As travel teams have become more commonplace, adults with athletic ambitions for their children often feel pressure to secure competitive advantages for them.\u00a0This leads them to sign their children up for private coaching sessions, for college showcase tournaments hours from their homes, and for membership with marketing companies that promise to attract the attention of college coaches.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And the longer a child plays competitive sports, the stronger the push to go all-in becomes.\u00a0We encountered very few parents who chose to reduce the intensity of their children\u2019s sports activities over time.\u00a0When the stakes increased, so, too, did the size of the family\u2019s investments.\u00a0The race to the top, it sometimes seems, has no end point until, as is the case with the vast majority of young athletes, their playing days end, often with much disappointment.<\/p>\n
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Youth sport during Covid (Photo: Jennifer Borresen)<\/span><\/p>\n Surely, many young athletes are benefiting from the professionalized coaching, higher levels of competition, and social bonds that travel sports often provides.\u00a0But the intensification of the youth sports industry has also produced some troubling side effects.\u00a0Pushing children to specialize in a single sport can have detrimental effects on their physical and psychological health.\u00a0The shift from community-based leagues to travel teams has augmented pressure to begin high-intensity training at young ages. Such pressure can interfere with an athlete\u2019s ability to sleep, eat, and derive satisfaction from playing sports.<\/p>\n Research also indicates that the expansion of travel sports has also led to more injuries among developing young athletes.\u00a0Those who play on \u201celite\u201d club teams are significantly more likely to suffer from overuse injuries than their peers who play for community-based teams.\u00a0Yet this evidence tends to have minimal impact on parents eager to advance their children\u2019s athletic careers.<\/p>\n In talking with parents, we found that they\u00a0tend to make decisions about their children\u2019s athletic careers without carefully thinking through the consequences.\u00a0<\/p>\n They sign their children up for travel teams because that is what their children\u2019s friends seem to be doing, regardless of the long-term goals they have for their sons and daughters.\u00a0And parents longer-term thinking about their child\u2019s future subsequently develops in dialogue with other travel team parents.\u00a0In this context, parents who never saw themselves as \u201csports parents\u201d often find themselves into deeply engaged advocates, fans, and promoters of their children\u2019s budding sports careers.<\/p>\n Walton Foundation chief: <\/strong>5 ways we can help children cope with COVID-19 pandemic<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n The current pause in sports activity impelled by COVID-19 offers the opportunity to think carefully about how the youth sports industry can be reconfigured to better meet the needs of developing athletes.\u00a0As communities prepare to return to playing, now is the time to have the hard conversations about how we want youth sports programs to serve our children and our communities.<\/p>\n A fan follows social distancing rules to watch a youth baseball game at the A.C. Caplinger Sports Complex in Hafer Park in Edmond, Okla. on May 18, 2020. (Photo: Doug Hoke, The Oklahoman)<\/span><\/p>\n Organizing games and tournaments locally could provide children with the chance to resume athletic activities and reduce their exposure to getting the coronavirus.\u00a0Centering sports in neighborhood would also eliminate the need to house families in team hotels for days, another safe alternative to past practices.\u00a0Ideally, this could re-establish the foundations of community-based sports that have fallen out of favor over the past two decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n Restructuring sports leagues in this way, from the ground up, would reduce pressure on parents to sign their children up for activities that are not in their best interests. Easing back into youth sports might produce a healthier, more developmentally appropriate sports culture. It could also strengthen connections between families and their surrounding communities.\u00a0Adjusting behavior, at the individual as well as the organizational levels, could provide much needed balance in the lives of developing athletes.<\/p>\nParents, take a pause<\/h2>\n
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