Slow Down Parents

Musings

This is a very busy political time with the Democratic convention underway and the Republicans and Democrats scouring the country to look for anyone who will cheer for them and promise to vote for them. However in the midst of all of this hoopla we should take note that we have another very importantevent occurring with coverage across  the nation;  all day long,every day, professional announcers and crowds cheering every occurrence.:  Its the Little League World Series!! In case you missed it, it is occuring in Pennsylvania which as you know is a battleground state. However, while we watch intently on TV to see the best 11 and12 year olds play baseball with each other we should take some time to think about the activities that exist for our youth and the direction in which they are developing. I am not sure we should be happy with that evolution. Kids sports seem to be headed out of control.

Contemplations

The term helicopter parents has been around for a number of years and it seems a normal parental status for many parents  who are busy  overseeing their children's activities and development on an extensive scale. Parenting has certainly evolved  in the last 50 years as families got smaller, there aremore families with additional funds to enhance youth activities and the development of many of the modern devices and gizmos have allowed parents to stay right on top of their children's activities. This has been questioned any number of times by people who point out that the children need to be given some freedom so that they can experience success and failure and learn to handle events in the world..  Imagine, kids previouslywalked to school playgrounds and organized their own games !This progression has come to my attention once more as I look at the latest evolutions that we have for children growing up. In many cases the parents seem to be trying to ensure that the children have all the opportunities that the parents may not have had and/ or that the children don't make any mistakes so that they can keep progressing towards the top of the ladder. In doing so the parents consistently take over the activity and build it into a superlative sporting establishment or performing arts program.  They are quick to point out that they are just trying to give the children the best possible activity. They sign up programs after school and perhaps before school so the children can work on the  minute aspects of their activity to try and achieve the top level.

The trouble with this is it can quickly evolve into the type of programs I saw in South Korea some decades ago.  There the government wanted everyone to learn English. So  many Englishlearniing programs were created during or after school. At the same time other programs opened up for the children to become better soccer players, or to play instruments, or become involved in some other program into the evening. This regularly took the children to some hours late at night. Once the children got home they would  do their homework  and then to bed with little other time to  act or select an event of their own choosing. If that is your goal for your child  that may be a good program to follow. I believe that is an erroneous system.

I am not sure why we have 3rd graders who have to attend practice multiple times a week at a field  not close to their ownhome or school and play games scattered around the metropolitan area or beyond. The kids want to participate and do it with their friends and have fun. All of the other extra structure and controls are added by the parents who are reliving their adult life in place of their children. This occurs way too often and can be seen as the parents and coaches yell and cheer and send signals as if they're at a professional game or event. At times the players even wind up crying as they don't really understand all the extra directives and consternation when something doesn't go right. If you watch a Little League gamethe batter receives multiple signals from the coach before he steps in to try and hit the next pitch. I'm sorry but these are 11 and 12 year olds. They do not need major league structure for their play. A further example of the excess of expectations is the Tommy John surgery that occurs. This is a very difficult  armsurgery that used to be performed only on major league pitchers. Now the majority of these operations are performed on 15 to 19 year olds. The patients are becoming younger and younger as the young players feel the pressure to perform at a higher level. The players should be having fun and learning how to play. The parents and coaches bring the excess. Another example of the absurd is  the televising of football games by seventh and eighth graders. This is not what development levels of kids sports were intended to be.

Even the basic structure of Little League seems mixed up. The season starts in early spring and effectively is over by early June. The teams then start playing tournaments and all stargames such that by the middle to 3rd week of June only a few of the players are playing any longer. In tournaments  once you lose you're out of the tournament. In essence after one  or a couple rounds of a tournament you're eliminated. This winds up with July and August (which one would think is a season for lots of baseball) devoid of baseball for most of the young playerswho are done because the important thing is to have enough playoff games to get to the final two teams playing in Pennsylvania.  All of the players on all the other teams are left out playing no baseball for most of the summer.  

Another misconception is travel teams. There seems to be a feeling now that when a child is playing a sport in high school and may hope to play in college they have to be on a travel team perhaps even starting back in middle school or earlier. In theory,on a travel team the player develops their talent  better against awhole mixture of different people and they can improve their level of play. They also may get exposure to coaches at colleges at various places if they play in those areas. These teams call for considerable additional expenses for the parents but it is not clear how much it really improves the players playing ability except that they play that many more games and in order to do this they miss events and classes at home. I recently saw whereplayers were asked to complete applications  for coaches  at  colleges. The applications not only asked for the high school and high school coach but it asked for the name of the playerstravel team and their travel team coach. I was surprised that there was now an expectation that athletes had a travel team.What about the the high school student who would like to playtwo or three  sports and/or has other interests.

Thoughts

I understand that much of my contemplations above simply look like  I want to turn back the clock. That is partly true. However I want to see the structure of kids sports and other  activities become extracurricular activities with enough time  left for the children and youth of our country to grow up enjoying their extracurricular activities while they're learning their academics in school and enjoying their time with their friends.

Silence Dogood

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