Slappy Doo Hoo wrote:Pointing out via a web-page, that organized team sports can suck donkey balls, is not an "obsession". If so then any topical web-page is also an "obsession".Any obssession is bad.
Just like, being so against sports, some loser has to take the time to put together a website filled with articles pointing out what's bad about sports.
That particular web-page is obsessive because it focuses only on sports fanaticism.
You could make the same exact argument for any form of entertainment: television, music, ect. They're just focusing on sports.
Slappy Doo Hoo wrote:No not with music unless you can show me how kids are regularly and commonly "pressured" into playing a musical instrument in a competitive team setting. I also do not see kids being regularly and commonly "pressured" into being TV producers in a competitive team setting.You could make the same exact argument for any form of entertainment: television, music, ect. They're just focusing on sports.
These days, there is too much pressure on children who participate in organized sports because of the unnecessary parental involvement they experience. A growing concern amongst those involved in youth sports is that certain aspects of parental involvement become detrimental to the development and experiences of young athletes. Early emphasis on winning, making money, and the disruption of education can exceedingly affect ones desire to further participate in a sport later on in his/her life.
With more and more children participating in some sort of organized sport than ever before, there is a constant concern regarding the pressures kids are brought into to excel. Emotionally over-involved parents often think that it is their responsibility to persuade, push, or support the children's fantasies or sporting objectives, even if the kids themselves do not share the same aspirations as his/her parents. Part of growing up is learning what interests you the most. It's how one becomes familiar with who they really are and what they enjoy doing in life. Unfortunately, for many yo...
Hello!
With childhood obesity on the rise, and health officials concerned about the sedentary lives of children, there is some positive news...
"There are an estimated 41 million American kids playing competitive youth sports. The number of children involved in youth sports has risen significantly over the last 10 to 20 years, according to Dr. Steve Carney, a professor of sport management at Drexel University in Philadelphia. ... Much of the growing enthusiasm for youth sports has come from the changing way in which children play, experts say. ... As unstructured play has gone by the wayside, competitive league sports have filled the vacuum. But what kind of effect has it had on kids? For the most part, a good one, experts say. Kids learn how to be physically active -- no small feat at a time when childhood diabetes is soaring and 16 percent of American kids are considered obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- as well as how to work within a team and take pride in their skills. But there's a downside as well. ... One of the biggest concerns in youth sports, Gould says, is parents who push their kids into 'premature specialization,' where kids focus all their skills on one sport and endure year-round training. It can lead not only to burnout, but also to sports injuries."
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/07/03/rise.kids.sports/index.html
While some are happy to see anything that encourages children to be more active, others are concerned about the mental and physical "side effects" of too much time and attention being invested into one or more organized sports at a young age. While the mental and/ or emotional effects can be subtle, the physical toll can often be easier to document...
"There are two general types [of sports injuries]. The first type is called an acute traumatic injury. Acute traumatic injuries usually involve a single blow from a single application of force - like getting a cross-body block in football. Acute traumatic injuries include the following: a fracture..., a bruise, known medically as a contusion..., a strain..., a sprain..., an abrasion..., a laceration.... The second type of sports injury is called an overuse or chronic injury. Chronic injuries are those that happen over a period of time. Chronic injuries are usually the result of repetitive training, such as running, overhand throwing, or serving a ball in tennis. These include: stress fractures..., tendinitis..., epiphysitis or apophysitis.... Often overuse injuries seem less important than acute injuries. You may be tempted to ignore that aching in your wrist or that soreness in your knees, but always remember that just because an injury isn't dramatic doesn't mean it's unimportant or will go away on its own. If left untreated, a chronic injury will probably get worse over time."
http://www.kidshealth.org/teen/exercise/safety/sports_injuries.html
Even if no physical injuries are evident, the amount of time required for practices, travel, and games (or meets) can tax the body in other ways.
