Why do people allow kids to play sports at the expense of academics?

[Anonymous]

It is not an either/or question. The reality is that kids are not going to spend all of their free time pursuing academic goals/success. From the parent perspective the question is how would you like them to spend that free time, and balancing that with what the kid wants to do. Maybe the kid's first and favorite thing is to play video games. Nothing wrong with that although it might raise some health issues due to a lack of physical activity, and is not particularly socially beneficial although they communicate with each other via headsets these days. Maybe it is art, music, sports, community service, church, etc. . . .

Personally, I am not a "let my kid do everything they want" parent, but if OP is and if OP's kid is happy, physically and socially healthy,
and meeting OP's standards in school who are we to argue?

[Anonymous]

My son played travel soccer. Not elite, but plenty good.

Since he quit, he's spent a lot more time on the Play Station
(although not excessive amounts because we restrict). It is hard to motivate him to stay fit without the structure Travel provided. It is the case that he has more time for school work, but he also has more down time. For us it was time to stop, but I'm not judging.

The only right answer is the one that works for your specific kid.

There certainly are parents and kids who make choices I wouldn't make, and there certainly are parents who are supporting an inappropriate balance between sport and academics. However, OP - the blanket statement and judginess I see in your post suggests that there are other things unbalanced in your priorities.

Why do you give a crap about those other familes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child is in a top 5 private school and I honestly don't care what her grades are. I want her to be in small classes, learn outside of a cookie cutter curriculum and be around kids that think it is cool to learn. She plays sports all 3 seasons and does extra clubs too. The school is very good with a flex schedule to have the girls fit everything in without being up for hours and hours. That they have a normal life. She gets some A's but mostly B's. She even got one C last quarter because she royally fudged up a final test. She didn't need to be ridiculed, sports take away or punished. This is life. She has learned from it and is trying so much harder this quarter.

Why do parents force kids to be perfect? They aren't. I just want mine to be happy and confident.

Your post is not about your kid; it's about you.

adding in top 5 private? lol! not even a humble brag

Furthermore, the kids who learn to navigate through a more complex system (a large public high school, for example) are better prepared for life - Cs and all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Non-athletic people-pleasing A-student who went to the best private schools and private colleges in the country and works in academia here.

There are many different ways to find success and build character and it is important for children AND adults to be open-minded and to make good choices based on their own needs/interests/desires.

I'm more or less the same person as above (except I don't work in academia). I totally regret that in my entire life I played sports for exactly one 3 month season when I was 8 years old. Even though I would have been terrible at sports, I think that I would have been better off playing - I really enjoyed that season! And I know that DSS is more focused and passionate about everything when he's playing sports.

Why do people assume that kids are more likely to gain teamwork and leadership skills from sports rather than participating in scouts, clubs, drama, band, orchestra, or after school jobs? For all the people who are impressed when seeing sports on a resume, does the same apply to these other activities? Honestly any activity where kids are working with others has the potential to develop teamwork and leadership. Many of them also are less time consuming and experience to boot. Why is it necessary to spend $$$ and 15+ hours a week to build these skills?

Why is it better if your kid is interested drama, scouts, drama, or band than sports? Our DD did sccouts in addition to sports in ES. Once she hit 6th grade she didn't enjoy scouts or have much in common with the girls in her troop. She never liked drama and stopped her band instrument after MS. She never stopped loving sports and played several throughout HS. She is in college and still treasures the years she played sports and plays intramural sports at her school. Why is that worse than the other things listed above? Kids have different interests you know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some people wrongly believe that the kids will get scholarships, when in fact only 2% of high school kids get sports scholarships to college.

Just as an aside -- this "fact" which is often bandied about when discussing kids and sports is not really relevant for any sport other than football which has no club/travel side.

The reality is that college recruitment is done out of club and travel sports. College coaches may well pay attention to high school basketball (particularly girls where AAU options are fewer), and will absolutely look at certain times achieved in (some) meets, but in most situations and sports, college coaches will be watching and recruiting out of club/travel.

