Ann

How many hours have you logged taking each of your kids to soccer, baseball, basketball, lacrosse, tennis – any sports practice?

Now add in the time spent at the actual games, the emails, being the snack parent, end of season parties, travel team weekends, getting them to the tournaments…

What about the money you’ve spent? The gear, equipment, shoes, bags, balls, uniforms, camps, extra coaching, workshops – all that eating out and maybe even weekends out of town…

And how can we forget the mental toll it takes on you, your spouse, the other kids in the family - I mean if you have several kids, sports can literally be all consuming –financially – I can’t even imagine

I certainly know that family meals are likely few and far between. And timewise, schedules have to be as coordinated and as precise as a covert CIA mission. It can take both parents and grandparents to shuttle everyone around and make sure there’s some adoring fan in attendance at each and every game.

More and more we hear about the fights that break out between parents and coaches or officials – some ending in death.

And we hear about kids who break under the pressure and call it quits long before they can land that college scholarship that’s been on the agenda for years.

Do you see anything wrong with this picture?

What the hell are we doing?

Well, my guest today had this same thought – jumped headlong into the research and wrote a book pondering this whole debacle that has become youth sports over the past 25 years or so.

The name of the book is Take Back the Game: How money and mania are ruining kids’ sports and why it matters

Linda Flanagan is a mom, a researcher and journalist, and a former cross country and track coach – she’s still an athlete. And then there’s the Masters from Oxford and Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the fact that she was an analyst for the National Security Program at Harvard. I could go on and on – the woman is just slightly accomplished. And I was very lucky to have this conversation with her. Stay with me.

This is Speaking of Teens, the podcast that helps parents who are struggling to find peace and connection with their teens. My name is Ann Coleman; I’m an attorney turned parent educator and a mom who has been there - and I’m on a mission to help you build a stronger relationship and decrease the conflict with your kid so you can help them grow into the young adult they’re meant to be.

I started out asking Linda to tell me what’s good about middle and high schoolers playing organized sports – what do they really get out of it.

 

Linda

They're so much great about sports. They have some, their physical and emotional advantages that go with participation. It's part of that is just exercise. We know that there are countless studies showing that physical activity improves mental health. It decreases depression, it thwarts anxiety. Everyone knows this is a big problem for adolescents now is depression, anxiety, they're all stressed out. So exercise, and a very moderate amount of exercise, it doesn't have to be extreme exercise, does a wonderful job of alleviating some of that. It's 150 minutes a week of walking, 15 minutes of daily jogging.

Some exercise is great, and that's also true for adults. And so introducing them to kids when they're young, you want it to be something they take into their adult life. It's not just something they do when they're in school. In my view, I think parents want to encourage their kids to develop a habit of movement exercise, to say nothing of all the physical advantages. I mean, I spoke about the mental, but...It improves cardiovascular health. It reduces the growth of the body mass index. We have an obesity problem in our country. Exercise won't fix it, but it will be part of the solution. It is teenagers who play on teams. There's correlations between those who play and a greater likelihood to graduate from high school, to go on to college. For girls, they're less apt to get pregnant in high school. They're more apt to, and in fact, there are correlations between young women who played sports growing up and those who run for office and occupy corporate suites. So there's, we don't know what, the correlation is not causation, but there's a relationship there. So, you know, there's all kinds of good reasons for that, for why we would want our kids to play sports. And another reason is that sports connect kids to their schools. Sometimes kids don't, for whatever reason, they're not academically motivated. They're not, they don't have a social group they connect with, they feel alienated from teachers, but if they have a sport, they're more apt to stick with schools, stick with education, more apt to graduate. And there's a study from 2019 of some 10,000 young people who had traumatic experiences growing up in childhood. They'd had at least two, there's a term for it, ace, acute.

 

Ann

adverse, adverse childhood experience. There you go.

 

Linda

 

childhood experiences, yes. And so these were not run-of-the-mill, yeah, it was actual trauma, something quite devastating. And it was 10,000 young people who were studied when they were between seven and 12. And the researchers went back to look at these young people and how they developed 20 years later. And they found that those kids who had participated in sports, were a lot better off 20 years later than those who had not. They attributed to the connection these kids had to school, that it somehow the athletics made them feel involved, important, valued, somehow connected to their school in a way that kids who'd also had traumatic childhood experiences did not. So, there's all kinds of reasons why we should care about sports and...why we should protect them and make sure they're good.

 

Ann

Yeah, is it is it just the I know we're talking about like school sports because that's what causes that connection to school. Is there also something to be said for just sports in general just playing in the neighborhood or playing pickup games of basketball if they're not involved in school sports.

 

Linda

Absolutely. It doesn't have to be competitive, six days a week, you know, 15 hours. By all means, I'm a huge fan of just pickup sports. In fact, one of the reasons why kids are getting injured so much is because they are playing a high volume of competitive, organized sports and games. The number one risk factor for injury is competition volume. So kids who play pickup sports, they get the benefits.

