to parent expectations, however, as the studies show that over 50% of parents are aspiring for their kids to reach these levels and realize a return on investment for the costs associated with youth sports today.
As academy club programs continue to grow it also is creating a serious challenge for the more cost-effective community and high school programs where they are losing players to.
Many thanks to all of you that reached out with texts, comments and even emails that read the article thanking me for bring this to the masses as many have been struggling with the challenges of keeping up with the jones for the private programs, not to mention those that already are having challenges paying the bills and can’t support their kids to play organized sports.
One of which I have received permission to share from the mother of a son who used to LOVE baseball:
“Hi there,
I just wanted to shoot an email and let you know that your article “Eroding Youth Sports” hit the nail right on the head. I am a parent of a 15-year-old son who has played competitive Baseball all of his life. He has played other sports as well and has always excelled at any sport he does.
Baseball was his life with many MVP awards and played 12 months out of the year fall ball, winter ball, spring ball and summer ball. Then this year he made the decision to take a year off and play house so, he could play basketball too and his reason is that it becomes too stressful as you pretty much have no life and he needed a break.
One of the short videos from Get More From Sport
As he told us this my heart sunk into my chest .. I felt ill…he couldn’t be serious but, he was. Baseball had become our life too we had made friends we liked the weekend getaways, the travel. We loved it because he loved it. Then it hit me that I had become “That Parent” if I was feeling that way inside, who was it really about. Is it about what I wanted or him?
Still feeling that house ball is not the place for him and he may not like it as it is so different from what he is used too. I need to let it go and allow him to figure out what he needs he might not like it. He may love it! This is where I feel your article is speaking the truth and I think we don’t talk about the damage that can happen to a child.
I have seen it all in my years as a parent of a competitive ball player. I have seen parents swear at their kids, bully their kids etc. I have seen kids look terrified if they feel they are not performing to their parent’s standards and I would say about 50% of the kids do not want to be there but, its the parent’s dream and the kids are fearful. There are also, a lot of kids that want to be there and it is fun for them.
I think we all want our kids to succeed and at a competitive level you do play to win unfortunately …it’s not for everyone and parents need to listen to their kids and stop putting their own ego first.
Like my son said to me the other night with tears in his eyes while I questioned his decision ..
”It’s only a game Mom”
Your article couldn’t have come at a better time!”
Let’s all work together to bring the game back to the kids … where it belongs.
