Attrition in Youth Sports

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has wisely chosen to draw our attention to the distressing statistic that by age 13, 70% of children have dropped out of organized sports.

Seventy-five years ago news of this dramatic decline in participation would have received a quizzical shrug because organized youth sports was in its infancy. It consisted primarily of Little League Baseball and for the most part excluded girls. Prior to middle school and high school, children were self-organizing their sports activities – picking their own teams, demarcating their own fields, and making up the rules to fit the conditions. Soccer Dads and Hockey Moms hadn’t been invented. To what extent this attrition from youth sports is contributing to the fact that more than 75% of this country’s adolescents fail to meet even the most lenient activity requirements is unclear. But, it certainly isn’t helping the situation.

Wilkoff_William_G_2_web.jpg

Parsing out the contributors to this decline in organized sport should be high on our priority list. In the recent AAP Clinical Report published in Pediatrics (same reference as above) the authors claim “Burnout represents one of the primary reasons for attrition in youth sports.” This statement doesn’t quite agree with my experiences. So, I decided to chase down their reference. It turns out their assertion comes from an article coming out of Australia by eight authors who “brainstormed” 83 unique statements of 61 stakeholders regarding “athlete participation in the high-performance pathway” and concluded “Athlete health was considered the most important athlete retention to address.” While injury and overuse may explain why some elite youth participants drop out and represent a topic for the AAP to address, I’m not sure this paper’s anecdotal conclusion helps us understand the overall decline in youth sports. A broader and deeper discussion can be found in a 2019 AAP Clinical Report that addresses the advantages and pitfalls of youth sports as organized in this country.

How we arrived at this point in which, as the AAP report observes, “Youth sport participation represents the primary route to physical activity” is unclear. One obvious cause is the blossoming of the sedentary entertainment alternatives that has easily overpowered the attraction of self-organized outdoor games. The first attack in this war that we are losing came with affordable color television. Here we must blame ourselves both as parents and pediatricians for not acknowledging the risks and creating some limits. Sadly, the AAP’s initial focus was on content and not on time watched. And, of course, by the time handheld electronic devices arrived the cat was out of the bag.

We also must accept some blame for allowing physical activity to disappear as a meaningful part of the school day. Recesses have been curtailed, leaving free play and all its benefits as an endangered species. Physical education classes have been pared down tragically just as teenagers are making their own choices about how they will spend their time.

We must not underestimate the role that parental anxiety has played in the popularity of organized sport. I’m not sure of the origins of this change, but folks in my cohort recall that our parents let us roam free. As long as we showed up for meals without a policeman in tow, our parents were happy. For some reason parents seem more concerned about risks of their children being outside unmonitored, even in what are clearly safe neighborhoods.

Into this void created by sedentary amusements, limited in-school opportunities for physical activity, and parental anxiety, adult (often parent) organized sports have flourished. Unfortunately, they have too often been over-organized and allowed to morph into a model that mimics professional sports. The myth that to succeed a child must start early, narrow his/her focus and practice, practice, practice has created a situation that is a major contributor to the decline in youth sports participation. This philosophy also contributes to burnout and overuse injuries, but this is primarily among the few and the more elite.

When the child who is already involved in an organized sport sees and believes that he or she hasn’t a chance against the “early bloomers,” that child will quit. Without an appealing alternative, he/she will become sedentary. Further damage is done when children themselves and their parents have witnessed other families heavily invested in professionalized youth programs and decide it doesn’t make sense to even sign up.

In full disclosure, I must say that I have children and grandchildren who have participated in travel teams. Luckily they have not been tempted to seek even more elite programs. They have played at least two or three sports each year and still remain physically active as adults.

I don’t think the answer to the decline in youth sports is to eliminate travel and super-elite teams. The drive to succeed is too strong in some individuals. The answers lie in setting limits on sedentary alternatives, continuing to loudly question the myth of early specialization, and to work harder at offering the broadest range of opportunities that can appeal to children of all skill levels.