Now -- within club/travel sports there are obviously multiple layers based on competitive ability. Of course, not every kid on a "top team" is good enough to play/compete at a high level in college, and not every kid on a lower level team is unable to compete at a high level in college. And, there are multiple levels of play post-high school: Professional (particularly in baseball and hockey (juniors)), Div I, Div II, Div III, NAIA and Junior College. Scholarships are handled differently at every level and by sport, and Div III has no athletic scholarships (nor does the Ivy League which competes at Div I levels for most of their sports).

My daughter plays soccer in college and I have a son who is a junior and going through the recruitment process now so I am most familiar with that sport. All but 4 of the girls (out of 20) on her uu17 and u18 club teams went on to play in college. The 4 who did not could have played at smaller schools, but each elected to go to a large school and not play. Was there something "magic" about that team? No. It was probably the 3rd or 4th best team in the state that we lived in at the time. The top 5 or so teams would have about the same ration of kids going on to play in college, and, of course, other kids would move on from other teams that were not quite as competitive. There are a lot of opportunities out there, but in girls soccer you know pretty early where you stand (recruiting is well underway in the kids' sophomore year and pretty much done by this time in the girls' junior year - at least for Div I as scholarship money gets committed). For boys it is a little later as they physically mature later. With the exception of the very top level players, coaches are more willing to wait until the junior year and beginning of senior year. Again though, on my son's team which is not a Development Academy team (the top level of boys' youth soccer) about half the kids are looking at partial scholarship offers now.

TLDR - No one should care about what percent of kids playing in high school go on to play in college or get an athletic scholarship. That is not the pool from which college athletes are recruited (aside from football). While obviously such things are very individually based, if you were a parent with a 10 year old who you think might want to play in college the statistics to look at would be the percentage of kids playing/competing at level X in my kid's sport who go on to play/compete in college. And, can my kid compete at level X. (Lots of kids play club/travel sports for reasons other than trying to get a college scholarship -- fun being the most important, but also for something to do in the summer, or to be able to make a high school team, or to get/stay in shape, etc. . .

This was a very long digression that is really beside the point. OP was never making a distinction about where kids play sports, just that she didn't understand why some parents seemed to value sports over academics.

The fact is very small percentage of high school aged kids get scholarships -- whether they're recruited playing for a school or club team. It's a great anecdote that your kids and their friends are being recruited to play soccer from their semi-high level teams, but it's not really representative of anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The amount of calorie intake these days requires a lot of gym time. Sport teaches a lot of disciplines that cannot be learned in text books. Team work, variable changes, how to win and lose, give and take, thinking on your feet, empathy to name a few. I have an A student and I require 1 sport every season. They're not super sport stars. I just don't want them to be part of the obese statistics. It's not at the expense of academics. If you don't have your health you have nothing so it is not at the expense of anything.

Exercise doesn't really burn that many calories. Not to mention. It makes you hungrier so your likely to eat more anyways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son played travel soccer. Not elite, but plenty good.

Since he quit, he's spent a lot more time on the Play Station
(although not excessive amounts because we restrict). It is hard to motivate him to stay fit without the structure Travel provided. It is the case that he has more time for school work, but he also has more down time. For us it was time to stop, but I'm not judging.

The only right answer is the one that works for your specific kid.

There certainly are parents and kids who make choices I wouldn't make, and there certainly are parents who are supporting an inappropriate balance between sport and academics. However, OP - the blanket statement and judginess I see in your post suggests that there are other things unbalanced in your priorities.

Why do you give a crap about those other familes?

I think the lack of downtime is what makes me sad for the kids of today. They spend all day in school, get tons of homework, what the hell is wrong with spending time in front of the play station or spending unstructured time with friends? They need that break. Unfortunately, parents feel the need to encourage their kids to spend their precious little free time in structured sports that they will probably never play again past high school.

[Anonymous]

I haven’t read this whole thread, and I think the question posed by OP is fairly ignorant, but I just want to point out a couple things.

Kids involved in sports in high school are less likely to get involved in drugs and other nefarious activities.
Research has also found that kids who play sports as teens have better success in life.

http://fortune.com/2014/06/19/high-school-sports-business-cornell-job-market/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Non-athletic people-pleasing A-student who went to the best private schools and private colleges in the country and works in academia here.