They're of the physical activity. They get the social benefits. They also, they get additional social benefits because they're not being ordered around by adults. They're not following directions. They're having to figure it out on their own. And there's a recent article in the Times sharing a study by Peter Gray, who's an expert on play, that draws a strong connection between the decline in unstructured play and kids' mental health problems. There are, you know, collapse and self-esteem. And there's all kinds of reasons, you know, being posited about why this is happening, but there's certainly strong evidence that it's kids not being allowed to kind of run around, be on their own, play makeup games, and, you know, kind of organize themselves instead of having an adult tell them what to do. So I'm all a huge fan of unstructured play, and I think we should be delighted when our kids do that, even if they're not, you know, they don't have to be on a school team or club team to get the benefits of sports.

 

Ann

Right. You know, I wonder if that unorganized play is something about the kids being creative themselves, having to make up the rules, having to make sure that everyone does what they're supposed to do and that kind of thing. It takes that element of, like you said, of parents or coaches, whomever, bossing them around and they have to do it on their own. That does seem like a really good thing. I never thought about that.

 

Linda

Yes, absolutely. You know, this Peter Gray argues that that's it's in unstructured play where kids learn how to negotiate with each other. When they make the rules, they kind of have to figure out how to establish equal teams, you know, teams of equal ability. So there's all kinds of social skills that kids learn through unstructured play. And another really important reason for it is that

 

 

Linda

it prevents injuries. The more kids there's this rule of thumb in sports that the rate of structured to unstructured play should not be more than two to one. So if you have 10 hours a week of practice you should be practicing outside of school outside of the team or whatever five hours a week and the problem is for many kids they only do the structured play and this is why girls get hurt more than boys. It's one reason that has been speculated because girls are less apt to go play pickup sports than boys. So they're more apt to get hurt.

 

Ann

I asked Linda what has happened over the past few decades that has gotten us to this point in US society where kids sports has become this all-consuming mental, financial, and energetic drain on families?

 

Linda

Well, yeah, so just briefly about the money. Sports used to be more child-centric, low-key recreational local, and that shift has happened in the last 20 or so years where they've become like adult-driven, serious, based on skill development, not like the focus is on skill development. So you hire the baseball batting coach to get you to perfect your ability to hit the baseball. And that's the business has stepped in part because the public options have declined since the 70s, the great recession in the 70s, you know, suddenly funding for parks and sort of public spaces for sports declined. Now local governments spend less than 2% on their parks and that kind of, those kinds of spaces where kids would typically play without having adults telling them what to do.

 

Linda

So there's been this withdrawal of the public option and greater demand from Title IX. So more girls have started playing since 72. And so business stepped in to fill the gap. And then it has kind of taken off. So we've talked about that for a while, but just, I think we can all agree that there's a lot of private clubs, private organizations offering sports options. So the second reason for this.

 

Linda

And there's a reason why they're in business, because there's demand for it. It's a push me pull you kind of thing. Parents tend to buy into it, because also for broad cultural reasons, beginning also in the 70s. And this shift is, I always use this phrase whenever I talk about it, because it's so apt. And it's from Jennifer Senior, who wrote in her book, All Joy and No Fun, that this period children move from our employees to our bosses. So now you know somehow like when I was a child you know my parents were you know they were in charge and they weren't gonna like throw themselves on the prostrate themselves for our activities that just was not going to happen. They were busy they had their own lives which isn't to say they didn't love us they did. Okay so now

 

Linda

sacrificing their partnerships, their friendships, even their work to give their kids an advantage because there's so much anxiety, again, related to the 70s and that recession then that provoked so much anxiety about the future for kids. How are they gonna end up? Suddenly it seemed like, well, maybe our kids won't do as well as we did. At the same time that number of children and families shrunk. It used to be four, now the average is two. So that kind of kids became more precious. They were scarcer, so more precious. And I don't think it would be, we have to pay attention to the fact that broadcast cable news has made stranger danger just seem like there's danger lurking in every corner. The world seems a lot more dangerous.

So we need to supervise our kids at all hours, 24 hours a day, give them, cultivate, devote ourselves to their cultivation of every tiny little potential ability, and hope that this gives them the edge that they don't fall behind. It's like this kind of rat race from a very young age, I mean, absurdly young age. I always point out in my town, not to dump on them, but I always do, there is a junior pre-academy for U4s in soccer. So this is three-year-old organized soccer. And okay, so they're providing it, and parents don't have to buy into it, but they do because there's also, another firm belief of mine is we parents, we have no idea what we're doing. We're making it up as we go along, we borrow from our parents or we reject our parents. We read books that say one thing or another, and we're just making it up. There's all kinds of things. You don't know what you're doing, so you try to figure it out.

