Cause And Effect Essay On Youth Sports

When Winning is Losing
I stepped up to bat, the ball twisted and screamed towards me. I rotated my torso and snapped my hands as the bat swung forward. The ball whizzed right past me like a bullet as the only contact my Easton bat made was with the air. Man, this stinks, I thought. My muscles ached after countless practices, games and training sessions, not ones that I wanted to go to, but ones my parents forced me to go to. At that moment, I knew that this would be my last year. It was too much. Baseball just wasn’t very fun for me anymore.
As youth sports become increasingly competitive and parents push their kids harder than ever, these types of experiences are becoming more and more common. Our society is moving further away from the fun that makes youth sports so special. Parents like mine put focus on success rather than the fun of youth

sports especially as competition for college scholarships heats up. More kids than ever are burning out on youth sports or not enjoying them as much.
For competitive kids, youth sports can be a huge part of the growth and maturation process in children. Kids grow up trying to be like their favorite athletes such as Tom Brady or Michael Jordan. There are numerous reasons why youth sports are incredibly popular. Whether it’s the competitiveness or the toughness or challenge or just being part of a group of friends that you can bond and play with and against, they all can get thrown out the window if a kid is pushed too far. I know from personal experience as I shared before. The routine for kids with intense parents can be as simple as wake up, go to school, practice sport, eat, practice some more, sleep. I’ve experienced this first hand and although I only had to do this for a relatively short period of time, this was not the way I wanted to grow up.
While it may just seem like common sense to you that you shouldn’t force a kid to do something he doesn’t want or have to do, apparently some parents just didn’t get the memo. Evidence shows that there are serious physical problems that can result because of youth sports and those risks are increased if a kid is pushed too hard. In the article “Pushing too hard too young”, Jacqueline Stenson discusses a study by the Journal of the American Medical Association which showed that “...forearm fractures, many of them resulting from sports and recreation activities, increased 56 percent in girls and 32 percent in boys”. This increases in injuries definitely the link between the added intensity of parents in sports and the prevalence of injuries in children. Kids should not go through constant training regimens that push them like they’re LeBron. They need to have breaks, even extended ones, in order to prevent them from having stress related injuries down the road. What’s stunning, is that even though every 14 seconds someone gets injured in a traffic accident, there are more sports related injuries than traffic related injuries according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Injuries to young kids from overworking can affect their ability in sports, academics and possibly down the road in their life.
Not only are there physical effects, but also what may be worse are the mental and emotional effects.

Kids can get burnt out and may stop having fun while playing sports if they are pushed too hard by their parents or coaches. Ken Reed, in his article “Burnout and Injury a Major Concern in Youth Sports”, describes how youth sports affects kids when he says, “Youth sports are now big business. More and more adults are making their livings off of kids playing games. And a lot of these adults are pressuring kids to specialize in a single sport in order to excel and earn college scholarships — and maybe pro sports riches. ”. Parents try to push their kids to be the very best they can be at sports, but it actually causes them to burn out on the sports instead. Parents and coaches don’t even have much of a legitimate case to make for pushing their kids that hard because you actually have a higher chance of being murdered than becoming a professional athlete. Let that sink in for a minute. Sure, give your kid a little encouragement to play a sport. Fine. But forcing him to go to extra practices and training against his will, no

way.
Colin Cowherd is a popular sports based radio host for Fox Sports. His opinion is quite similar to mine, as he believes that parents should stop thinking about their kid playing college or professional sports. He makes this point in his book Raw: My 100% Grade-A, Unfiltered, Inside Look at Sports where he describes parents at their kids events by saying that, “the stands...are filled with parents who believe...that fewer strikeouts will eventually make their son the starting shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles”(Cowherd 30). This relates perfectly to my situation because my parents wanted me to train to try and get fewer strikeouts and hit the baseball better, but it backfired. Parents shouldn’t care about how good their kid is as long as he/she is having fun. Just look at star athletes such as Adrian Peterson, or Bryce Harper. What do they have in common? They can jump out of the gym; have speed and strength that can rival nearly anyone. I’m sorry. I just have to say it. There is no way that some kids can measure up to them. They just aren’t built that way.
So, I’ll leave at this. Parents calm down, relax, and stop worrying about whether little Timmy missed a shot or not. Take a backseat and just let the kids decide what they want to do and just let them have fun. It’s their childhood.