Hyun-derrated: Parents can lose sight of priorities in youth sports
The Little League World Series is one of the biggest non-professional sporting events of the year. Thousands travel from all over the world to Williamsport, Pa., while over one million viewers tune in to watch over 200 kids compete for a title, seemingly without a worry in the world.
None of it would be possible without the support from the athletes’ parents.
Even though sports like football and basketball don’t have similar national events for young athletes, many local communities devote plenty of time to attending high school games, so parents do everything they can to make their childrens’ dreams a reality.
Sometimes, though, they do too much. In many cases, parents make practice and training a higher priority than focusing on academics.
This is partially due to the hope that elite athletic ability will lead to scholarships. However, just over 7% of high school athletes go on to play at a college, and only 2% get to play at a Division I school.
In most cases, the end goal is unattainable. Most teenagers that aspire to become a professional athlete fall short. Pursuing lifelong dreams and scholarships is great, but when do teenagers and parents realize they must start pursuing other goals? Are parents devoting too much time and money to athletic endeavors when they should be paying more attention to other aspects of their child’s life?
Let’s go back to the LLWS. There’s quite a long process required just to get to the tournament. There are over 200,000 little league baseball teams in the world. Most of these teams get eliminated before summer even begins, but for the teams that keep winning, there is plenty of additional travelling and costs that go into supporting a player.
From driving to practice to traveling across the country for tournaments and everything in between, parents devote a significant chunk of time and money to their child’s athletics. Many parents are even directly connected as coaches or unofficial team moms or dads.
According to a MassMutual blog, “the typical parent spends between $100-500 per month, per child on elite sports … but $1000 per month is not unheard of.” This means that parents can spend an absurd amount of over $10,000 a year on their child’s athletic success.
The problem is that some parents want their children to do better and practice harder than the children do themselves. In extreme cases, parents go beyond training their children for the right reasons (such as getting exercise and staying healthy) and might start to become aggressive and abusive toward their own children — often for the purpose of chasing money, in whatever form that might be.
This can cause the child to want to stop trying and quit sports altogether. When parents constantly push their children to train harder or become better, sports can have an unintended consequence of inducing depression rather than boosting confidence or self-esteem.
So what’s the point? Maybe parents hope for their child to one day become a professional athlete and reward them with money. Or maybe they hope their child can one day become famous, making the parents feel accomplished themselves.
Spending money to support childrens’ athletic goals is often a great thing to do — but only within reason. Doing so becomes a problem when it starts to affect the child’s health. Of course, there are many factors that play into why parents spend so much money on youth athletics. Cultural norms and reputation can make a large impact on parents when dealing with their own children, even if these influences are only subconscious.
Sports are fun and extremely valuable tools for personal growth, fulfillment and child development, but life does not have to be all about sports. Parents should look beyond production and statistics to support their child’s athletic pursuits to what children can apply to their lives off the field. Wins and losses go, but the impact that sports can have on a child’s life last — and parents need to understand that.
Nathan Hyun is a sophomore writing about underrepresented sports. His column, “Hyun-derrated,” runs every other Wednesday.