 

 

Linda

And when you look to your left and you look to your right and everyone else is signing up for this stuff, well, what do you know? Maybe they do need batting practice when they're eight years old. Maybe you do need to hire the strength coach to improve their speed. You know, I don't blame parents for that. I think it's really, it's very hard to know what's right. And again, if you're, I think most parents, I mean, I'm speculating here, but all the ones I know, they're trying to figure it out and you kind of go along with things.

 

 

Ann

Right. Well, it yeah, we want the best for our kids, obviously. And I think it's interesting this, you know, I never realized when the sociological shift started happening. But so people have said it really started happening in the 70s after the recession. And I remember, you know, the gas shortages and all that kind of stuff. So so parents started worrying about whether or not their kids were going to be able to do as well as they were or as they did. So we started concentrating more on this, having a successful child. And I think, it's not just, obviously it's not just in sports, but I've done episodes before on the academics and how, even if it's not the parents putting the pressure on kids, somehow this is trickling down to the kids and they even are putting pressure on themselves to be successful, which is, you know, this defined success that, you know, most people look at it as a financial success. I try to push the idea that successful is whatever the person defines success as. But you know, we have this limited idea of success and of success being, you know, financial. And then that's where, what it sounds like to me, the way you talk in your book about colleges and colleges offering scholarships and the scholarships for sports or academics, but the sports, you know Maybe I don't know if families are pushing both sports and academics But it seems to me like maybe some kids are pushed more in academics. Some kids are pushed more towards the sports Let's get you a scholarship so that you get into the Ivy or get into the good school so that you can major in something where you do get a great job and you can make money for the rest of your life. So is that part of it? And it's so nerve-racking for parents.

 

Linda

Yes, yes, certainly. It is, it is. You know, I think the word to describe parents is anxious, so worried and anxious. Oh my gosh, my child's going to fall behind. I can't let that happen. And it is both academic and athletic, I think. And they often go together. I don't think they're like, it's not one or the other. It's usually both or artistic. You know, again, like you say, it's not strictly athletics. What distinguishes athletics is that it's the most popular. It's the most public. You know, if your child's a great musician and I'm sure that parents go to great ends to get their kids to be, you know, distinguished violinists and pianists and all of that, but it's just not as public. And I think that's why sports are kind of uniquely vulnerable and parents being on the sidelines, there's that social aspect and the.

 

Ann

The accolades are more. When it's a sport, you don't get the same accolades for being a terrific violinist as you do for sports. It's our attitude, right?

 

 

 

Linda

Yes. Yes, well sports are athletes are so celebrated in our country. You know, 82 of the top 100 broadcast shows on broadcast TV last year were NFL related. You know, we, athletics are so central to the American way and if your child is a good athlete, it

 

 

Linda

you know, you feel it yourself like, wow, I must have done something right. In fact, you know, I, as you know, I started my book with a little story about my son who was like eight or nine doing really well at a rec basketball game. And my husband and I just like strutted out to the parking lot. So full of pride and so ridiculous and embarrassing in retrospect. And I knew it was, it was a little, I knew it was kind of lame at the time, but I felt it. You know, I felt that like absolutely ridiculous. It had very little to do with my husband and me. As one of the points I wanted to make on your show is that kids do well because they want it. Because they will do well if they have the drive. They have the ability and they are committed. It's not about what you do as a parent. You know, it's very little about... You can mess it up by being too high pressure and yelling and screaming and demoralizing them. But if they're going to do well, it's because they want it. Those kids who really want it, they're going to find a way. It's not because you said the right thing or you took them out in the backyard every afternoon. It's their own intrinsic desire, demand to be great that makes kids turn into excellent athletes.

 

Ann

Right.

So, as Linda said – this is something we really must take to heart: Kids will do well in sports (in anything really) if they want it - if they have the ability, the drive - if they have the commitment.

Becoming a kickass athlete has to be up to them. It’s not about us. Kids who become great athletes have the intrinsic desire to excel.

We can insist that they play, we can pay for all the extra coaching and camps, we can be the loudest parent on the sidelines, we can rehash the game all the way home in the car. But in truth – we have no control and just as important – we really can’t take that much credit.

I told Linda that I hated attending Little League baseball games, they made me nervous, my son didn’t love it and I’d never been happier when he decided to forgo baseball play soccer and football in middle school – but then watching him play those sports also made me nervous so I was never a parent who pushed sports.

So, I asked what is it about some of us who don’t know when to stop pushing?

