How Are Youth Sports Affecting Young Athletes?

Youth sports can cause multiple problems for young athletes, but the solutions are simple. I have never played sports but I have many classmates who have, I can’t talk from experience but I can talk from hearing their painful stories. One of my friends had to stop playing sports because if she got hurt one more time it would be really really hard to even walk again. According to Scope magazine articles, “Playing with Pain” and “Travel Team Heartbreak” youth sports have become less fun and more dangerous. In “Playing with Pain” (12-15) Michelle Crouch reports that “Playing through pain is considered heroic, and winning is everything.” (14) She says that most teens live by that saying. They ignore the pain and it gets worse. The solution is

that you shouldn’t teach that to kids. Don’t even let them know it exists. What you should teach them is that it’s the fact that you try that makes them great. That its all about fun that as long as they had fun then that's all that matters. In “Travel Team Heartbreak” (16-17) a mother, Lauren Tarshis, describes her son’s experience with never fulfilling his dream to play travel basketball. She saw that the problem was “The roster was set.” (17) she soon decided it was best he didn’t get in because everyone who was on the team didn’t play anymore they were either hurt or burned out. Her son continued to practice and play. A solution for that problem is to let them have breaks let them take a year off and get other people in. Let them just have fun and don’t teach them to play through pain or where it's not fun anymore. If these solutions were used the sports would be more fun and kids might not have as many major injuries they might get little injuries.