Excellent, as usual. So many high schoolers quit any kind of physical activity. It is so important for everyone to stay physically active for their brain, body, and overall well-being. We have become a nation of couch potatoes! At age 77 I am amazed at what I can do thanks to pickleball, tennis, yoga, and just walking. Use it or lose it. You are especially chasing your kiddos-and at their age they are really fast!
I quit quite a few youth sports before 14, but that's because I was sampling like 6 sports. I wound up sticking with hockey and then even picking up lacrosse in high school. As Bill says, it's a lot like education, where increased specialization and intensity earlier makes for unhappy participants so they opt out. I guess the difference in education is students can't quit, so instead the suffering increases.
I think you should go with your first impulse: a 70-person study isn't enough to go on in terms of arguing for any significant changes. I think maybe we just need to stop thinking we need solutions to problems that are at that level of documentation.
I think collapse of youth sports opportunities is the primary cause, for several reasons: a) earlier/increased shift to club sports or traveling teams that are not nearly as accessible and equitable; b) broader collapse of institutions and public space norms; and c) a loss of social pressure on families to have their kids participate, often as a result of A and B.
I don’t think all these are bad and quite often as a high school teacher I see the burnout consequences of many student athletes. But the shift in what youth sports look like in the current moment feels like the biggest culprit, in my eyes.
My kid simply doesn't have the time or the physical energy. She's a great athlete but sports teams at her school meet every day for at least a couple of hours and she has hours of homework every night. If she wanted to play sports, she would be getting about or under 6 hours of sleep, which is not enough for her.
The kids I know who do things like rowing team and swimming have devoted their whole lives to it and basically do nothing else other than school. They also look at it as another way to add to their college resume, not as something they do for fun.
Excellent, as usual. So many high schoolers quit any kind of physical activity. It is so important for everyone to stay physically active for their brain, body, and overall well-being. We have become a nation of couch potatoes! At age 77 I am amazed at what I can do thanks to pickleball, tennis, yoga, and just walking. Use it or lose it. You are especially chasing your kiddos-and at their age they are really fast!
The diversity of reasons/goals to pursue sports exactly tracks those for education itself.
I quit quite a few youth sports before 14, but that's because I was sampling like 6 sports. I wound up sticking with hockey and then even picking up lacrosse in high school. As Bill says, it's a lot like education, where increased specialization and intensity earlier makes for unhappy participants so they opt out. I guess the difference in education is students can't quit, so instead the suffering increases.
I think you should go with your first impulse: a 70-person study isn't enough to go on in terms of arguing for any significant changes. I think maybe we just need to stop thinking we need solutions to problems that are at that level of documentation.
I think collapse of youth sports opportunities is the primary cause, for several reasons: a) earlier/increased shift to club sports or traveling teams that are not nearly as accessible and equitable; b) broader collapse of institutions and public space norms; and c) a loss of social pressure on families to have their kids participate, often as a result of A and B.
I don’t think all these are bad and quite often as a high school teacher I see the burnout consequences of many student athletes. But the shift in what youth sports look like in the current moment feels like the biggest culprit, in my eyes.
My kid simply doesn't have the time or the physical energy. She's a great athlete but sports teams at her school meet every day for at least a couple of hours and she has hours of homework every night. If she wanted to play sports, she would be getting about or under 6 hours of sleep, which is not enough for her.
The kids I know who do things like rowing team and swimming have devoted their whole lives to it and basically do nothing else other than school. They also look at it as another way to add to their college resume, not as something they do for fun.