 

 

Linda

I think most of us, you know, vast majority of parents just want their kids to be happy and successful and be, you know, thrive and grow into thriving adults, you know, good personal life, good work life, you know, good citizens. I think that's the motivation at the core, but it can take on a life of its own. The sport can kind of become kind of a cancer on the family. And I think it's often true for former, you know, some of the best former athletes, I think don't suffer from this problem because they know that it's not, you know, what they say and do is again, it's if their child wants to be that good, they'll make it happen. I think it's those who, you know, maybe they didn't have sports growing up when they were, they didn't play when they were young and they felt they missed out. Or there's just a lot of status anxiety about where they fit in. And look, if your child shows a little promise and you can make them stand out even more, it reflects back on you. And it feels like it's you out there. See, that's, it's, you know, when your child hits the ball well, it's like, oh, it's relief. That's something that's like my little mini me is out there making the family proud. So I think there is a kind of egoism on the part of parents and it's not, it's well-intended, but it becomes like this line, there's the boundary between parents and kids almost disappears and it's like the child's success is the parent's success. And conversely, and much more unfortunately, when a child doesn't do well, then the parents are mortified or embarrassed and let the kid have it. And that's terrible. And you know the funny thing about all this is that

 

Linda

The more there's a study from the Families in Sport Lab at Utah State showing that the more parents spend on their kids' sports, the less kids like it, the more pressure they feel. There's another other study showing that this one involved young ice hockey players. It was to evaluate how much pressure the kids felt. And across the board, the kids said they felt a lot more pressure from their parents than their parents.

 

 

Linda

owned up to. So the parents thought they were being like good supporters, clapping, you know, bringing hot chocolate, whatever. But in fact, the kids interpreted it as I better do well for mom and dad. And this does not lead to successful athletics. It doesn't lead to a healthy relationship to the sport because this that drive, you know, again and again, that drive has to come from the child. The best thing a parent can do is relax, step back.

 

Linda

and show love and support no matter how well they do. The first question should not be, which my mistake, again, I really don't wanna come across as a know-it-all who has all the answers, because when I was going through this and I missed at my son's game, my first question was, how many points did you score? And that is just the wrong thing to do. I should have said, hey, how was the game? Was it fun? And what did you, what will...

 

Ann

Yeah, did you have fun? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

 

Linda

tell me about it, like tell me about it. What was the experience like? Not like focusing on the outcome. Did you win? You know, like, but that that's the impulse because also we're a capitalist society. A lot of the parents who play sports are competitive, parents whose kids play sports, they're kind of competitive, you know, in some of these communities. I live in a competitive community, a sort of subterranean sort of always jockeying for who's up, who's down. And it's very hard to

 

Linda

parent can do is just be 100% supportive. I'd love to watch you play, keep your trap shut on the drive home when if they screw up on the court or whatever, let them know you love them regardless of how they played in a dumb game, which will be forgotten.

 

Ann

Yep. Right, right, exactly. You know, this brings up so much. So, you know, focusing on the outcome, you know, I think you can look at this, you know, the sports as kind of a, you know, a piece of parenting that kind of overlaps with so many other pieces of parenting. I mean, when we say, you know, not to focus on the outcome, it's the same thing for grades, for instance. You know, you're not supposed to focus on the test score or, you know, oh, that's great. You made an A. Either the focus should be on how hard they worked, how hard they studied for it or how bad they wanted it. So that taking that outcome piece out of it, I think is so important. And then, you know, would a rule, a good rule of thumb, you know, for these extras that parents are so invested in getting for their kids, the extra batting practice or the batting coach or the this or the that.

Should we wait until our kid comes to us and says, hey, I'd love to do this extra thing because I think it would help me? Because it seems like not many kids would be doing that. Most of them would be, yeah. I mean, what do you think about that?

 

Linda

On their own. think the more the longer you wait so that the more it comes from them it’s one hundred percent better for them and you know if also you know when you have kids that sometimes the more you press as an adult well maybe it's a good idea have you thought about doing this that they just immediately put up their defenses they're like well if you suggested it no you know whereas if they come to it on their own if like suddenly they think you know I'm playing baseball, whatever it is, and I feel like I need, I could use a little more, and they're practicing, and then they come to you and say, maybe I should, do you think it would help me if I got a batting lesson once a week? If it's coming from them, then they're gonna actually wanna do it, and they might learn from it. If it's coming from you, the parent, you're not hitting very well, your eye-hand coordination's off, why don't you step this way? That's just gonna backfire. It isn't gonna help them. And also,

 

Linda

Like, why do you care so much as the parent? Like, I think you have to ask yourself, like, why do I care? If they don't care, why do I care? So let them be the, it should always be they, the child, the athlete should be driving it, not the parent, and all of this stuff.

 

Ann

Right. And so all the well-meaning, we're gonna get you the extra stuff so that you do well and so that you don't, you know, you're not embarrassed. I mean, I can also see how that would make a kid feel like, well, they don't think I'm very good at this because they need me to go do all these extra things so that I will do well for them. That seems to put a lot of pressure on the kids. I mean, the mental health aspect of it, I don't see, you know, could be very good.

 

Linda

Yeah.

 

 

Ann

Also, it seems like a lot of that would cause a real rift in the relationship between the parent and the child when the parent's putting so much pressure on the kid. It just doesn't seem like a good idea all the way around. What are, I read, I think it was, I guess it was in your book, maybe it was an article, but you were talking about how one of your acquaintances had gotten you asked you to go run since you're a runner with her daughter to try to get her more, what, more excited about it or better at it or something like that. And tell, if you will, talk about that a minute and what you came away with after that little jog.

