Sports Parents

I am absolutely fascinated by documentaries on sports parents.  I'm not talking about the supportive moms and dads that come to every game and cheer on the team.  I'm talking about the obsessive parents that put their kids in weight training at a young age to bulk them up for football in their college years.  I'm talking about the obsessive parents that make their kids eat, sleep, and dream their activity in hopes they'll get a scholarship later on in life.  I'm talking about the obsessive parents that leave a room and have their kid tell anyone that will listen that they just want to hang out with their friends for awhile instead of practicing from dawn to dusk.  It's incredibly fascinating to me.

So here's the thing.... I commend these parents on encouraging their child and being so involved in their lives.  Anymore, there are a whole lot of people who are too concerned with other shit to even CARE about their kids.  I commend these parents on wanting greatness for their child.  I commend them to doing whatever it takes to make their children's future "better."  There are many things that I think are great about these parents and I don't want to completely vilify them.

BUT.....

It borders on ridiculous.  Seriously.

In their younger years, kids benefit far more from real life experiences than they do being shoved into non-stop sports training.  They benefit from playing, building, and learning.  They benefit from being able to enjoy and learn about sports from a fun perspective. They benefit more from learning how to be part of a team than they do from training for a future college scholarship.  Statistically speaking, you will burn a kid out WAY faster starting them young and running them non stop than you will to put your foot down and let them be a kid for a little while.

The excuse "but they love it and I'm just encouraging them" comes up pretty often.  Let me let you in on a little secret: kids don't have the brain capacity to see the long term results of their decisions.  Your five year old may love baseball but when you find ways to "train" them year round, you will burn them out way faster.  If your child truly is the "natural" you claim they are, their natural abilities will be there if you take a break and let them be a kid for awhile.  Kids can't see that training so hard at a young age can destroy their bodies in the long run.  Kids can't understand that life is going to offer them plenty of opportunity to do what they love without having to crunch it all in now.

"Well if they say they want to stop, we'll stop."  I hear this a lot too but it doesn't really turn out to be true.  Truly obsessed parents won't let them stop.  They'll bribe them.  They'll pressure them.  They'll continue to push them even when they are done.  They'll stop listening because it doesn't fit their mold.

"But they can get a scholarship."  They can.  They truly can.  Like I said, I admire those that encourage their kids.  It's rare, though, to know if your four year old will get a scholarship in college.  Pushing them so young can actually prohibit them from getting a scholarship because they're more likely to end up with career ending injuries before they've even had a chance to have a real career.

Like everything else in life, sports and activities are about balance.  So encourage your kids in a healthy way.  Don't be the parent screaming obscenities from the sidelines.  Don't be the parent yelling at the refs every...single....game.  Don't be the parent that shames your kid after a bad game. Maybe if we spend less time pushing, pushing, pushing to the brink of madness and spend more time teaching them how to be part of a team and what a healthy balance is, we will have a healthier generation of athletes down the line.