"Most teens need about 8 1/2 to more than 9 hours of sleep each night. The right amount of sleep is essential for anyone who wants to do well on a test or play sports without tripping over their feet. Unfortunately, though, many teens don't get enough sleep. ... For most teens, the pressure to do well in school is more intense than when they were kids, and it's harder to get by without studying hard. But teens also have other demands on their time - everything from sports and other extracurricular activities to fitting in a part-time job to save money for college. ... Teens who fall asleep after midnight may still have to get up early for school, meaning that they may only squeeze in 6 or 7 hours of sleep a night. An hour or 2 of missed sleep a night may not seem like a big deal, but it can create a noticeable sleep deficit over time. ... This sleep deficit impacts everything from a teen's ability to pay attention in class to his or her mood. Research shows that 20% of high school students fall asleep in class, and experts have been able to tie lost sleep to poorer grades. Lack of sleep also damages people's ability to do their best in athletics."
http://www.kidshealth.org/teen/your_body/take_care/how_much_sleep.html
Often faced with the feeling that there are not enough hours in the day, student athletes try to balance time between school, practice, homework, and sleep. In order to do well in sports, young athletes need time to practice. In order to stay eligible to play, student athletes need to spend time doing homework. Going to class is not typically an option, so sleep time suffers. As there is less time for sleep, the student will not be able to think as clearly, and the athlete will not be able to perform to the best of his/ her ability.
As one might imagine, this seemingly vicious cycle can be the source of some stress.
"The good news about regular physical activity is that everyone can benefit from it. ... Parents can help their children maintain a physically active lifestyle by providing encouragement and opportunities for physical activity. Families can plan outings and events that allow and encourage everyone in the family to be active. Teenagers: Regular physical activity improves strength, builds lean muscle, and decreases body fat. Activity can build stronger bones to last a lifetime. ... Regular physical activity burns calories while preserving lean muscle mass. Regular physical activity is a key component of any weight-loss or weight-management effort. ... Everyone under stress, including persons experiencing anxiety or depression [can also benefit from an active lifestyle]. Regular physical activity improves one's mood, helps relieve depression, and increases feelings of well-being."
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/physical/importance/everyone.htm
Questions of the Week:
How can student athletes find the balance between school, homework, sports, and sleep? What can non-athletes do to get more exercise without adding more stress? Who can benefit from organized sports? Who might benefit more from more unstructured opportunities to exercise and/ or participate in informal sports activities (a game of basketball with a few friends after school for example)?
Please email me with any ideas or suggestions.
Note: Due to increasing amounts of SPAM sent to this account, please include "QOW" in the subject line when sending me email.
I look forward to reading what you have to say.
Cindy
[email protected]
Health Community Coordinator
Access Excellence @ the National Health Museum
http://www.accessexcellence.org
Kids in organized sports more likely to cheat, study shows
RON POZZER/HAMILTON SPECTATOR FILE PHOTO
A U.S. study suggests that participation in amateur sports might actually encourage children to become cheats and bullies. Email story
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Speak Out: Sports and Cheating Mar 05, 2007 04:30 AM
Stuart Laidlaw
Faith and Ethics Reporter
A provocative new study says that while athletes continue to be role models, and involvement in organized sports can shape a child's character, the influences might not always be positive.
In fact, the study by an American ethics centre says children involved in sports are more likely to cheat in school, are learning from their coaches how to best cut corners and are more open to forms of bullying as a way to motivate people.
The findings, by the Los Angeles-based Josephson Institute, fly in the face of the most widely held view of athletics: that it builds strong character, honesty and team-building skills. Those who make their living from such activities say those beliefs still hold true.
"Participation in sports will encourage positive behaviours," says Jean Côté, acting director of the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen's University.
But in an era of star athletes glorified over team effort, performance-enhancing drugs being used in sports such as professional baseball and bike racing (and even auto racing in the form of fuel additives) and bench-clearing brawls, the Josephson Institute thought the matter was worth further investigation.
The two-year survey of 5,275 high school athletes from across the U.S. yielded some surprising results - at least for anyone who loves sports.
Two-thirds of the athletes admitted to cheating on an exam at least once in the previous year, compared with 60 per cent in the rest of the student population.
Football players were the worst, at 72 per cent.
"For most kids, sport promotes rather than discourages cheating," the report says.
