AAP Voices Blog

Calling Timeout – an Extended One 

As a child I was really into softball. I could spend hours just throwing a ball with anyone who’d join me. But in the winter, I was a basketball player. By the time I hit junior high, I was a cross country runner, which then morphed into track in high school. My mom wanted a tennis player, but obviously I didn’t want to do what she thought was cool, so it wasn’t until mid-high school that I begrudgingly picked up a racket. She had a big, “I told you so” moment when I started getting scholarship offers to play tennis in college.  

For me and so many others, sports were the primary route to physical activity while growing up in the U.S. But unfortunately, we now are seeing record-setting highs for kids dropping out of sports, with 70% of athletes quitting sports before 13 years old. Overuse injuries in sports and burnout have become all-too-common problems in pediatrics and now more than 75% of adolescents in the United States fail to meet physical activity recommendations at all.  

But why are kids losing interest in sports? The professionalization of youth sports can’t be understated. A recent clinical report published in the February edition of Pediatrics highlights the problems of overuse injuries, overtraining, and burnout in young athletes. The pressure to succeed at a young age, and the perception that this success is the most effective route to future athletic success, leads to high volumes of training and loss of enjoyment in sport, both contributing to widespread burnout and attrition among youth athletes.  

The main objective for kids in sport is to have fun. It’s been said if youth athletes made their sports schedules, they would look vastly different from how the well-meaning coaches have scheduled them. Competitive leagues frequently require year-round participation with limited time off and minimal time for free play, which is important for developing brains. Kids love variety. They crave time with their families. They need sufficient sleep and enough time to recover from training.  It’s easy for parents to think that if they let their child play one sport year-round, often on multiple teams, they are helping them. We must educate parents that playing one sport all the time might actually hurt their kid.   

“It’s important to remember that every sports career will be over some day, whether that day occurs in high school, college, the Olympics, or the pros.” 

The February report details how extended periods of increased training without proper recovery time can lead to overtraining. Overtraining leads to decreased performance, increased risk of injury, and adversely affects mental health. The AAP recommends one day of rest per week and two to three months off per year in any one sport. The months don’t have to be consecutive and “off” does not mean sitting on the couch playing video games but staying active in other ways.   

The second objective for sports (after fun) is to learn lifelong physical activity skills. It’s important to remember that every sports career will be over some day, whether that day occurs in high school, college, the Olympics, or the pros. When it is over, it will be important for kids to remain physically active. We know that adolescents who don’t play sports are more likely to be obese, struggle with mental health, and often get lower grades in school.  There have even been studies that show adults who played sports through high school have higher salaries as adults. We know the benefits of exercise are lifelong. Unfortunately, kids who drop out of organized sport early often feel less confident with exercise and are less likely to continue to exercise into adulthood.  

If we encourage parents to be a partner in their child’s discovery from the beginning, we can help them ensure their child will stay active. Let them try anything and everything from a young age and let them develop a love for one or more of them organically. It helps to encourage kids to play a different sport each season, even if it’s just recreationally. If they are locked in one sport at a young age, they might miss out on another sport that they would have really enjoyed, sometimes even more. They might even be better at it. Like for me, with softball (which it turns out I wasn’t that good at), to tennis.   

As parents (and pediatricians), we often think we know more than our kids, but this is a wonderful opportunity to get their input. Ask them, “Are you still enjoying it,” or “Are you still having fun?” If not, let them know it’s okay after the season to try a different activity to take up that part of the year.   

As for me, I guess my mom was right about tennis. I did end up playing in college but for a school that didn’t offer scholarships (that’s what you get for the “I told you so” Mom). And now that I’m a mom and we get the pressure to specialize early, I feel comfortable letting my basketball-playing, cross country-running, soccer player, just enjoy being an active kid – though I did buy us matching tennis shoes.