Problems With Young Kids in Recreational Sports

Injuries

• Young children are developing physically, and it is an important time for their bodies to be healthy to grow. One of the realities of recreational sports is that your young child can become injured during practice or a game. Accidents happen in sports, and they range in severity. A sprained ankle or bruised knee may be easy to recover from, but fractures, broken bones and dislocated joints are severe injures that are painful, temporarily debilitating and can weaken particular parts of the body during your child's growth spurt. Even more severe injuries are those to the brain. According to Safe Kids USA, youth sports-related fatalities are rare, but they do happen. An average of 2 out of 5 brain injuries among youth are caused by participation in recreational activities, Safe Kids USA says.

Focus

• Some young kids who play recreational sports start to lose interest in other activities or subjects, such as school, going to church, etc. They become fixated on the sport and on winning, and other things fall by the wayside in terms of importance and priorities. Kids may want to practice kicking the soccer ball more than they want to do their homework, or help out around the house. Children who play youth sports must have a balance between their sports life and the other things in their life. It is up to the parents to help encourage the balance, because otherwise it might be easy for the youth to get sucked into the hype and excitement of competition.

Time Demands and Stress

• Recreational sports can be overly demanding of your child's time, thereby causing him physical and emotional stress. Sometimes, kids need downtime to relax, play creatively and not have a social commitment. When you sign your child up for recreational sports, you are also signing him up to a schedule of practice dates, game dates and the pressures associated with having so many commitments, which lead to stress. In the end, this can wear your young child out, cause burn out, make him overly exhausted and make him lose interest in the game. He may also start to feel like some of his other friends get to hang out on the weekends, but he has to participate in sports, so he may form a resentment toward the activity you committed him to.

Self-Esteem

• Kids in recreational sports may start to base their self-esteem on their ability to reach sports goals. For some children, this is healthy. For others, this can be a set-up for failure or for having poor self-esteem. Children who set high expectations for themselves may find that they have a difficult time living up to what they think they are capable of. In the end, this can cause kids to feel down about themselves, or take it really hard when they miss a ball or a shot.

Future Problems

• Children who really take to youth sports can start to develop problems in the future. Mechanical injuries from overusing certain parts of the body can become problematic years down the road. Even if a child does not get injured in games, several years later a good baseball pitcher may find that he has a pinched nerve in his elbow, or a soccer star may develop a problem with his knee joints.

Parents

• Parental pressure is a problem for young kids in recreational sports. Some parents become fixated on the success of their child in the sport, and begin pressuring him to do more and more, regardless of how the child feels emotionally or physically. Children tend to go along with these pressures because they want to impress their parents, or have their parents approve of them. Some young kids may not have a choice about playing in recreational sports even if it is not something they feel comfortable doing. Without anyone to stand up to the parents, kids become stuck playing the sports.