By Jim Brown
A national spokesperson, writer, and USA Today contributor is lamenting what she says has become a popular societal trend: adults channeling children into particular sports at younger and younger ages.
Robin Gerber says it is happening all across the United States — youngsters on up to their teenage years spending more and more time in structured athletics. Recently, at a park in her neighborhood, Gerber noticed an instructor holding a soccer class for children as young as three years old.
Gerber, who is a senior fellow at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, says a combination of factors has contributed to this push for early sports specialization.
“One is that parents do hope that their kids are going to get scholarships — even at young ages, the parents have their eye on helping them get into the right college,” she says.
Gerber also says because competition in leagues and sports programs has become more high-level and intense, parents often feel their children need more training to keep up with the other children. But the concerned author wants adults to realize that pushing their children into a life of non-stop sports is not the proper approach for producing terrific athletes. She believes narrow casting of children into a particular sport at a very young age has its consequences.
“Kids get burned out. They get injuries because, after all, their muscles and bones are growing and developing, and if we’re pushing them too hard, they can and do get permanent injuries,” Gerber says.
The author warns that the success of professional athletes like Tiger Woods and Venus and Serena Williams, who started their training at extremely young ages, are by far the exception rather than the rule.
Also, Gerber adds, the push for early sports specialization may eliminate the chance for young people to discover other talents they have outside of sports.
A frequent contributor to the opinion pages of USA Today, Gerber has also been published in The Washington Post, Newsday, The Baltimore Sun, and other prominent newspapers. She is also a national commentator on women's leadership and other political issues, and is the author of Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way: Timeless Strategies from the First Lady of Courage (Prentice Hall, 2002).
( This article courtesy of Agape Press).