While the students surveyed overwhelmingly saw their coaches as a positive influence on their lives, they also said it was all right for the coach to teach them how to cheat and get away with it.
For instance, 43 per cent of boys thought it was okay for their coaches to teach ways to hold and push that were hard for referees to detect. Again, football was worst, at 51 per cent. Interestingly, the rates were much lower for girls, of whom only 22 per cent thought it was all right for coaches to teach illegal holds.
The study did not examine what the connection between sports and cheating might be.
Was it simply that the kids were learning to cheat from coaches bent on winning? Or were parents pushing their children to succeed at any cost? Or was it just a matter of child athletes being so busy honing their on-field skills that they felt a need to cheat to stay ahead - both academically and athletically.
Answering those questions might tell us who to blame - and the answer is probably a mix of positive answers to all three questions - but the fact remains that the sports teams we hope will help our kids become better people might not being doing the job we want.
In fact, if the study is to be believed, it might be having the opposite effect.
"There is reason to worry that the sports fields ... are becoming the training grounds for the next generation of corporate and political villains and thieves," the report says.
Côté says sports themselves aren't to blame if there are problems with athletes. Instead, he puts the blame on parents and coaches.
"Sport is not bad or good. It's the people around sport who make it bad or good - especially the adults," he says.
Côté has focused much of his research on the influence coaches and parents have on child athletes.
In one study, he found that bantam-age hockey coaches were more likely to encourage aggressive behaviour in their charges and to challenge a referee's calls when they are losing a game.
This happens, he says, even though the coaches tell the kids away from the ice to refrain from being too aggressive and to respect the referee.
"They tell the kids one thing, and act differently," he says.
Such pressures increase with the skill level of the children involved, he says. As the children reach more elite levels of sports, the pressure on them to succeed will likewise increase.
In the United States, high school sport is often an elite arena where kids compete to win university scholarships. Côté says the Josephson study should be seen in that context.
"The crowds are huge at high school games. It's part of the culture."
Côté says parents need to do more than just drop their children off at games and hope that they are learning desired lessons about fair play and teamwork. They also need to be conscious of how their own expectations might be influencing behaviour.
Character building can't be contracted out to a sports league. It's still a parent's job, and how we approach our children's sporting activities is a big part of that.
Tell me if you all believe PE is not part and parcel of the public school system.
Quote:These days, there is too much pressure on children who participate in organized sports because of the unnecessary parental involvement they experience. A growing concern amongst those involved in youth sports is that certain aspects of parental involvement become detrimental to the development and experiences of young athletes. Early emphasis on winning, making money, and the disruption of education can exceedingly affect ones desire to further participate in a sport later on in his/her life.
With more and more children participating in some sort of organized sport than ever before, there is a constant concern regarding the pressures kids are brought into to excel. Emotionally over-involved parents often think that it is their responsibility to persuade, push, or support the children's fantasies or sporting objectives, even if the kids themselves do not share the same aspirations as his/her parents. Part of growing up is learning what interests you the most. It's how one becomes familiar with who they really are and what they enjoy doing in life. Unfortunately, for many yo...
http://www.123helpme.com/preview.asp?id=106862
CHILD'S PLAY NO MORE
The pressure on kids and coaches in youth leagues has reached a level that would laughable if it weren't so destructive
C.W. Nevius, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, December 10, 2000
Last March, after an exhausting nine-month schedule, the White Buffaloes, a boys Danville soccer team coached by John Wondolowski, won the prestigious California Soccer State Cup.
That was when Wondolowski got the news. He was out and would not be asked back to coach this season. The players needed someone to develop their skills and move on to the next level. So the Mustang Soccer League was bringing in a professional coach. The kicker? The kids on the White Buffaloes were 11 years old.
Professional coaches for kids who are still in grade school? Absolutely. In the Bay Area parents shell out $70 an hour for individual pitching and hitting coaches for their Little Leaguers. They pay professional coaching salaries that have been estimated as high as $75,000 a year. And they warn kids they had better specialize in a specific sport -- all before they become teenagers.
