What Are We Doing to our Kids?

The CSPs are still in hibernation, with tryouts just getting over and teams starting to practice, so I present instead a jarring article from the NYT Magazine about the high rate of injuries - particularly ALC injuries, but also concussions - in girls' sports.

Rich and Maria Pierson never had to push Janelle into soccer or to
reach for higher-level teams, and they certainly never berated her
after bad games. These types do exist, stereotypical “Little League
parents,” but it is far more difficult than some imagine to push a
reluctant child into sports, especially at a level that demands great
commitment. Children may acquiesce for a while, but all but the most
passive or abused will eventually rebel and shut down.

I found a different syndrome: parents of highly motivated, athletic
children who are supportive of their kids’ sports but bewildered by the
culture. The children, often as not, are the ones leading the way, and
the whole family gets pulled along in ways it never anticipated. “We
had no idea what we were getting into,” Rich Pierson said. “You just
feel your way as you go. She started playing with a local team, just
once or twice a week, then began with the travel team, and after that
it just builds on up.”

At what age should a young athlete begin traveling to out-of-town
tournaments? How many days a week should she be playing? When should
she give up her other sports? The professional coach is usually not
equipped to know what’s best, but he wields tremendous influence all
the same, sometimes by threat. He makes the schedules and sets the
rules, and a child who does not go along risks losing her place on the
team.

“Parents’ hearts are usually in the right place,” says Colleen Hacker, a sports-psychology
consultant who has worked with athletes from the preadolescent up
through the college, Olympic and professional ranks. “I don’t think
anybody’s saying, ‘Honey, how do we screw them up tomorrow?’ But the
attention, judgment and objectivity that parents bring to their work
lives and other spheres of importance, they don’t bring to their kids’
sports.”

The club structure is the driving force behind the trend toward
early specialization in one sport — and, by extension, a primary cause
of injuries. To play multiple sports is, in the best sense, childlike.
It’s fun. You move on from one good thing to the next. But to
specialize conveys a seriousness of purpose. It seems to be leading
somewhere — even if, in fact, the real destination is burnout or injury.