Why do kids here in the US spend so much time and effort on sports?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's the sports-industrial complex. They are businesses.

+1 I'm mad that I ever allowed my kid to participate. It feels like a money grab.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Their parents make them. Overscheduling is a huge problem.

I am OP. I am not making my kids doing any of those sports, they literally beg for it. I think my older one might stop talking to me if I dared to pull him off the travel team, LOL. [
/quote]

Why? My answer is the same as yours. I hate it, hate driving, hate the commitment, hate the coach's/ parent's intensity but my kid would also hate me forever if I pulled them out. DS loves it. The small bonus is friends, belonging and staying fit. We can't convince the culture "let's all back off together guys"

[Anonymous]

College.

[Anonymous]

My kid adores sports, one in particular. It makes him happy, he works really hard at it, and he has leadership roles. He experiences success and defeat and disappointment and redemption in a zero—life-consequences way. He simply won’t do that with other worthy pursuits - chess, math team, writing, art, etc. If I made him do those things instead it would be my motivation, not his, and my goal is to let my kid learn what he can do when he taps into motivation and works hard. SOMEDAY he’ll learn to apply that to other non-sports things, like school or work.

He’s in high school, and while he isn’t a stellar student (still dislikes academics) he knows how to work hard, and he does. He’ll play in college, not because he’ll get a scholarship but because he loves his sport (still, after all these years).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's the culture. It is kind of crazy to me really because it seems to get worse as they age. I advocate for healthy habits, keeping active, etc but I also don't get the level of emphasis on sports either.

Beyond college, you don't see grown men/women doing most of these activities.

Most the adults I know that were athletic children still do something athletic as adults.

Play basketball, hockey, run, bike, swim, tennis, raquetball, martial arts, golf, yoga, etc

Many of them coach too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP is not asking "why do kids do sports at all." She's asking why we have a culture where sports take up so much time to the exclusion of other things. I am from the US and I often wonder the same thing. I worked hard to raise a kid who is well-rounded. She has a physical activity that is not a sport (dance, we don't do competition dance, just performance and classes), and a solo sport she likes (rock climbing). She's also dabbled in tennis, soccer, and basketball. She also loves art and music. She also has downtime (she likes to read for pleasure and to do art on her own time). And then of course school.

I do not understand how/why many kids are dedicating 20+ hours a week on a single sport or on multiple sports. Unless your kid actually has the talent/dedication (and often natural body type) to go pro or be very competitive at the college level, or is just uniquely passionate about their sport, I don't get it. It's just a lot of time to spend on one thing. Wouldn't you rather your kid become an adult who not has athletic skill but also can play an instrument, has relaxing hobbies/interests, and knows how to deal with unscheduled time? It just seems weird to me.

Thank you for clarifying my question! - OP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do so many posters that dislike sports assume parents expect their kids to get a full ride to college or play professionally? Our kids played sports because they enjoyed playing sports and all of the fitness, competitiveness, and camaraderie that came with it. They knew if their grades suffered their activities would be reduced but they always maintained strong grades. None of them wanted to play past HS but they enjoy playing on adult leagues now that they’re out of college and it’s been a great way to meet people and socialize and stay active.

Some people just enjoy playing sports. It isn’t more complicated than that.

I love sports, both watching and playing.

I would not put my kid in travel or club sports unless they were so good that rec leagues and school sports did not makes sense. I don't mean "likes soccer and is reasonably good at it." I mean "they are significantly better than everyone else on the team and there's no option for playing up a level to challenge them that way." And they'd also have to love the sport and really, really want to do it.

This is like 5% of all kids in any given sport. Yes in some communities, 50% or more of the kids in a sport play club sports. It's weird.

I don't think this happens because people, and kids, like sports. I think it happens because people are super competitive and also lemmings.

[Anonymous]

Sports is the American obsession, descended from the Anglo-Saxon insistence that public school (private, elite, but that's Britain for you) physical education built character and made boys into men. The whole idea of sports in history is steeped in toxic masculinity.

Americans have made it all their own, however, because college sports is big money. Most US universities build their brand and make money off some team college sports, and therefore wish to recruit promising athletes, often over more academically qualified applicants. Athletic admissions often take place before general admissions, actually. Even if families are not consciously aware that one of the goals is to increase a child's profile for college, kid sports have become part of the fabric of US society.