 

Linda

Yes, yeah.

 

Yes, so because I've been a running coach, I'm a runner myself, still am a runner and I have been a running coach for a long time and this woman has a, I think she was about, her daughter was about 10 and she had some ability and you know I guess she was kind of fast but the mom thought that she was just not, you know, just didn't work hard enough, wasn't dedicated, if she just applied herself a little more, it's always like just apply, I just feel so disappointed she's not applying herself. That's kind of the, you know, she's a very nice person.

But so I said, okay, sure. I'll, you know, work with her a little bit. So we met a couple of Saturdays. And I mean, the girl was like 10 years old, you know. And I was just, we'd kind of like run around a little bit and I'd ask her questions about elementary school. And I just, you know, I began to realize it didn't take long two of these to say, this is insane. This is utterly pointless. She's a normal kid. Most kids don't like running. Most adults don't like running. It's an acquired taste, you know? I mean, I was a running coach, I know this. And that's fine. You know, it's totally fine. At some point, if the parents and adults would just back off and provide some opportunities, hey, you know, we're thinking about doing a turkey trot. You wanna do it or?

 

Nope, fine, whatever, you know, to model exercise, to model it and then let them come to it on their own. In that, I just really realized in the case with this young girl that all of it, the mom, the well-intended, you know, was, had hired me, although I didn't get any money or anything, I didn't want any money, to kind of encourage her daughter to run, to focus. And like he just, it doesn't help to have adults hovering around kids and their activities. They had to come to it on their own. And there's time. I guess there's another feature of this is that there's a sense that you've got to do it now. Focus now. There's a sense of like, we're going to miss out and then it'll all be lost. Well, it's like, no, that's not actually the case. For some sports, you can do them in your entire life. There's no, you know.

 

Ann

urgency.

 

Linda

tremendous urgency or need that they start being passionate about something at age 10. It just isn't. I don't think it's normal for kids to, honestly. Or they develop it on their own and it's something you as a parent have, you know, it's like, well, what's that about? They love Legos or whatever, you know. My daughter, she loved these little wooden animals. It's like that wasn't coming from me. It was her, you know. But we want to shape them and get them into something that...

 

 

Ann

Right. Yes, a mold.

 

Linda

It's going to prepare them. Whereas in fact, we'd be doing them more of a favor by letting them come to it on their own and just celebrating that, encouraging it.

Well, and that brings up another question for me too. I mean, when kids, you know, hear a lot of parents say, oh, well, you know, once they've signed up for something, you know, I make them do it. I don't care if they like it or they don't like it or they complain or whatever. And maybe that's not the right question, but when kids are, you know, they just aren't into it. They don't like this sport or, you know, they wanna drop out of it. What would you say to parents? I mean, what is the rule of thumbs? Should we...

Let's say it's the middle of the season and they're just miserable or let's just say they want to quit at the end of the season I mean, what do you do when your kid is just it's just not feeling it Not not wanting to do it anymore. Should we just back off and say yeah, just quit when you want to or should we push them?

Well, my view is if it's the middle of a season and then if it's partly dependent on their age, if there's middle school and high school, I think, look, you signed up for this, coach is counting on you, or you might think the coach hates you, you're always on the bench, whatever, but you made a commitment, let's stick it out. You don't have, and then by the way, you don't have to do it again. You know, life does not have to be a grind constantly for kids.

 

Yeah, I think we're kind of making sports kind of a grind for them. And it's like, OK, we'll find something else you can do. There's a lot of other activities that maybe not athletic activities. Maybe there's an art class. Maybe you want to learn how to cook. You know, maybe you want to learn how to knit, whatever it is. It doesn't have to be a sport. And if they really hate it, I just don't think you encourage a love for sport by forcing something that they really don't like to do.

So I would argue against quitting mid-season. I just don't think that's like a, you know, once you quit it kind of becomes easier to quit. So stick it out for the season, but feel under no obligation to go back. And by the way, I think the way we frame that is really important as parents. We shouldn't be framing this like failure. Well, you couldn't hack it in soccer, so you had to start field hockey or whatever. It's like, okay, so it wasn't your thing.

 

That's fine. You know, it doesn't didn't suit your skills or your mindset right now. Maybe it will at some point, but we can try something else. Like there's no there's nothing wrong with that, particularly when you're a kid and you should have be able to try all kinds of things.

 

Ann

Well, that's another question too about, you know, is it better for kids to try a lot of different things to let them, you know, play basketball, baseball, football, whatever, several different things rather than, you know, specializing in one thing from a young age and, you know, also that brings up the question of overlapping sports. Like, you know, I knew kids when my son was playing. I mean we just did one thing at a time, but I knew there were kids that were playing several different sports at one time. So talk to me about that, about specializing and about should they try a lot of different things or should it be one and all the overlapping kids doing a million sports at one time.