There are many different ways to find success and build character and it is important for children AND adults to be open-minded and to make good choices based on their own needs/interests/desires.

I'm more or less the same person as above (except I don't work in academia). I totally regret that in my entire life I played sports for exactly one 3 month season when I was 8 years old. Even though I would have been terrible at sports, I think that I would have been better off playing - I really enjoyed that season! And I know that DSS is more focused and passionate about everything when he's playing sports.

Why do people assume that kids are more likely to gain teamwork and leadership skills from sports rather than participating in scouts, clubs, drama, band, orchestra, or after school jobs? For all the people who are impressed when seeing sports on a resume, does the same apply to these other activities? Honestly any activity where kids are working with others has the potential to develop teamwork and leadership. Many of them also are less time consuming and experience to boot. Why is it necessary to spend $$$ and 15+ hours a week to build these skills?

I hate to say it, but because sports are considered "cool" by adults in the workplace. That's not to say that those other things don't help make you a well-rounded person, or that there aren't settings where experience in music or drama or scouts is respected, but sports are sort of a currency among so-called successful people in many settings. Just like golf is considered a desired networking forum while other sports/activities aren't (ever hear a senior exec suggest an outing to the bowling alley to discuss a developing deal?). Not fair, but it is what it is. I do think that kids who have worked or started their own businesses also have a leg up say over someone who played the cello in orchestra for 4 years. It's because it comes with related skills that can be useful in the work place.

Just curious, but which sports are more likely to be considered "cool" by adults in the workplace?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven’t read this whole thread, and I think the question posed by OP is fairly ignorant, but I just want to point out a couple things.

Kids involved in sports in high school are less likely to get involved in drugs and other nefarious activities.
Research has also found that kids who play sports as teens have better success in life.

http://fortune.com/2014/06/19/high-school-sports-business-cornell-job-market/

Sports are popular in the inner city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I haven’t read this whole thread, and I think the question posed by OP is fairly ignorant, but I just want to point out a couple things.

Kids involved in sports in high school are less likely to get involved in drugs and other nefarious activities.
Research has also found that kids who play sports as teens have better success in life.

http://fortune.com/2014/06/19/high-school-sports-business-cornell-job-market/

Sports are popular in the inner city.

Sports are popular everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is in a top 5 private school and I honestly don't care what her grades are. I want her to be in small classes, learn outside of a cookie cutter curriculum and be around kids that think it is cool to learn. She plays sports all 3 seasons and does extra clubs too. The school is very good with a flex schedule to have the girls fit everything in without being up for hours and hours. That they have a normal life. She gets some A's but mostly B's. She even got one C last quarter because she royally fudged up a final test. She didn't need to be ridiculed, sports take away or punished. This is life. She has learned from it and is trying so much harder this quarter.

Why do parents force kids to be perfect? They aren't. I just want mine to be happy and confident.

Your post is not about your kid; it's about you.

adding in top 5 private? lol! not even a humble brag

Furthermore, the kids who learn to navigate through a more complex system (a large public high school, for example) are better prepared for life - Cs and all.

I have had children go through both systems. "Top Private" HS and public HS. No comparison - private school child is much better prepared for life, self-reliant, and happy.

[Anonymous]

Haven't read past the first page but to answer the question: Because the sports make her happy and the academics don't. (And her grades are fine, fwiw.)

[Anonymous]

because kids need exercise

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Question says it all. Unless your kid is truly scholarship material, I seriously don't understand why you'd let your kid play sports when they are bringing in low Bs. I know colleges like sports because the student seems more well-rounded, but that's stupid if it comes at the expense of grades.

Most kids will not be scholarship material, OP. Team sports gave me a great sense of team-play that has benefitted me in my career, ten-fold. Social experience ( team building) is a very important part of life. I hope you will see this. Losing( and winning) are a HUGE part of growing and to lose( and win) , as team, are a great way to learn. You are not, always, the one, key player.

If you disagree, okay. Pull your kids out of sports and put the pressure on the academics. If that is your priority, these are YOUR kids, it is your choice.