"If they wait until they are 12," Virgil Lewis, executive director of U.S. Soccer has been quoted as saying, "it is too late."
California may be the cutting edge of the trend, but the professionalization of kids' sports is nationwide. The 12-year-olds from Tom's River, N.J., who make up the program that won the Little League World Series in 1998 and made it to the nationally televised showcase three times between 1995 and 1999, have an annual budget estimated at $200,000 and a sumptuous clubhouse with indoor batting cages for winter workouts.
"This trend of professionalizing youth sports is troubling," says Gregg Heinzmann, director of the Youth Sports Research Council at Rutgers University.
"We are using a professional model for youth sports."
And, as one local parent put it, "for that kind of money, we'd better win." Parents buy into wildly unrealistic expectations for college scholarships or professional sports careers.
"I've got mixed feelings about the whole thing," says Jeff Stanga, president of the Northern Chapter of the California Youth Soccer Association. "In these very wealthy communities it is almost like the more you pay, the better you feel. People say, 'You guys are paying that (coach) $20,000?' And they say 'Yeah!' "
And when results don't follow, the pressure escalates. Paid coaches are fired, parents switch teams and -- inevitably -- the tension boils over in ugly confrontations. Incidents from the headlines would be laughable if they were not so grave and deadly.
-- A baseball coach in Wagoner, Okla., had to be restrained after he started choking the umpire during a girls T-ball game for 5- and 6-year-olds.
-- A "midget" football game in Pennsylvania last fall turned into a brawl with more than 100 parents, coaches and fans.
-- And right here in Pleasanton, a referee was attacked by two men on the field.
"For me," says Wondolowski, who has been coaching Little League and soccer in the area for 23 years, "something in youth sports is really wrong. If we are screwing up our kids, let's stop it."
Ground zero for the trend in the Bay Area, without a doubt, is Pleasanton, and its Ballistic United Soccer Club. If you have any doubts, check their Pleasanton soccer Web site (www.pleasantonsoccer.org), which refers to the East Bay city as "SoccerTown, USA."
"They are," says Stanga, "trying to build a powerhouse there."
It is not impossible to make a case for professional coaches. After all, parent often approach coaching as it were a paying job, and they have conflicting interests. Wondolowski, the state champion who lost his job to a paid coach, is no saint. He yelled at officials and drove his players hard. He doesn't deny that, nor that it isn't easy to coach your son and his friends. But, he says, isn't the family aspect part of the idea?
"My son is still on that team," he says. "And the coach is a wonderful young man, a great guy, who knows soccer. But he is not a dad."
More and more, dad is the guy who writes the checks, not the one who plays catch with his son. Do you want to teach your kids to bat in the back yard, or sign him up for a one-on-one session with a hitting guru?
"Nine times out of ten," says Grady Fuson, director of scouting for the A's,
"you've got major damage control by the time the kid is 18. So many parents think they are Knute Rockne. My neighbor's kid is nine or 10 years old and he is already talking about a college scholarship."
The easy response is "What's new?" The pushy Little League parent is cliche in youth sports. He (or she) yells at kids from the stands, boos the umpire and takes the game way too seriously. We've all known someone like that. Why is this a big deal?
Because every indicator shows it is getting much worse. Certainly, the stakes have never been higher. If it isn't the pressure to get a college scholarship, or make the elite team, it is a numbing number of pressure-cooker tournaments, some of them for kids no older than 10 years old.
"We have taken the under-10's off our tournament schedule," says CYSA's Stanga. "Instead of state tournaments we encourage jamborees where you don't keep score and you don't get anything, no trophy, just a participant pin."
Erik Johnson, a former professional baseball player who spent parts of three years with the Giants at the major-league level, now makes a living running EJ Sports, a highly regarded personal training program for youth baseball players based in Danville. Johnson could book $70-an-hour sessions with some Little Leaguers six days a week, but he has cut back because often "it seemed like the kids didn't want to be out there."
Johnson, who estimates he has worked with some 75,000 players in clinics and exhibitions, is a strong believer in personal instruction, but even he worries about the overdose of intense expectations.
