State of Mind: Is youth sports helping or hurting our children?

With the Olympic Games beginning, many kids will inevitably formulate dreams of becoming the next great athlete to represent their country on the global stage. But while the joy and lessons garnered from sports have innumerable benefits, the current state of organized youth sports in our country carries considerable concerns for the mental health and well-being of young participants and parents alike.

Participation in organized sports can have significant positive impacts — lower rates of anxiety, depression and substance use and addiction. Increased resilience, self-esteem, self-confidence and empathy. Enhanced executive functioning, self-regulation, social skills, creativity and teamwork. Improved mood and physical health and fitness. Many of these benefits carry throughout one’s life.

It’s no wonder that parents are eager to sign their kids up. However, most parents can also relate to common struggles. Highly political environments, over-packed schedules and intense financial demands that are burdensome and worsen the gap between those that can and cannot afford to pay.

When considering the risks for kids, it’s important to acknowledge the dramatic shifts in the landscape, with the mass adoption of travel clubs and the commercialization of youth sports. No longer is the focus on simply playing a game.

Instead, in the quest for college athletic scholarships and the perceived accompanying status, parents invest more time and money — often also increasing their own demands and expectations — to give their children a competitive edge. And when some do, others quickly follow suit, afraid to miss out on giving their children the same perceived advantages.

Ironically, the financial investment made over the years could have easily paid for a college education. And sadly, things like family dinners or game nights are non-existent in many households.

The result has been the very problems those parents commiserate about, compounded with additional detriments to the children who were supposed to benefit in the first place. Single-sport specialization, year-round overscheduling, over-demanding and demeaning coaches and heightened pressures from parents have all been shown to lead to increased stress and higher rates of anxiety, depression and eating disorders, as well as burnout and injury.

In the end, the people benefiting most from the current state of youth sports are those running lucrative teams and leagues — at the expense of kids, parents and families. Consequently, it is vital to focus on what can be done to more appropriately support young people.

Things like allowing downtime away from organized sport for free play, which carries immense benefit, watching and supporting kids without critiquing or criticizing, rewarding effort more than outcome, focusing on sportsmanship and skill development more than winning, encouraging exploration of other sports or non-sport activities, watching for signs of stress or burnout and simply listening to kids can all help to maximize the benefits and minimize risks.

It can help to consider that, of the millions of kids involved in youth sports, a significant portion will stop before high school. And of those currently playing a high school sport, only around 6 percent will play in college at any level, around 2 percent will receive any scholarship at all and only around 1 percent will receive a full-ride scholarship, depending on the sport. The probability of going professional in any sport plummets much lower.

In other words, the vast majority of kids will go on to live lives that don’t include playing sports, leaving athletic accomplishments and prestige in the past. Hopefully, with appropriate support, those people’s identities will not revolve around their former position as an athlete. Instead, with help keeping priorities in perspective, they will be able to carry with them the valuable benefits of having participated in organized sports.

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Bryan Busch is a licensed mental health counselor in Cedar Rapids. He also works at Folience, the parent company of The Gazette. He can be reached at bryan.busch@thegazette.com.