Early Childhood Sports: How Young Is Too Young?

How young is too young? The effects of early childhood athletics An estimated 30 to 45 million youth play some type of sport. There is a wide variety of the sports that the youth play. Many of the traditional American favorites such as football and basketball are becoming replaces with lesser known activities like lacrosse, rugby, and dance. (Brenner 1242) Joel Brenner, a medical doctor, says “the ultimate goat of the athlete should be to promote lifelong physical activity, recreation, and skills of healthy competition that can be used in all facets of future endeavors.” (1243) Various achievement related factors such as perceived competence, effort, and skill mastery are related positively to sport enjoyment. (Scanlan 279) No one would

Among those reasons are overtraining, overuse, and specialization, all of which can be both good and bad depending on how you use them. Overuse and overtraining can lead to something that no parent, coach, or young athlete would have ever dreamt of: burnout. Burnout not only eliminates that athlete from the sport they were just competing in, burnout also leads to negative effects in the future by promoting dropout and an unhealthy lifestyle. Does early child participation in competitive sports have a negative effect on their future in sports? There are a lot of factors that can make competitive sports great for youth athletes. Some of those reasons include healthy lifestyles, better athletic talents, and better relationships. While participating in competitive sports early may lead to quick short-term success, the facts on early sport specialization, overuse, and burnout

Specialization can best be defined as athletes who only play one sport, which is practiced at and played throughout the course of the entire year. Specializing often involves very intense training and competition put on by the pressure of coaches to achieve desirable outcomes and their high expecting parents. (Overman 83) Think about some of the most recent summer Olympic games. When you think about the gymnastic competitions and who won, how old are the people that come to mind? Many of those are what you would call “kids”; the oldest one being no more that 21 years of age. How can this happen unless those “kids” only practiced gymnastics for their entire life? Lenny Wiersma, a professor at the Springfield College, found that “71 percent of high school athletic directors perceived increased rates of specialization over a 10-year period, with 61 percent predicting further increases. Among the elite-level figure skating coaches, there is a general agreement that “the earlier the starting age, the better, with eight being the latest age to begin skating and have a hope of success.” (14) There are many benefits of specialization in youth athletes. One of those benefits is the early development and mastery of the particular sport. You have heard the saying, “practice makes perfect”, and many do not believe in that saying. However, if you just change the saying up a little bit, more