Beware of the Non Athletic Parents Pushing Their Legacy

(Newswire.net — June 16, 2015) Darien, CT — Universally parents want their children to do better then they have. This goes for on the field and in the classroom. Realizing bragging rights is one of the few joys of raising children today. But are we placing unreasonable expectations on these children? Is there too much emphasis on sports? While not enough emphasis is being placed on studies and the arts?

 Every one I can think of has some sort of insecuritiy that they drag around for life. Second place in basketball, honorable mention in a track meet held years ago. Those painful memories refuse to fade away completely. Now as parents we must make sure our inadequacies are not spilled over into our children. We hire pitching coaches to teach our kids how to throw a ball. They get years of endless karate lessons to prevent a school yard beat down. It is natural , we all want the best for our kids. There is no shame here at all.

 Now for the tough part. Are we pushing our kids too hard to perform when they physically can not or should not? I have seen a fair share of repetitive strain sprain injuries in young athletes in my 23 years of practice as a chiropractor. Kids are the greatest patients because they get better quickly and they listen much better then their parents. A problem I see is that the kids are forced into playing longer and are not given adequate rest. When do kids get to be kids?

 Atheletes today are mainly only playing one sport. Their bodies are not being rounded out by multiple sports as we did in our youth. A season that lasted 12 games is now pushed to 20 games and there are multiple seasons. Realize that we are setting our children to fail. Their bodies are developing and need rest.In the case of the children their bodies need rest to grow properly. Are they getting enough rest? Probably not.

 Let’s turn out attention to injuries sustained by these kids. The seasons are too long and the number of days to practice are longer as well. Is it possible that we are sucking the fun out sports for out own edification? Bragging rights are valuable aren’t they but at what cost? Have you pushed your child to play even when they were hurt? I think we are all guilty of this to some degree. I think  we need to be aware that we can be causing the child physical harm and burnout. By the time that child is in high school they can already be done with a sport they once loved due to burn out. Many give up trying when they realize that a scholarship is not going to appear. Rather then disppointing a gung-ho parent they wane and slowly flame out. Whose fault is that? Our’s and our’s alone.

 If they develop chronic injuries that we do not pay enough attention to and get seriously hurt where do we lay the blame? Injuries will happen but we need to pay attention to them. Our children need to heal. The over emphasis on sports is placing our children at risk. So few of these kids will go onto college level sports. Maybe we need to let our children enjoy sports as they were ment to be enjoyed. We should enccourage well rounded activities that include the arts, music, sports and school work. Our inadequacies should not pervade our children’s happiness and healthy growth.