“Free play” is a relatively new term to me. When I was a kid we just called it “play.”
Dr. Ron Turker, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, had an op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times, All Played Out:
Recently, I told a teenage boy, whom I’ll call Lucas, and his parents that he had torn the anterior cruciate ligament (A.C.L.) in his knee. The matching soccer jerseys worn by the entire family were a hint as to how the conversation would go.
“You don’t understand, this is his life!” Mom said.
“We need this fixed — he’s in the Olympic Development Program! He’s elite,” said Dad.
Lucas is 13. The next 40 minutes of what had been a 20-minute appointment were spent trying to reset expectations. Lucas would need a minimum of six months to heal the reconstructed graft. On top of that, his bones were still growing, so the surgical technique would have to be altered to a trickier and less tested procedure. And the harsh reality: Any knee that has had a major injury will never be 100 percent “normal.” His parents were furious and left for the inevitable second opinion.
These visits are exhausting and more common every year. The question is why.
One reason is that our very young kids play harder, and for more hours, than ever before. As a collective, we, the parents, have bought into a new and lucrative paradigm. Our kids no longer play sports; they are youth “athletes.”
The landscape of youth sports has changed markedly in the last 20 years. Free play, where children gather after school, pick a game and play until called in for dinner, is almost extinct. Highly organized and stratified sports have become the norm. Time, place and rules are now dictated to our kids rather than organized by the kids….
Eight- and 9-year-old children are often pressured to choose a single sport and to play it all year or risk showing a “lack of commitment.” Kids are “invited” to play in extra-seasonal leagues, but the invitation comes with a caveat. The implicit message is, show up or don’t expect much playing time during the regular season. Kids sense the pressure and sometimes it seeps out in unexpected ways….
As parents, we want what’s best for our kids but we’ve abdicated our parental rights and duties to the new societal norm. Youth sports have become big business. Millions of dollars flow to coaches, leagues, equipment, road trips, motels, tournament fees — and the list goes on. We give in to the herd mentality along with our confounded friends so that our kids won’t be seen as outliers.
As the parent of two kids and a resident of the suburbs, this is something I do not look forward to. I still scratch my head at the thought that we might be challenged to find a league where the kids could play just for fun. (Maybe it’s a suburban thing?) I hope my kids enjoy playing sports. I did, even if I wasn’t particularly good at most of them. I just hope they (we) don’t have to be super serious about it in order to participate. Yes, you go to practice and you’re serious about practice when you go. Yes, you try to improve your skills over the course of the season. Those are key elements of participating in a sport. But getting blackballed if you don’t participate in extra-seasonal leagues? Yeesh. Cool out. If my kids find a sport they enjoy then I’ll encourage their interest but when you’re a gradeschooler you should be playing fun not as a “youth athlete.”