The Problem with Your Child Specializing in Sport too Early
Why early specialization is happening
There is a lot of pressure for young athletes to be successful. Being successful on the playing field has education, career, and social implications. The better the athlete, the greater the scholarship amount to play a collegiate sport, the greater chance of continuing on a professional level. The better the result, the more recognition the athlete or the parent receive from those around them. The notion that sport is fun, which instills healthy active lifestyles and teaches life skills, has been put on the back burner. The idea that multi-sport athletes produce whole athletes with better overall skills, has become second to specialization. It is believed that single-sport sport specific skills produces the highest quality. Here's the danger with this mentality: it feeds the mindset that if specializing at 18 years old is ideal, then specializing at 13 is even better. And if this is the case, then we should begin specializing our children in one sport at 8 to get an earlier start ahead of peers.
What are the consequences
The overemphasis on being successful has been detrimental to sports. The need to be successful, in addition to specialization, has lead to overtraining in which athletes are investing entirely too many hours for their age. The ten thousand hour rule (Malcom Gladwell's rule which insists investing 10,000 hours in anything makes you a master in that area) only reinforces the idea of: “If my child is going to be successful, they have to fully invest to the task with deliberate practice for at least ten years. The later they start their ten years, the later they achieve the goal.” The repetitive motions of sport and the amount of time in one sport can lead to severe or career ending injuries at a younger age. The amount of pressure in the form of expectations of success from self, parents, coaches, and even social media can lead to anxiety, fear of failure, and burnout. When we over identify in one role in life, such as the role of a wrestler, we limit our sources of joy, confidence, and support. If our child were to loose their identity as a wrestler because of injury, not making the team, or losing a state title, they could start to wonder, ‘am I really a wrestler? If I am not, then who am I? What talents or skills do I have that I can be confident in? Who can I turn to for support?’ This is challenging for anyone, let alone a young athlete battling with mental health around their identity
How to combat the problem
It starts with education to the stakeholders involved. Parents, you rarely choose to do something you know could hurt your children. Coaches rarely make choices that would set their athletes back. We must provide coaches and parents with the pros and cons of specialization to allow them to make an educated choice on how to act, instead of following today's social norms of youth sport. Believing early specialization means more success is a harmful narrative. Encourage your athlete to be a diverse athlete. Just because she wants to participate in one sport, doesn’t mean you can’t encourage her to build hobbies and social activities around other positive areas of her life. If your athlete pushes back, make it a family event which provides a well needed break from sport. Coaches should also encourage their athletes to try other sports and hobbies and provide down time if it’s a year round program. Value the whole person and not only the athlete's success on the mat or playing field. Coaches can shake up practices with warm-ups that include different sports and skills that are unusual for your sport. Utilize cross-over training sessions with other events in which your team jumps into volleyball or basketball while the next week they jump to learn your sport's skills. If you see an athlete continually exhausted or injured, encourage them to take a mental and physical break. It's easy to believe that by allowing a week or two away from sport, they will easily walk away. In reality, the athlete will come back more motivated and healthy to do a sport they love.