"I see a lot of burnout," he says. "It used to be high school, but now it is 10-, 11-, 12-year-old kids. The kids get fried. They quit. They hate the game. They resent the game. They don't want to see the game."
But as Stanga says, some hypercompetitive leagues will argue that idea vehemently.
"They think that is so wrong," he says. "They say they are not going to develop."
"That child," says Karen Stepper, the president of Mustang Soccer, the league that dropped Wondolowski from his coaching job, "is going to be a better player when they are an adult."
Really? Consider the Little League World Series.
"Why is it necessary to know who the best 11- and 12-year-old baseball players are in the world?" asks the Youth Sports Research Council's Heinzmann. "Whose needs does that benefit?"
The theory would be that such high-level competition would help the young player down the road. The results, however, are not impressive. In the 53-year history of the Little League World Series only 21 participants have made it to the Major Leagues.
"Those Little League World Series kids," says the A's Fuson, "you never hear of them again."
"There are studies that show the champions in the Little League World Series are physically more advanced," says Heinzmann. "That's a fact. It has very little to do with coaching."
The response?
"I guess I don't believe that," says Mustang Soccer's Stepper. "I don't subscribe to that at all."
The odd part of the story is that no one sees himself as a villain. At some point everyone, at every level, says exactly the same thing.
"The primary goal is that the kids are having fun," Stepper says.
But are they?
"If you say you are doing it for the kids to have fun," says Heinzmann, "the first thing you want to do is make sure somebody is asking them if they are."
The numbers are not encouraging. According to a study by Richard Stratten of Virginia Tech's department of Health and Physical Education, 70 percent of all children involved in sports drop out before they turn 13.
Of course, becoming a teenager means developing other interests -- dating, school, and other social activities. But a comprehensive study conducted in 1987-88 by the Youth Sports Institute of Michigan State showed that "not having fun" and "too much pressure" were the second and fifth top reasons athletes between 10 and 18 quit a sport. (The No. 1 reason was "lost interest. ")
A study released last month by American Sports Data shows a large overall decline in participation in the last decade. In the case of baseball, for example, casual participation is off 26 percent. But the hard core, who play as often as once a week, year round, remain unchanged.
"The All-Star kid, that 5 percent, will always be there," says Johnson. "Where are the other 95 percent? They want to go to practice a couple of times a week, play a game, get a snack and make some friends. Those are the ones we need to pay attention to."
It is, say experts, an ominous trend. Casual players are being weeded out by tryouts and competition. Wondolowski recalls soccer tryouts for his Class I team when he saw "250 kids and I try to pick 15." If you don't make the elite team, or the All-Star team in Little League, the parents want to know why.
Around here, at least in the suburbs, it isn't from lack of money to throw at the problem.
"Soccer has become an upper-middle class sport," says CYSA's Stanga. "We did a demographic survey and we found the average income of our members is $84, 000 a year and 94 percent have Internet access at home."
So, if Jennifer or Jason isn't progressing, forget going out in the back yard and practicing -- hire a new coach.
"A lot of times, especially in Northern California, they go shopping for coaches," says Kevin Boyd, the Cal women's coach. "I've noticed a trend in this area. You bring in a group of kids from this area for a clinic and they argue with you. The parents want to come in and tell you the other coach didn't do it that way. It seems like the worst areas are the wealthiest in terms of politics and nonsense."
It isn't hard to picture the day when it becomes too much like a job and almost everyone gets fed up. Danville's Tony Gigliotti's son, Taylor, played for the state champion White Buffaloes, then jumped right into Little League baseball. At one point a coach suggested Taylor might want to play basketball.
"I told him, 'He's not interested,' " Gigliotti says he told the coach. "And then I said, 'Let me rephrase that. I'm not interested. I want him riding his bike and getting into trouble throwing water balloons. I want him to be a kid.' "
A noble thought. Certainly, at least some parents and children are opting to get off the athletic treadmill and go back to having a normal life.
"And then," says Wondolowski, "we sign them up for a $400 SAT prep course."
E-mail C.W. Nevius at [email protected].
