Average child quits sports at 11

[Anonymous]

A new study out with Kobe Bryant's new efforts to keep kids in sport.

https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27308702/study-average-child-quits-sports-age-11

Interestingly soccer had one of the youngest mean averages for quitting sports, 9.08 years, though with a mean of 2.96 years of participation which was about in the middle of the pack by sports.

More on the study here:

https://www.aspenprojectplay.org/national-youth-sport-survey-1

[Anonymous]

Soccer starts earlier than a lot of those sports, so the stats make sense. People start their kids in soccer at a young age because it’s one of the only sports available, and then as other option open up, they quit soccer for something that’s more interesting to them.

[Anonymous]

This is not surprising. There are a ton of ways to get very young kids into soccer and gymnastics compared to just about everything else...so it will very likely be the first sport a kid plays. Once they are old enough, kids with an interest in sports will pick the option(s) that they like best and very likely drop everything else.

For example, my kids' pre-school has an outside company teach soccer and gymnastics once a week, so that's what they do. As they get older, it will be easier for me to take them to other sports depending on their interests. TBH, I'm on the fence about exposing them to organized sports so young. I just played on the playground in pre-school, learned skills for many different sports in PE in elementary, joined field hockey and soccer teams in middle, and played field hockey and lacrosse in HS. I considered going to a school where I could have played JV field hockey, but opted for a school with a more competitive team and contented myself with pick-up games for a couple of years. I played on a rec soccer league in grad school. My point is that it's really difficult to know what to make of this chart. In general, enabling kids to be outdoors and active at very young ages is good. I personally found a ton of value in playing a team sport. But beyond that, it's about fostering a love for physical activity and cameraderie...there are many ways to do that.

[Anonymous]

^^I considered a *college* where I could have played JV. I am not a natural athlete, but I did play varsity field hockey in HS.

[Anonymous]

The average age to start playing flag football is 6?

[Anonymous]

This doesn't seem to account for how kids jump around sports. My kids did organized gymnastics, swimming, baseball, soccer, fencing, etc. For most, they would show an early drop out date, but they are in high school and have never spent a year in no sport at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This doesn't seem to account for how kids jump around sports. My kids did organized gymnastics, swimming, baseball, soccer, fencing, etc. For most, they would show an early drop out date, but they are in high school and have never spent a year in no sport at all.

In one article I read about this study it said about 15% of the kids who quit join another sport, which is good but I think they would like to see that number increase to continue kids being athletic.

[Anonymous]

My vote is it's because the crazy parents push soccer too hard too fast too much. Kids at age 9 and 10 are practicing two times sometimes three per week, and traveling every weekend. They just want to hang out with her friends...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My vote is it's because the crazy parents push soccer too hard too fast too much. Kids at age 9 and 10 are practicing two times sometimes three per week, and traveling every weekend. They just want to hang out with her friends...

3 times per week and then weekend games is standard for travel. Many more are putting their kid into training the other days. The trend is more, more, more...for FOMO. Some Clubs also enter many more tournaments at the young ages than others which means missing holiday weekends and friend's parties, etc. The majority of those soccer kids I've seen quit in middle school. Many pick up track/cross country or something else in HS.

[Anonymous]

We quit soccer when our son couldn't play with his classmates. Great Falls Reston soccer would not allow DS to play with his classmates in first grade because he was born in 2012 and they were born in 2011. They were all 6 at the time, none of them were going to have a birthday during the season, and they were in the same first grade class. This was the rec teams not the pre-travel group. DS decided to add a second season of baseball because he really liked baseball and could play with his friends.

I get that there needs to be age brackets and the like but the cut offs at such a young age, without any opportunity for allowing some movement, is a bit ridiculous.

There are a number of sports that are available at an early age. Baseball and softball are available starting as early as 4 (blastball or t ball). Flag football starts early, heck I know kids playing Pee Wee tackle football at 6. Lacrosse and the like are all available.

I do think that kids drop out off sports that they are playing for fun and exercise when they start moving to 2 practices a week or 2 games a week and the time commitment starts to increase.

The pressure to play travel ball in a fair number of sports is crazy. As more kid leave for travel teams at an earlier age, there are fewer kids to play rec ball and rec ball becomes less fun.

We wanted DS to continue with soccer but the idea that he cannot play with his friends was a killer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My vote is it's because the crazy parents push soccer too hard too fast too much. Kids at age 9 and 10 are practicing two times sometimes three per week, and traveling every weekend. They just want to hang out with her friends...

3 times per week and then weekend games is standard for travel. Many more are putting their kid into training the other days. The trend is more, more, more...for FOMO. Some Clubs also enter many more tournaments at the young ages than others which means missing holiday weekends and friend's parties, etc. The majority of those soccer kids I've seen quit in middle school. Many pick up track/cross country or something else in HS.

And the 3 season or year round requirements have made kids burn out faster. Remember the good old days when soccer was in the fall and baseball was in the spring and you could play on different teams with different skill sets and it was fun? This has been ruined.

And really, with what we now know about head injuries etc, why does peewee football even exist? It’s just a money grab!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We quit soccer when our son couldn't play with his classmates. Great Falls Reston soccer would not allow DS to play with his classmates in first grade because he was born in 2012 and they were born in 2011. They were all 6 at the time, none of them were going to have a birthday during the season, and they were in the same first grade class. This was the rec teams not the pre-travel group. DS decided to add a second season of baseball because he really liked baseball and could play with his friends.

I get that there needs to be age brackets and the like but the cut offs at such a young age, without any opportunity for allowing some movement, is a bit ridiculous.

There are a number of sports that are available at an early age. Baseball and softball are available starting as early as 4 (blastball or t ball). Flag football starts early, heck I know kids playing Pee Wee tackle football at 6. Lacrosse and the like are all available.

I do think that kids drop out off sports that they are playing for fun and exercise when they start moving to 2 practices a week or 2 games a week and the time commitment starts to increase.

The pressure to play travel ball in a fair number of sports is crazy. As more kid leave for travel teams at an earlier age, there are fewer kids to play rec ball and rec ball becomes less fun.

We wanted DS to continue with soccer but the idea that he cannot play with his friends was a killer.

I don't really understand this. We do rec soccer in another league and my kids have always played with their same-grade classmates. I thought only travel soccer went by birth year.

[Anonymous]

kids' sports push specialization too early and get very expensive and time-consuming

if there were more opportunities for kid to have simple fun rec sports experiences and less focus on $$$$ and being "serious" about their sport, kids would stick with them

[Anonymous]

I hate that my kids need to play soccer both spring and fall even in rec to hold their spot on their teams. They’d love to play baseball but we’re not doing both. DH coaches soccer, so we’re even more stuck with sticking it out two seasons.

The field hockey stats are really interesting to me. No idea kids started that young, and it surprises me they stick with it longer than other sports on average. I didn’t start until high school and have seen few early youth programs. Anyone know what’s going on there?

[Anonymous]

I wonder how this plays out by gender--I'd imagine that the quit age is younger for girls than boys.

Also curious about race/ethnicity--growing up as a young black girl in the south, very few black girls I know did any sports at all. It just wasn't really encouraged? Some of it was socioeconomic, I'm sure, but it doesn't fully explain it, given that the black boys certainly played football and basketball.

Our 7yo is on the gymnastics team, but she's one of very few girls of color, and even that number dwindles as the girls move up levels.