It’s so often nowadays that parents want the best for their kids. They start them at young ages in activities so they can excel when they become old enough. Sports especially have been known to be started at young ages. But is all of this pressure really good for the child? Parents who pressure their children to be involved in sports at young ages often times force the child to end up quitting all sports before they even get out of middle school.
First off, there are so many parents who as children themselves did not play sports. Because of this, they put lots of pressure on their kids to succeed in sports. Often times when a parent who did not play sports as a kid encourages their child to play, they tend to be very hard on them. They feed off their child’s accomplishments and put stress on them when they don’t perform as expected.
Many words are drilled in our heads from day one of sports such as teamwork, honesty, fairness, respect, and many more but we often look over the other word that is drilled into our brains, winning. Coaches and parents often get too worked up about winning a game that the children playing often feel pressured or just want to quit. When winning becomes so important to other people, it becomes less fun for the athletes. Some parents even hide their eyes during bad points in the games because they simply can’t bare to watch it. The problem with this is it shouldn’t be parents at all that are the ones worried about the game. It should be the athletes, officials, and coaches whose hearts are in the game.
Younger athletes also feel pressured in sports when their parents spend a lot of money on them or the equipment for the sport. Forbes magazine states, “It’s evidence you’re much better off, especially when your kids are younger, spending as little on organized sports as you possibly can.” There are now studies to show that parents believe spending lots of money on their kids are helping them, but in most cases it is actually doing the opposite. Of a study of 160 families, majority shows that the more money spent on a kid for equipment, the more pressure, and the less likeliness that the child is going to enjoy the sport.
Travis Dourch who does these studies, was once a football player for Purdue University and one year with the Cincinnati Bengals. He has been coaching youth teams and camps since and learned about how parents and children are shaped by sports. The interesting thing about Travis Dourch is that when he was an athlete growing up, his dad was a very good supporter and even became his agent. Notice how when someone has a good supporter in their passion, they tend to keep playing the sport. Travis Dourch played all the way to the National Football League and is still involved in sports even after his own career. He is a perfect example of someone that continued playing sports because he was not pressured at a young age by his parents.
Pressure from parents in youth sports also causes a lot of stress to athletes. Think about when a child first gets to middle school. If they even are still playing sports, they are probably starting to have very busy schedules. This causes a lot of stress to students when they have a lot going on and aren’t used to it. Then if you add in there pressure from their parents in sports, it can become too much for the child. Bruce Brown, who is the cofounder of Proactive Coaching, says that the worst part he remembers about sports is the ride how after when he got grilled by his parents. This is what makes kids want to stop playing sports by the time they get into middle school because they just can’t handle the stress of it all. Brown always makes his players tell him what their best and worst memories were of playing, so he could fix what he was doing wrong and keep doing the right things. Kids need this kind of coaching when their parents are pushing them too hard.
Pressure from parents also just causes them to want to quit the sport all together. Nearly 70% of athletes stop playing sports by age 13. Why you may ask? Because of the pressure they get from their parents to perform well. Kids should be involved in sports to have fun and to have some friendly competition, not to be pressured every time they get on the field. There are so many things you learn from sports that are sometimes essential in the growth of the child. But these values you learn don’t come from winning, but instead come from defeat. You learn how to interact with others, that someone is always going to be better than you, to always give 100 percent, that it’s okay to make a mistake and so many more benefits from playing sports. But when a child is constantly yelled at or put down by a parent, it causes them to not want to play anymore and they end up losing out on these values they may get from sports. Not only that but if a parent is constantly worried about winning, the child begins to worry too and then winning for their parents becomes more important than winning for themselves.
Some say that the pressure you get from your parents often times builds character, but how can this be possible when 70% of kids are quitting sports by age 13? If anything, it does the complete opposite and ruins a child’s self-esteem instead of building character. Sports are supposed to be something kids participate in to have fun and to stay active, but that becomes hard when parents become crazy about their performance. It makes them become stressed out and not want to play anymore. We may never be able to fix the pressure we get from our parents, but maybe if parents become aware of the concerns of pressuring their kids it may help the problem.