This article appeared on page D - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Parent Resources
How Adults Can Make Kids' Sports a Nightmare
by Martha Brockenbrough
When I was on a swim team during my childhood, I remember one family of kids, all excellent at the sport. I also remember their mother, who, from the water, looked like a giant black mouth floating in the air. She was infamous for yelling at her kids while they raced, and the rest of us definitely felt their pain.
But she was far from the worst sports parent ever. That honor is shared by several infamous lunatics:
Wanda Webb Holloway, who was sent to prison for trying to have the mother of her daughter's cheerleading rival murdered;
Christophe Fauviau, a Frenchman convicted of poisoning his children's tennis rivals with an antianxiety drug. One drugged opponent fell asleep at the wheel of his car and died; and
Thomas Junta, who killed a fellow hockey dad after a fight during their sons' practice.
Sometimes, even coaches get in on the bad behavior. One awful coach in Pennsylvania actually paid his players $25 each to bean one of their teammates with a ball. The coach thought the boy, who is autistic, was dragging the team down.
Overbearing adults aren't a new thing, especially where fame and fortune are on the line.
Dangerous dreams
Talented singers in the 17th and 18th centuries probably had it even worse. Back then, male singers with a certain type of voice enjoyed fame, and their families, fortune. It came with a price, though: castration before puberty. Sadly, not all castrati made it to the highest ranks, just as today, not all promising young athletes go on to have professional careers.
Still, it's hard in a world where athletes become not only super-famous, but extraordinarily wealthy. We dream of that for our own kids, especially if they show some talent.
This dream can be dangerous. Having outsized expectations and applying too much pressure are two big mistakes parents can make. Most kids won't grow up to be professional athletes. Most won't even earn college sports scholarships.
The San Jose Mercury News reported that there are about 41 million kids who play organized sports. A fraction of those--6.9 million--are varsity high school athletes. Compare that to the 360,000 student-athletes who play in one of the three divisions of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Among those elite athletes, 126,000 earn a share of the $1 billion in scholarships available.
And while $1 billion sounds like a lot of money, it works out to less than $8,000 per athlete, which wouldn't cover even half a year of tuition at a private college. By comparison, there is $22 billion available in academic scholarships, making the brain the body part most likely to earn a kid a college education.
So what's a parent to do? Experts say the real opportunity for kids in sports is philosophical.
"Children should be taught to embrace the journey, not the destination," says Dave Czesniuk of the Center for the Study of Sport in Society. "Some of the biggest mistakes I've seen involve parents and coaches focusing too much on trophies, ribbons, and scholarships. The sad thing is, if they focused more on the fun and the skill-development aspects of the sport and let go of the pressure to win, then [the kids] are much more likely to do that."
As baseball great Cal Ripken, Jr., wrote in his book Parenting Young Athletes the Ripken Way, "A very small percentage of kids who participate in youth sports will ever go on to play their sport professionally, but they can all love sports their entire lives."
How can parents make this happen? Ripken has a number of recommendations:
Make sure your kids are having fun;
Don't project your dreams onto your child;
Be realistic, remembering the goals are fun and fitness first; and
Don't push your kids too early, and don't push them to do sports that interest you.
Parents can tell their kid is old enough to be serious about a sport if he or she is playing for love of the game, is physically capable of performing the skills it requires, and is well supported by parents and coaches, says Czesniuk.
How can you tell if the coach is good?
"Listen to [your child's] feedback regarding their sport," Czesniuk says. "If it is energetic and full of positive self-talk, then they are probably being well coached. If they are constantly down on themselves and feeling hopeless about the sport, their coach may not be mixing the right amounts of positive and critical feedback."
In any case, Czesniuk says, it's more important for your kid to be involved in athletics than it is to actually be athletic. The lifelong benefits come from participating.
Shouldn't this thread be in "Spirituality & Religion"?
It would be interesting to speculate on the long term effects of organized team sports on man's entire social structure.
I am willing to suggest organized team sports (not individual athleticism) has much in common with both religion and war.
Not that the above two points have not been reviewed before, but what-the-who.