 

Linda

Yeah, well, there's, it's pretty unanimous among sports medicine doctors among even the US Olympic Committee. Any respectable governing body of sports, the experts in sports, elite sports, medical sports doctors, that early specialization except in a very few sports like gymnastics, diving, skating. Perhaps, I'm not sure if that's one of them, but kind of not your mainstream sports. It's a bad idea to specialize early. It's not just neutral, it's bad. It's not good for your kids. They should be exposed. If in your mind, again, leaving out for a minute that the kids should be the one calling the shots about their sports career, if you think you want them to have the opportunity to play when they're older.

 

I think that's probably what most parents think. I just want to have them the chance. Maybe they'll make a high school team. Then the wisest course is to offer them, encourage a variety of sports. This is what all the sports doctors will tell you, that focusing on a specific skill development is the opposite of what you should be doing. Because maybe in that moment, maybe they'll be the star of the third grade, you know, baseball champ. They'll be the star of that team or the...you know, the winning goalkeeper in soccer, because they're just so advanced, but this will backfire. It is, first of all, they're gonna likely get sick to death of it by the time, by the time you really want them to play, they're gonna be so sick of it. They'll want nothing to do with it. They're much more apt to get hurt. And you know, everyone, sports are not, I would never argue that sports should be like risk-free. That's insane. There's some risk involved, but you know.

 

The types of injuries that kids are getting who play, who specialize early in one sport, play year round, are the kinds of injuries that can derail them for many, you know, for eight months. And they don't always come. Well, sports like an ACL tear, which is your anterior cruciate ligament, which is that ligament in your knee connects your tibia to your femur. It's ACL tears, which happen when...

 

Ann

Now why is that?

 

Linda

It's more, they're more up and happen to girls for one thing, when they kind of land awkwardly and twist in a certain way and then it tears, then that, the general course of action is surgery. And the rehab for that is months. It's months in the making. So kids.

 

 

Ann

And is this more likely to happen though? Why? I mean, because of repetitiveness of one action or something? Okay.

 

Linda

Yes.

 

It's too many hours playing, so it's just too many hours practicing in a structured setting, too many games. You know, the joints and ligaments there get worn down by all of this repetitive play in one thing. That's why if you generalize, if you encourage kids to play multiple different sports, it puts pressure on other parts of the body. They develop other parts of the body. They're not just doing this one thing that is going to, if, is going, is more apt to cause them injury. And if they do get injured, they'll have, you know, nothing to fall back on. That's the other thing. So early specialization is there's, I don't know if any legitimate sports doctor or sports,

 

Linda

professional organization that encourages that. College coaches don't want it. The best athletes were multi-sport athletes. You know, it's just, however, there is this pressure to start early, you know, junior pre-academy, U-4s in soccer because get them started young.

Now to the point about playing multi-sports, I think it's, parents need to keep in mind this idea that kids should not be playing sports for more hours per week than years they are old. That's kind of a rule of thumb. So if your kid is playing multiple sports, your 10 year old playing soccer and baseball, for example, we had a year or two of that, which is kind of nightmarish. You just need to make sure that it's not exceeding, if your child is 10, 10 hours a week, because they're more apt to get hurt. And these kinds of injuries that are really going to derail them.

So there's also how much of an appetite you have in your family for this kind of driving around and stuff. Again, if your child is like 100% in, loves it, you can afford it, you can afford the time, you can afford the money, you're not bored to tears the way you were, I too, in those doubleheader baseball games or torture, then do it.

 

 

Linda

But you just have to put, you have to be careful that, you know, no outside body is gonna come in and say, wait, that's too much. You know, the sky's the limit. You could have your child in four activities, four sports, one season. No one's gonna say you can't do that. So you have to kind of look out for them.

 

Ann

You know, that's the sad thing, I think. You know, I heard you talking on, I can't remember which podcast it was, but to a couple of doctors. And, you know, they were talking about how, you know, every year there are these big, you know, conferences where all the doctors are talking about how it's bad to specialize from an early age and all the injuries and that kind of thing. But somehow this is not getting over to the parents. I mean, there are no conferences for parents to come to learn all about how to parent or you know maybe just in the sports arena you know what are we supposed to do about sports so you know we see what everyone else is doing around us and it i mean it is peer pressure for parents i think that lead to a lot of these things you know they see this you know the kids at the olympic level doing great and they think oh

 

Linda

Yes.

 

Ann

So let's start them out at two on the gymnastics mat or in the baseball field or whatever. And I mean, my husband started my son playing golf. I mean, when he was old enough to walk, he had a golf club in his hand and he was on the golf course, but he likes to say, well, that's a sport that you can continue on into your adult years. Now, is there something to be said for that? I mean, I know, like for instance, baseball, you don't see grown men playing baseball unless they're on a baseball team and they're making millions of dollars a year. Are there some sports that would, I mean, we had friends who were really into tennis and they were very insistent. Actually, we had one friend who was a Wimbledon player. And so they started their kids out young and it was tennis all the time, 24 hours a day.

