Competitive Sports: Good or Bad for Kids Many may think that competitive sports are beneficial for our youth, but that’s because they don’t know the truth about the dangerous competitive sports that kids play. Competitive sports are truly harmful. They are really expensive, kids can get serious injuries, and kids can be completely ignored by teammates and coaches. Competitive sports are very expensive and hard to pay for. Parents will end up having to pay for lessons, equipment, uniforms, and travel. According to the article High Cost of Youth Sports “1 in 5 parents ends up spending over 1,000 per child a year” That is a lot of money for parents to be spending just for their kids to play dangerous sports. And with the prices of equipment constantly rising, it is …show more content…
Some kids are getting brain injuries that could affect them for the rest of their lives. In the article Pushing too Hard too Young by Jacqueline Stenson it states that “injuries can have long lasting effects” These effects may impact school work, especially if the injuries are concussions or brain injuries. Also, in a different article by Adam Buckley Cohen, it says that some NFL players have retired because of head injuries they got playing football. That only proves that competitive sports are dangerous for kids and teenagers to be playing. Another reason why competitive sports are bad is because kids can be completely ignored by teammates and coaches. Many know that this is a problem from personal experience, like Jeff Pearlman “The coach would have all his players form a circle, put their hands inside and yell out, “Team!” Then, without fail, my brother walked to the bench, sat down and remained there—completely ignored—for three quarters.” This is how Jeff Pearlman remembered his brother playing sports. It can be kind of sad to see kids getting neglected and left out. The competition can be mentally difficult for young
In the United States today the age for a kid to start playing competitive sports continues to get lower and lower. Parents in America have started to get their children involved in sports at a much earlier age than they used to, hoping that their child will be the next superstar. Parents are placing too much emphasis on winning and being the best, instead of teaching their children how to have fun. Parents in the U.S. are also placing too much pressure on their kids to be the best. Parents in America are becoming much too involved in youth sports and are starting to get out of control, sometimes even resorting to violence and vulgarity.
Kids are playing in a pressure pot full of stress and this is dangerous. They feel over-responsible toward team mates, parents and coaches and in consequence, are playing with chronic pain and even concussions. One-Sport Wonder Kids are deciding by ages 9-10 they want to excel in one sport in order to win a college scholarship.
If there are many injury reports then the sport has to be pretty dangerous. “Based on almost 1,900 injury reports submitted to the RIO, the researchers estimate there was 517,726 football-related injuries during the 2005-2006 season at the high school level across the United States.” (High School, College Football Comes With Risk) High school sports are more dangerous because the athletes are still growing. “High school athletes are less physically mature and have less muscle mass than the collegiate athletes, for instance. They also have incomplete growth plates, meaning their bones are still developing.” (High School, College Football Comes With
Nonetheless, some parents are still very reluctant to put their kids in football or rugby. This, I believe, is why high contact sports could eventually perish. Fewer and fewer kids are playing sports each year where there is an elevated risk of a head injury or concussion. (Paine) Parents do not want to gamble with their children’s mental ability and thus deny their children the opportunity to participate in high contact sports. In some sports, they have changed all sorts of rules and almost completely changed the game to ensure player safety. For instance, Hockey Canada called for a rule change to delay body checking in minor hockey. Instead of having the kids learn how to hit in PeeWee (ages 11-12), they have pushed it back an age group to Bantam (Ages 13-15). (CBC Sports) Parents were becoming too nervous about placing their children into a sport where there was hitting or hard body interaction for absolutely no reason. Why spend thousands of dollars for your child to play a contact sport and risk having them injured when there is little chance of making it as a professional athlete. Essentially, contact sports are becoming less popular among younger children and
Playing competitive sports affect young people in a good way. They are good because you have that commitment and now its hard to back down. In the "no" section of 'Have Youth Sports Become Too Intense?", it states "Intense training promotes self-confidence, self-discipline, and commitment." Student athletes can agree with all of this because it teaches discipline and a lot of other things. Parents can disagree with my reason, because they don't want their child to go through with intense training. They think it's way too much for the child.
One of the assumptions Statsky makes is that, “One readily understandable danger of overly competitive sports is that they entice children into physical actions that are bad for growing bodies” (627). This statement rests on the assumption that children would not perform any “physical actions that are bad for growing bodies” (Statsky 627) without organized competitive sports. This is simply untrue. Children jump from swings, climb trees, skateboard, “pop wheelies” and otherwise put themselves in physical peril with alarming regularity. Children’s free and unorganized play often results in broken bones and stitches, even for the most timid children.
