Do we endanger our kids?

The Athens Olympics is almost upon us, and aside from the commercialism, controversies and other sidelights, it will basically be a chance for the greatest athletes in the world to inspire the next generation of champions. It has been statistically proven that children’s participation in sports increases pronouncedly after major sporting events like the Olympics, World Cup, NBA Finals, World Series, and so on.

However, a disturbing new trend is emerging in the United States. Children are actually starting to drop out of sports at younger and younger ages. What was once a fun family activity has become more of a career for kids who still have their milk teeth. And one main cause is their parents.

A survey of 3,300 parents published by SportingKid magazine last year found that 84 percent had witnessed "violent parental behavior" toward children, coaches or officials at a kids’ sporting competitions. Surprisingly, 80 percent said they themselves were victims of such abuse. In 1999, a survey of 500 adults in South Florida, another unparalleled market leader in sports development, found 82 percent believing that parents were too aggressive in pursuing children’s competitive sports, with 56 percent claiming that they had personally witnessed overly aggressive behavior. Meanwhile, the dropout rate for children’s sports in the US is pegged at 70 percent.

Studies are showing that children are participating in sports at earlier ages, specializing in one sport sooner than in past eras, and may play the same sport year-round. This was not the original plan when children’s sports were developed, which is why sports are often segregated by seasons. Sports physicians are claiming that stress injuries among kids are climbing as a result.

Alvin Rosenfeld, a New York psychiatrist who specializes in adolescents, says that, in the last 20 years, unstructured play, a backbone of pre-school and grade school systems in the past, has been cut in half. Also, structured sports time has doubled, while family dinners have been cut in half. This is because families are too busy caring for their kids’ sporting "careers."

Historically, organized children’s sports in the United States started during the Great Depression. A Philadelphia factory owner wanted to keep local youth from breaking his windows because they had too much free time.

He asked a friend to organize a youth football league, and it worked. Five years later, they named their group after legendary Temple University football coach Glenn Scobie Warner, who was nicknamed "Pop." Pop Warner Football grew to enroll more than 225,000 children in 36 states.

About the same time this developed, a sandpaper plant worker named Carl Stotz chose to put together a league for the kids who were too little to be allowed to play in baseball tournaments. "Little League" first started in 1939. It now has 2.5 million kids playing in all 50 US states.

But the real US boom ironically, was led by soccer, which adult Americans don’t seem to flock to until this day. This was a sport which parents felt that any tot could participate in. In 1964, the American Youth Soccer Organization was formed in California. It proposed that every child had to play in at least half of every game, and that teams had to be balanced in skill to ensure fairness. Soccer leagues sprouted like crabgrass. Last year, the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association reported that 6.1 million American children from 6 to 17 years of age played soccer more than 25 times a year, translating to at least twice a month. All in all, 26 million youth in the US play a team sport.

A cultural analysis reveals the correlation between this trend and two others: the increasing spread of the US population to suburbs, and the growth of the so-called "Baby Boom" generation, those who were born in the economic upsurge that followed World War II. As cities became crowded and people looked for space, new parents found themselves increasingly focused on their children. Sports was one way for families to bond, and outside congested cities, they could build playgrounds, football fields, baseball diamonds.

But this wholesome activity is also deceptive. While, on the surface, it seems great that parents have a means of being with their children on weekends and during free time, the activity took on a life of its own. Soon, parents thrilled to their children’s exploits, and sometimes wanted more. Some subconsciously pushed their children to fulfill their own unsatisfied athletic dreams. Others bonded with other parents in criticizing referees and offspring who played on opposing teams. The "stage parent" in sports was born.

At the same time, perhaps to feed their own egos, coaches started taking advantage of this frailty of parents by telling them that their children could be elite athletes — if and only if they continued the increasingly-difficult training the coach himself offered. Parents often bite, not wanting to believe their children incapable of less. But statistically, only five percent of all children will be eligible for elite sports later in life. To give an example, there are approximately 475,000 fourth-grade boys playing organized basketball in the US. Only about 87,000 are still playing by the time they’re high school seniors. Perhaps 4,300 will earn college scholarships to play basketball. Only 30 or so will make it to the NBA, and a mere 130 will play professionally in Europe.

The numbers don’t look too encouraging. More on Monday.

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Catch this week’s episode on The Basketball Show on ABC 5 at 3 p.m., featuring heavy news on the UAAP, Ateneo Blue Eagles, and a feature on Halikinu Radio.

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