That's the sport that people do. I see old ladies on the tennis courts in their 70s playing tennis. So is there a difference between sports and what we should be focusing on or maybe pushing with our kids?

 

Linda

I think the bottom line has to be, does the child want to play this? Is it something that excites them? And I'm not, which isn't to say you wait for them to come up and say, I want to play tennis. Like you introduce it. And I think if you, like in my family, it was running. So we would always go out there and run, my husband and I, and talk about it and extol the virtues of it and encourage them if they wanted to do it.

 

 

Linda

You know, tennis is different because you have to get out there and learn the skills. I think it's very dependent on the attitude you bring to it. If, you know, it's we need to get out there and drill your forehand or you need to work on your serve, my little kindergartner, that's not healthy. And I don't think it's going to lead to long-term continuation in the sport. That's the other thing about early specialization. Those who specialize early are less apt to play later. So, but there are some sports.

 

And again, I get your husband's point with golf. You want them to kind of, this is a lifetime sport and maybe we can, if you keep it fun and this is something we do as a family and we're not gonna go overboard with it, it's fun to kind of keep it light. I guess we've gotten so it's so serious.

 

So I don't think there's any harm in like introducing your kids to tennis and having them play when they're young or golf or, you know, to make it kind of what the household does. It's it's really about the attitude you bring to it as the adult that how this is so deathly important that you become a great golfer or great tennis player. It's just it's very I think it's poisonous for the adult child relationship and probably won't end up successfully. I mean, there are some cases, you know, you look at Andrea Agassi, his book was all about that. His father pushed him so hard and he really was deeply resentful of that. And, you know, most people aren't gonna be Andrea Agassi no matter what their parent does.

 

 

Ann

Oh yeah, I can see that. Yeah, it doesn't. Exactly, exactly. I think I heard you say that, what is it? 6% of high schoolers go on to play college sports. Is that right? And then maybe 1% of those go on to play professionally in anything.

 

 

Linda

Yeah, so the way, yeah, the stats I think are so interesting and I think parents really ought to keep them in mind when they're starting to drift, like, was this important? Should we be doing this? Just to bear in mind, if you're thinking about, always thinking about outcomes, where is this gonna take us? If that's really your preoccupation, then bear in mind that six to 7% of high school athletes play in college at any level. And it depends on the sport, but it's generally not higher than that.

 

 

Linda

2% of high school athletes make any money whatsoever. And that's only in D1 and D2 athletics. D1 is the most competitive, usually big teams. 0.3% of high school athletes get a so-called free ride. And that's in football and men's basketball and some women basketball players. The odds of getting this you know, free riding college is extremely, it's so remote. And I know we all think our children are special and wonderful and uniquely talented. And I'm sure they are in their own way, but you know, you can't compel them to do that. You can't compel them to be an outstanding athlete of some kind. It really has to come from within. And if they get there, great, good for them. They're so good.

 

that a college coach wanted them, they're so good that they got money, great. But you cannot compel that as a parent.

 

Ann

Yeah, that's, you know, that's what I see so much of is that, you know, I hate to say wasting our time, but you've, you've put all this pressure on your kid for all these years and you've spent all this money and you've gotten them all these extra coaches and they've played wonderfully, you know, through high school and then they don't get a scholarship. They don't make the team or they become disinterested in it because it's been drilled into them all these years. And what was it all for? So it seems the better, what I'm hearing you say is, it's better to let this be kid driven, the whole sports thing, to let it be kid driven, to offer them more options as far as what sports they get involved in, let them try out see what they gravitate towards, see what their inner motivation is towards these different things, and let them call the shots. And if they want the extra help, get them the extra help. If you can afford to do it, if they want to do the travel thing, do the travel thing, you know, and let them kind of call the shots. So, you know, because so many kids have anxiety these days, so many have anxiety, social anxiety, they have generalized anxiety, just overall stress and anxiety. If they don't want to play sports, should we be pushing a little bit? I mean, I just feel like so bad that some of these kids have so much time on their hands that is not structured and not involved in something. I mean, where do you land on that?

 

Linda

Yeah, I understand that teenagers can get themselves into trouble. You don't want them smoking beneath the bleachers or getting into doing something stupid. And especially if they're struggling in high school. I guess where I would come down on that is you're right, I mean like sports, there's so many benefits as we talked about at the start, like you want them to derive these benefits from athletics. I would say that, you know, there are other options besides school sports. Looking back, I might say perhaps he could get involved at the YMCA, Y teams, or pick up a sport that the school doesn't have, like something like taekwondo or some individual thing. Now that would involve you nudging. Like I understand, like teenagers don't just automatically do the right thing because you're stepping back, far from it. And I think it's fair to say, look, you may not want to join a team, but you have to do something after school. You're not going to hang out with your friends outside CVS.