Young athletes put in danger by the competition, aggressiveness, and intensity of sports. Kids everyday are being pushed past limits by coaches parents and fans. The intensity of sports has become so high they are causing mental and physical exhaustion. Sports like wrestling has kids eat different to either lose gain weight. Football player, Baseball player, and even cheerleader have to work out in extreme temperatures. Some kids involved in competitive sports have been taking weight lifting classes and even just conditioning. The youth are being put in danger due to how competitive, aggressive, and intense youth sports have become.
Imagine that your school is starting a soccer team and since you love playing soccer with your friends you decide that you’ll sign up, knowing that you're not the strongest player. The coach has his heart set on winning so he makes you sit out every practice and game for a majority of the time. The coach puts you in the game reluctantly because he has to, but points out to everyone that you are a bad soccer player. You came to practice to become a better player, how do you feel? Kids shouldn’t be allowed to play competitive sports because due to the dangerous nature of competitive sports you can get injuries that may lead to health issues.
Some people may argue that Competitive sports give children many chances to work with a team, and get in shape(Lisa Bigelow). But this is not always true, some coaches and parents push their kid to the edge and can harm them. Over working a child is not good at young ages, because they can only take so much and their body is not fully developed. Teamwork skills aren’t always provided if a coach is making a player the star of the team, some of kids may feel left out and possibly want to quit. Kids that aren’t as athletic as some kids might not be able to physically do what more athletic kids can do, this can make them feel like they aren’t good enough. With coaches pushing kids too hard can get kids to go against each other, potentially causing them to harm one another. Getting kids to going against each other is not good teamwork. Working kids over the limit of what
Thousands of kids around the world are injured because of sports. Sports can hurt kids if they aren't careful about what they are doing. Sports can distract kids from school work, and injures kids who aren't
In a CNN article, Kelly Wallace said that more than 3.5 million children younger than fourteen need treatment for sports related injuries (1). Many children are getting hurt in sports, and the benefits , may not be worth the countless concussions. The brains of young children have not fully developed and hard hits to the head can be life-threatening. The Roque News wrote an article on students playing sports, and they said, “In 2009 two high school students died from multiple hits to the head…”(McGough 1). Now innocent teenagers died from a contact sport. The constant jarring of the head finally killed two high schools students providing sports can be extremely dangerous. There are some downsides that make school sports an inadequate decision.
Due to this belief system, the other valuable aspects of the sports are left behind like sportsmanship and teamwork. I own view are aligned with Satsky that these competitive sports are the cause of inferiority complex in many children. This starts right at the beginning when the children are selected to be a part of the team or not. The method of selection is extremely brutal and inconsiderate of a child’s age and their physical and mental capacity. The selection criteria are so demanding that most of the children give up the idea of even trying out in the first place. The ones that somehow manage to gather up the courage to do try out are left heartbroken when they fail to meet the exaptation of the coaches. Only the ones who are trained beforehand and know every skill are selected to join. Even if someone is showing potential and can become better with a little help are sent home. This kind of attitude leaves the children devastated and they give up on sports altogether. Their potential remains buried. Statsky rightly stresses about the pressure the children are put through in the name of tough love. The children sometimes face horrible injuries in the field and get afraid to ever set foot in the game again. They avoid playing because of the fear of getting hurt q they quit the sports to protect themselves. Children come up with all sort of excuses to get
youth sports [were] the one haven for good sportsmanship," says Darrell Burnett, a clinical child psychologist and youth sports psychologist. "Not anymore. It's not just a game anymore." With technology (etc) distracting our children with violence and so on, we cannot afford to ruin what sports may do for them. With sports being just one of the few things left that can contribute to success in life, education, and health, parents need not to put any sort of unnecessary pressure on their kids at such a young age, or any age for that matter, ever.
It 's been outrageous , how many kids get injured per year playing youth sports for school and organizations. The youth who play sports receive plenty medical attention throughout the year due to injuries cause from actions made occuring in games. Health plays a big part in sports because if your are are not healthy many things can go wrong with the body including dehydration, heart problems , and muscle spasm. Playing a sport can be very hard to juggle with school and also getting talked down by coaches and parents. Dehydration is a high possibility because of outside sports that happen in the spring/summer and playing and practicing in humid conditions that you are not well prepared for can be bad and there will be consequences. Parents and
There has long been disagreement about competitive sports. Competitive sports is complicated because, people say that their kid will get hurt but this argument is misguided because there will be a lot more things you will gain rather than lose. The actual question that should be debated is, how do competitive sports influence an athlete’s mental and physical well being. I have played football for five years and I saw what sports can do to you. I saw it change my teammates, I saw it changing myself.