Sports for children in the United States have increased dramatically over the past three decades. Many believe that parents and coaches are becoming too involved in youth sports practices. In the essay “Children Need to Play, Not Compete” by Jessica Statsky, Statsky states her opinion that children should be focused on playing the game and having fun, instead of focused on winning the game. She also states and supports how parents and coaches are becoming too involved and not letting the children play. This is resulting in physical and mental harm to the child.
Statsky’s essay is convincing and very well structured. She does an excellent job supporting her opinion throughout her essay. Statsky believes that children should be focused on having fun, instead of winning the game. In her essay, she states that “winning and losing may be an inevitable part of adult life, but should not be a part of childhood. ” Instead of making the children focus on having fun and playing the game, adults tend to pay too much attention on the result of the game. She claims that too many adults are beginning to lose sight of what really matters and making winning the most important goal.
Parents and coaches play a major role in contributing to this because they often apply adult standards to a children’s sport. This harms children physically and mentally. The adult standards applied force children to do physical actions that are bad for their growing bodies, sometimes resulting in lifelong injuries. Mentally, the stress adults put on children about winning seems to gradually get worse as time goes on. Statsky believes that children are mentally beginning to break down, and she gives examples of how some are even beginning to fake injuries because they actually fear becoming hurt.
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Statsky implies that childhood is a time for making memories, participating in things that make children happy, and enjoying their time. Instead of stressing about winning, practicing, losing, making the team, and getting hurt, children should purely be having fun playing the sports they love. Statsky states in one of her references from a former sports editor for the New York Times, relates that after all the years of watching children play sports, he found very few smiling. She believes it is because children are beginning to lose their love for the game, because the fun is being taken away and replaced with competition.
Even though winning does make things more fun, Statsky maintains that shouldn’t be the main goal. Adults are turning what should be fun for children into what almost seems like a job when having fun, learning, and being with friends should be every adult’s goal for the children. Not only are children not having fun, they are not benefiting from youth sport practices anymore either. Statsky believes that parents and coaches are taking away from this by trying to put their own fantasies and needs in front of the child’s wellbeing because they emphasize competition and winning.
Parents should always support their children, encourage them to do their best, and teach them as much as they can. Statsky emphasizes that parents should not focus on just winning because children are easily influenced and will try to live up to these expectations. If they fail they can easily become discouraged and depressed. Coaches, on the other hand, should make practices fun, treat injuries, make sure parents are not too hard on the child, and if the child makes a mistake teach them the correct way and encourage them to keep trying. A coach should never be negative to a child because that could easily discourage them.
Coaches should also never single out a child for their lack of athletic ability. Every child should get the same opportunity and get to participate even if they are not all on the same level of play. Statsky believes that all children should develop the necessary strength and ability to play, instead of focusing on the good players and leaving the others behind. Too much competition too early in life can affect a child’s development. Not only is this bad for the child’s growing bodies now, it could also be harmful in the long run. Statsky uses the example of tackle football, which requires children to hit each other as hard as they can.
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Since their bodies are still growing this can hurt them, but it also is too traumatic. This is dangerous and also intimidates children, they even fear becoming hurt. This is a psychological issue that should not be a problem a child has to deal with. Many children are so stressed about winning because that is all they hear about from the adults, so they start having anxiety. They stress so much about something that should be their outlet that it begins effecting things besides just sports. Children who play sports typically do not do as well in school.
When all the stress is added outside of school, children begin to lose focus on their school work. Statsky states from one of her references, “80 to 90 percent of children who play competitive sports at a young age drop out by sixteen. ” Statsky presents a very reasonable and logical agreement. It is hard to disagree with her viewpoint after reading the article. All of her examples were relevant and accurate. Statsky ties together her opinion with facts and statistics. She also made several references throughout her essay to support her opinions making her essay very convincing.
