“If they lack an intrinsic drive, if they’re not having fun, they’ll likely become frustrated and quit,” he said. “When parents hire personal trainers and coaches, there’s an expectation of success that can create a pressure-cooker scenario and lead to burnout.” In a survey of 201 parents of young athletes, 57 percent hoped their children would play in college or professionally, Dr. Popkin reported.
In his study of 303 college athletes, 98 percent currently playing one sport had previously played another organized sport before college. They didn’t begin to specialize until they were nearly 15, on average. He noted that Mariano Rivera, considered the best closing pitcher in baseball history, had played soccer, his favorite sport as a youth, before focusing on baseball in his late teens.
“You want kids playing sports through life,” Dr. Popkin said. “There are lots of benefits to later sports specialization, at some point in high school. The more sports kids play, the better they learn adaptability. They learn how to learn.”
It’s also important, he said, for kids to cross-train by doing multiple sports so that “they develop whole-body skills like balance, quickness and core strength” that can enhance their overall athletic ability.
Dr. Popkin said that with the exception of a few individual sports like gymnastics, tennis and fencing, kids do better if they specialize later. In his study of college athletes, only 18 percent reported specializing by age 12. Forty-five percent played multiple sports up to age 16, and there were no early specializers among those who played football, lacrosse or field hockey.
It’s a myth, Dr. Popkin said, that athletes who got college athletic scholarships or became professionals in most sports began specializing at early ages. “Early sports specialization is uncommon among N.C.A.A. Division 1 athletes for most team sports,” he reported.
His suggestions to parents: “Expose your children to as many activities as possible and support what they like. But if they’re doing more hours of a sport a week than their age in years, they’re overdoing it.
“A couple of months of the year, encourage them to do something else. If they play soccer, they could switch off to tennis; if they play hockey, they could try the track team. Cross-training helps their bodies and can keep them from burning out.”
Source : Nytimes