Do something, maybe it's get a job. You know, if you don't wanna play soccer, fine, but you gotta get a job. Or you gotta go, you know, do some volunteer work. This is another thing that I think really all kids should, that parents would be wise to encourage, and I did not do enough of this and I regret that, that doing something for other people or animals, whatever, giving back in some way, gets kids.

 

 

Linda

teenagers who are already so self-centered to like think beyond themselves. And I would say, especially the very good athletes, because there's so much hovering and pampering around them, and you know, making sure they have just the right drink and the right food that, let's get them out of that world every now and then and let them see what it's like to be living in a nursing home or, you know, there's all kinds of opportunities. But I digress a little bit because I...

 

 

Ann

Oh, so I agree, yeah. No, but that makes so much sense.

 

Linda

It does. I mean, if you say to your child, look, you don't have to play soccer, but you have to do something. Maybe it's work, maybe it's volunteer. Maybe it's start a sport, play a sport that you've never learned a new sport. I think those are all fair without, you know, being too heavy handed, but also having, obviously, you don't, you know, I'm just gonna let them like go.

 

Dork around on their phone for five hours either, or play video games all afternoon. I mean, that's another, I get that. There's that reality of kids.

 

When our kids, let's say our kids, we haven't pushed them to play different sports. By the time they make it to middle school or high school, I think I heard you say that running is something that most kids can pick up.

 

 

Ann

and still do well with, it doesn't require talent, but it doesn't require the practice. That right? Is that right? So tell me a little bit, because I know there are parents who have not pushed their kids or their kids have not done anything and maybe they do need to get involved in something in middle or high school. Would that be an option? Would that be the best option?

 

Linda

Mm-hmm. Yes. There are some sports like that where you, you know, you don't, you're not going to be at a disadvantage just because you haven't been running since you're five years old. You can start as a freshman in high school. And if a lot of cross country teams don't have cuts. So like in my town, which is not huge, it's 20,000, the high school cross country team has like a hundred kids because the coach doesn't cut. So what's great about that is that you can start out you know, running a 5k very slowly because the standard race distance in New Jersey is 5k, 3.1 miles. You can take slash minutes off your time and you can get, you know, you're not at a disadvantage. In fact, I would argue you're at an advantage if you haven't been running since you were five or six or seven because your legs aren't tired. You have so much room to improve. So that is one sport, you know, where

 

There's absolutely, it's a great time to start as high school. There's no disadvantage whatsoever. You are going to have kids who are a lot faster than you. The other thing that's really exciting about running, and of course I am biased, but you never know how good you can be. You know, there's no, you just don't know. You might be great, but when you start improving, it's so exciting because you're like, wow, maybe I'm going to be good. And you know, you start beating people and bringing your time down. And it's...

 

 

Linda

It's like a, it's just a wonderful sport that way. It's really hard, but it's very gratifying.

 

Ann

Linda’s still running today. Her kids are grown and on their own – no more coaching and no more games to attend. But she still has her sport – the one in which she was driven to compete as a teenager – the one she’s loved for years.

As she wrote in her book, about how her parents had engaged with her and her 4 siblings regarding their sports, “While they had encouraged our athletic pursuits, carting us to practice and attending games when they could, they hadn’t attached their psyches to our performance; their work, friendships, and other adult responsibilities tok precedence. Our games were mindless diversions and an afterthought to their fuller and more complicated lives. But their indifference didn’t feel like a deficit of love. Rather, it signaled that my games we my endeavor and that their affection for me – for all my siblings – was independent of what we achieved in sports.”

So, remind yourself that while there are so many wonderful benefits to our kids playing sports, organized or unstructured, you have to know where to draw the line for yourself.

Your kids’ sports are for them and them alone. Sure, you can take pride in their performance but if you feel so totally invested in your kid as an athlete – ask yourself why. If you’ve been the one pushing for the travel team or the extra coaching or specialization or whatever it is…why? What’s your goal? Be honest with yourself. If it’s about a scholarship, you need to look at that realistically.

Their life – your life – doesn’t have to be so chaotic and stressful and competitive. Don’t let peer pressure from other parents do it. Don’t fall for it.

Let your kids drive these decisions. Expose them to different options, make it fun – let it be about family, about healthy competition, exercise, their mental health. And if they’re not into sports – it’s not the end of the world – they’ll find their passion elsewhere – we all do…eventually.

You really want to read Linda’s book – again it’s called Take Back the Game and it’s a wonderfully researched, well-written and thought-provoking book. You can find Linda at Lindaflanaganauthor.com and I’ll have all her links in the show description right where you’re listening.

That’s it for Speaking of Teens today. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy the show, I would really appreciate it if you share it with your book club, your office mates, your fellow teachers, your golf team…

And please join us in the Speaking of Teens Facebook Group – it’s one way we can support each other in this journey - the link is right there at the very bottom of the show description in your app.

Until next time, remember, a little change goes a long way.