Many parents wonder if joining a highly competitive sports team is the right decision for their youth athletes. All over the news we see newscast after newscast of increasing childhood obesity and health related diseases such as diabetes. Given this reality, kids need to be educated on the need to be more physically active, and being on a sports team seems like a great way to stay healthy. It appears on the surface that children are happy and healthy as they engage in these activities, but there are many underlying stressors than can contradict this. WIth participation rates increasing there has been more discussion of the psychological risks that children face in sports, and with good reason. Within peer-reviewed research, concerns have been raised over the psychological stresses within youth sports. Based on my experiences being raised by sports I feel qualified to discuss stress levels, coach impact, and academic performance.
Balancing Act: Sports and Stress
Athletes spend hours practicing and competing in their sport. Some athletes believe that their sport participation acts as a stress reliever for their everyday lives, while others find that these long, exhausting hours training only adds to the pressure of their lives. Athletes are trained and exposed to a variety of stressors in training and competition contexts, and this stress increases as does the level of competition. Sports put athletes into many challanging situations that athletes may perceieve as stressful; these include performance slumps, defeat, overcoming challanges, injuries, and preforming in critical competitions. Athletes across all levels invest considerable determination, time, and effort into perfecting their craft; the results of their performances can have profound consequences on both their future athletic careers and lives. Do sports relieve or add to an athlete’s stress levels?
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Due to their environment, adolescents often experience heavy stress levels. (Britton, D. et al.) As a means to help manage youth stress, medical professionals have promoted exercise such as team sports. Exercise and other physical activity, sports included, produce endorphins. These chemicals in the brain act as a natural stress reliever as they have positive effects on mood states. (Mikkelsen et al.) It has also been shown that individuals who participate in youth sports later in life experience less stress from job stress. Sport involvement has the capability to further improve the psychological characteristics beneficial to coping with work tensions. (Yang et al.) Sports have highs and lows that develop one's resilience and ability to handle and overcome barriers and stressors.
Participation is not necessarily a cure-all as it is found to also be highly stressful to adolescents in situations as well. The results of this stress is apparent in the high youth athletes dropout and burnout rates within their sport. Females and athletes with higher practice times are even more prone to fall victim to these stressors. (Britton, D et al.) Competitive environments are breeding grounds for pressure to succeed among its participants. Some believe youth sports have become too serious and too adult driven. This increases the constant need of the youth to be validated from not only their coaches, but their parents as well. Fear of failure causes psychological stress among athletes that extends past the out of bounds line on the court, leading to less happiness and enjoyment in life. (Gustafsson et al.)
Coaching Youth Sports: Beyond Winning and Losing
As many athletes know, your life revolves around perfecting your craft; from countless hours of practice, training, and games, this mere passion becomes your life as you know it. The sport becomes so much more than a game, as the gym becomes their home away from home, their teammates become family, and more importantly, the coaches become their parents who inevitably will raise and shape the athletes. On and off the court, there’s no doubt that coaches hold a strong level of impact in these young athletes in the most influential time in their lives.
The youth coach position is not just a slot to be filled, it is an opportunity to impact young lives. Looking back on my own athletic career, my coaches were the most significant authoritative figures in my adolescent years. Some made little impact, some made a negative impact and some made a lasting positive impact.
Performance on the Field vs. in the Classroom
Playing a sport is something that requires many hours of practice and dedication which can take away from other things such as a persons studies. Because of the time needed to focus on a sport some students start to fall behind in their academics. What link is there between sport participation and academic performance?
With the pros and cons of youth sports being more than just physical, who’s to decide if they’re worth the risks? We should all be aware of the psychological risks that come with sport participation while reinforcing the positives. Sports are supposed to be fun; When it stops becoming fun and has the potential to harm the participants, it’s time to shift gears and reevaluate a new game plan. However, if the young athlete is having fun, I believe the rewards can last a lifetime. We are now left with the million dollar question: Do youth competitive sports overwhelm the childhood experience or enhance it?
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