Many kids and preteens are spending several days a week nearly every week of the year on a competitive athletic team. Often times the parents of these adolescents are spending thousands of dollars on team fees alone. It raises the question of whether or not youth athletics have become too competitive.

One of the biggest issues is that over-enthusiastic coaches and parents are promoting an idea of winning at all costs. With sports related injuries occurring at younger ages and practices severely cutting into family time, kids end up paying the price.

In an article published in the Boston Globe, Jay Atkinson believes the issue with youth sports is “single-sport specialization, the privatization of youth leagues, and the ranking and cutting of young children.” Here are some statistics from the article:

–       45 million kids participate in organized sports

–       By age 15, 80% of those kids quit

–       Only 1% of high school athletes will receive a Division 1 scholarship

–       Young athletes who concentrated on a single sport were 70-90% more likely to be injured than those who played multiple sports

In 2014, the Esquire Network raised some serious questions about parenting and safety in youth sports with the debut of “Friday Night Tykes” The show depicts Texas 9-year-olds playing head-smashing football and the over-zealous coaches who push them to their limits. Viewers watched unsafe head-to-head collisions as well as one coach telling his players, “rip their freaking heads off and let them bleed.”

In its second season, “Friday Night Tykes” has taken a decidedly lighter tone while addressing some of the questions from the first season. During the first episode a serious-voice narrator asks: “But how hard is too hard? How far is too far? Is youth sports truly about the kids, or is it truly about the parents?” Perhaps the better question is whether the young Esquire Network truly cares about the safety of adolescents, or whether they’re just trying to keep ratings high on their only breakout hit.

Some people disagree with the idea that youth sports are too competitive. They argue that the benefits of being part of a competitive, athletic team outweigh the costs. It teaches adolescents the value of working hard and learning a skill well. If they sustain intense and focused training then their hard work pays off. Young athletes also learn the importance of teamwork and the lessons of winning and losing.

What are your thoughts on the issue? Do you think that youth sports have become too competitive, or is this level of playing right for certain kids? Do the benefits outweigh the drawbacks of a young athlete being intensely focused on one sport? Are coaches and parents putting too much pressure on adolescents?