Additionally, with more awareness of the benefits of exercise, many families mistakenly believe that more sports = healthier kids. They push sports to an extreme, while eating tons of processed foods and forgetting to teach their kids to moderate their calorie intake. Indeed, I've seen plenty of parents who push their kids to eat a ton because they are involved in multiple high-intensity sports. And then I've seen previously athletic adults become overweight and develop diabetes and heart disease because they never relearned healthy eating habits when they started working full-time and stopped exercising as much. Nutrition is more important than exercise, always and for ever, but that is information most Americans are not exposed to, due to limits on public health campaigns and lobbying by the food industry. Finally, injuries due to repetitive movements and intense exercise have been on the rise for years, due to children being pushed to their limits with competitive sports. That too is a serious issue.

Building character, teamwork, critical thinking can be done in a myriad of different ways. Kids need to work and think together in chorus, orchestra, band, robotics, math and science competitions, etc. Yet most parents believe that sports teach more and better values than other activities, which is perfectly untrue.

One last consideration: if you are worried about how intensively extra-curriculars are pursued here in the US, it's because, again, American colleges consider extra-curriculars in admissions. You can have the best academic record, you will not get into a selective college if you did nothing outside of school. This is markedly different from nearly all other countries's university selection process, which are purely academic in nature. This drives a huge industry of after-school activities, so that children can distinguish themselves in many different areas. Sports is notoriously intense, but so is music, or all other hobbies, if selective college admission is your goal. College admissions have become extremely cut-throat, and have nothing to do with the more casual admission process of 40 years ago.

- foreigner who had a completely different childhood, but whose kids are living this experience and applying to college in the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do so many posters that dislike sports assume parents expect their kids to get a full ride to college or play professionally? Our kids played sports because they enjoyed playing sports and all of the fitness, competitiveness, and camaraderie that came with it. They knew if their grades suffered their activities would be reduced but they always maintained strong grades. None of them wanted to play past HS but they enjoy playing on adult leagues now that they’re out of college and it’s been a great way to meet people and socialize and stay active.

Some people just enjoy playing sports. It isn’t more complicated than that.

I love sports, both watching and playing.

I would not put my kid in travel or club sports unless they were so good that rec leagues and school sports did not makes sense. I don't mean "likes soccer and is reasonably good at it." I mean "they are significantly better than everyone else on the team and there's no option for playing up a level to challenge them that way." And they'd also have to love the sport and really, really want to do it.

This is like 5% of all kids in any given sport. Yes in some communities, 50% or more of the kids in a sport play club sports. It's weird.

I don't think this happens because people, and kids, like sports. I think it happens because people are super competitive and also lemmings.

Any kid get to play on a club team? I thought you have to make it at the tryouts, lots of people go to tryouts, few get in, is this incorrect?

[Anonymous]

It should all just be rec and divided by ability not age. Open to all and no traveling.

[Anonymous]

My kids do sports because they like it. I support it because it’s exercise, discipline, teamwork, social. I agree it’s a lot though. I never did sports growing up except when I played on school teams

[Anonymous]

You are right that a lot of kids spend a lot of time on sports, but not all do. If it's not the right choice for you and your kids, then just don't do it. You won't be alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It should all just be rec and divided by ability not age. Open to all and no traveling.

That would be awesome. My kid plays field hockey, can you point me to viable rec leagues in Alexandria that have enough participants to differentiate by skill?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are right that a lot of kids spend a lot of time on sports, but not all do. If it's not the right choice for you and your kids, then just don't do it. You won't be alone.

The issue here is when a parent and child have different desires. The child feels at home and most happy in the competitive team which unnerves the concerned parent who wants the child to have that passion for academics or other varied topics. Op and others are worried the time/attention demand is too much but it is the kid's passion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do so many posters that dislike sports assume parents expect their kids to get a full ride to college or play professionally? Our kids played sports because they enjoyed playing sports and all of the fitness, competitiveness, and camaraderie that came with it. They knew if their grades suffered their activities would be reduced but they always maintained strong grades. None of them wanted to play past HS but they enjoy playing on adult leagues now that they’re out of college and it’s been a great way to meet people and socialize and stay active.

Some people just enjoy playing sports. It isn’t more complicated than that.

I love sports, both watching and playing.

I would not put my kid in travel or club sports unless they were so good that rec leagues and school sports did not makes sense. I don't mean "likes soccer and is reasonably good at it." I mean "they are significantly better than everyone else on the team and there's no option for playing up a level to challenge them that way." And they'd also have to love the sport and really, really want to do it.

This is like 5% of all kids in any given sport. Yes in some communities, 50% or more of the kids in a sport play club sports. It's weird.

I don't think this happens because people, and kids, like sports. I think it happens because people are super competitive and also lemmings.

If your kids go to public schools, they won't make their school sports teams without playing travel/club. For the normal sports.