Teens Drop Sports

Experts at the American Academy of Pediatrics suggest that medical,
physical, cognitive and psychosocial components of children’s development
should be considered to evaluate the readiness of young athletes for intensive
athletic training and competition. Consider the following:

• Medical – The issue of preadolescent participation in competitive
  athletics is complex, and from a medical perspective, there appear
  to be both benefits, as well as potential drawbacks. Apparent advantages
  include physiological training/health benefits from participation
  in a “lifetime” sport, as well as enhanced motor/skill
  development. Research has demonstrated there are adverse physiological
  consequences from intense physical training, including delayed
  menarche and an increased risk of overuse injuries to immature
  musculoskeletal systems. Repetitive motion can cause premature
  closure of long bone growth plates and stress fractures are more
  common in juveniles than adults.
• Physical – Generally, young athletes grow and develop normally.
  As a result of regular physical activity, they demonstrate superior
  heart function, some gains in isomatic strength, enhanced neurological
  adaptations and improved body composition compared to their non-athletic
  peers. However, with the trend toward highly competitive athletics
  at a younger age, there is the potential hazard of an increasing
  number of sport-specific and overuse injuries of the immature skeletal
  and neuromuscular systems caused by many ambitious coaches’ tendencies
  to over-train children for competition. The ability to learn
  motor skills and the rate at which a child progresses in mastering
  these skills differ with each child. Young athletes should not
  be forced to practice and perform motor drills that are too advanced
  for their level of physical development.
• Cognitive – A distinguishing feature of pre-adolescence
  is a child’s strong, self-centered view, which facilitates
  individual performance, but complicates participation in team sports.
  Young children have difficulty understanding that a team is composed
  of interdependent positions that must simultaneously respond to one
  another and opposing players’ movements. Children can successfully
  cope with activities that allow them sufficient time to get ready.
  They more easily respond to a fixed object of static environment
  in situations that permit them to move at their own rates of
  speed, time and readiness.
• Psychosocial – Generally, younger children experience
  less anxiety (feeling of distress) about casual sports participation
  (e.g., playground) because they have not become as aware as older
  children of the competitive nature of these situations. However,
  younger athletes experience more trait anxiety than older athletes
  do in structured sport settings in which competition is explicit.
  Important competitive events, because of an emphasis on winning,
  put so much pressure on children that some of them drop out of
  playing sports. Research suggests that for young children, high
  performance scores may have more to do with heredity and maturity
  than personal accomplishment. Some children may not be successful
  competitors simply because of their inadequate maturity level.
  Repeated failures may have a detrimental psychological effect on
  developing young athletes and result in low self-esteem, depression,
  excessive anxiety, burnout, serious injuries and re-injuries. As
  a result, these athletes who might be very talented, could withdraw
  from sports before they reach their potential and without further
  attempting to return to a particular sport.

All the above conclusions indicate that
children cannot and should not play an adult version of a game.The
nature of the game must be modified to match young athletes’ cognitive
abilities. According to experts at the American Volleyball Coaches Association
(AVCA), children’s main motives to participate in sports and compete
are: