Resisting the Youth Sports Industrial Complex — from educationnext.org by Jonathan V. Last; via the The Top 20 Education Next Articles of 2023 from educationnext.org
Children’s sports are corrupted, but parents don’t have to play along
Excerpt (emphasis by DSC):
That’s the point of Linda Flanagan’s Take Back the Game, a book about the corruption of youth sports. It should be required reading for every parent. It should be handed out in the hospital along with What to Expect the First Year and Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.
Flanagan, a journalist and former running coach, has pulled off a rare trick: she diagnoses a societal sickness, traces the roots of the malady, and prescribes a cure.
The problem is that we have a Youth Sports Industrial Complex that forces kids into single-sport specialization before they hit middle school. It demands that children be involved in (expensive) club and travel sports programs starting in elementary school.
Her first dictum is to delay entry into organized sports as long as possible. Don’t sign them up for pee-wee soccer to get a jump on the club scene—send them out into the yard to kick the ball around. Have a catch with them. Shoot baskets. Let them tumble and do cartwheels in the grass. As Flanagan says, “Just let them play.”
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Another key precept from Flanagan: The family is more important than kids’ sports.
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Perhaps the most valuable lesson from Take Back the Game is that parents have agency.