Dr. Wilkoff practiced primary care pediatrics in Brunswick, Maine, for nearly 40 years. He has authored several books on behavioral pediatrics, including “How to Say No to Your Toddler.” Other than a Littman stethoscope he accepted as a first-year medical student in 1966, Dr. Wilkoff reports having nothing to disclose. Email him at pdnews@mdedge.com.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has wisely chosen to draw our attention to the distressing statistic that by age 13, 70% of children have dropped out of organized sports.

Seventy-five years ago news of this dramatic decline in participation would have received a quizzical shrug because organized youth sports was in its infancy. It consisted primarily of Little League Baseball and for the most part excluded girls. Prior to middle school and high school, children were self-organizing their sports activities – picking their own teams, demarcating their own fields, and making up the rules to fit the conditions. Soccer Dads and Hockey Moms hadn’t been invented. To what extent this attrition from youth sports is contributing to the fact that more than 75% of this country’s adolescents fail to meet even the most lenient activity requirements is unclear. But, it certainly isn’t helping the situation.

Wilkoff_William_G_2_web.jpg

Parsing out the contributors to this decline in organized sport should be high on our priority list. In the recent AAP Clinical Report published in Pediatrics (same reference as above) the authors claim “Burnout represents one of the primary reasons for attrition in youth sports.” This statement doesn’t quite agree with my experiences. So, I decided to chase down their reference. It turns out their assertion comes from an article coming out of Australia by eight authors who “brainstormed” 83 unique statements of 61 stakeholders regarding “athlete participation in the high-performance pathway” and concluded “Athlete health was considered the most important athlete retention to address.” While injury and overuse may explain why some elite youth participants drop out and represent a topic for the AAP to address, I’m not sure this paper’s anecdotal conclusion helps us understand the overall decline in youth sports. A broader and deeper discussion can be found in a 2019 AAP Clinical Report that addresses the advantages and pitfalls of youth sports as organized in this country.

How we arrived at this point in which, as the AAP report observes, “Youth sport participation represents the primary route to physical activity” is unclear. One obvious cause is the blossoming of the sedentary entertainment alternatives that has easily overpowered the attraction of self-organized outdoor games. The first attack in this war that we are losing came with affordable color television. Here we must blame ourselves both as parents and pediatricians for not acknowledging the risks and creating some limits. Sadly, the AAP’s initial focus was on content and not on time watched. And, of course, by the time handheld electronic devices arrived the cat was out of the bag.

We also must accept some blame for allowing physical activity to disappear as a meaningful part of the school day. Recesses have been curtailed, leaving free play and all its benefits as an endangered species. Physical education classes have been pared down tragically just as teenagers are making their own choices about how they will spend their time.

We must not underestimate the role that parental anxiety has played in the popularity of organized sport. I’m not sure of the origins of this change, but folks in my cohort recall that our parents let us roam free. As long as we showed up for meals without a policeman in tow, our parents were happy. For some reason parents seem more concerned about risks of their children being outside unmonitored, even in what are clearly safe neighborhoods.

Into this void created by sedentary amusements, limited in-school opportunities for physical activity, and parental anxiety, adult (often parent) organized sports have flourished. Unfortunately, they have too often been over-organized and allowed to morph into a model that mimics professional sports. The myth that to succeed a child must start early, narrow his/her focus and practice, practice, practice has created a situation that is a major contributor to the decline in youth sports participation. This philosophy also contributes to burnout and overuse injuries, but this is primarily among the few and the more elite.

When the child who is already involved in an organized sport sees and believes that he or she hasn’t a chance against the “early bloomers,” that child will quit. Without an appealing alternative, he/she will become sedentary. Further damage is done when children themselves and their parents have witnessed other families heavily invested in professionalized youth programs and decide it doesn’t make sense to even sign up.

In full disclosure, I must say that I have children and grandchildren who have participated in travel teams. Luckily they have not been tempted to seek even more elite programs. They have played at least two or three sports each year and still remain physically active as adults.

I don’t think the answer to the decline in youth sports is to eliminate travel and super-elite teams. The drive to succeed is too strong in some individuals. The answers lie in setting limits on sedentary alternatives, continuing to loudly question the myth of early specialization, and to work harder at offering the broadest range of opportunities that can appeal to children of all skill levels.

Dr. Wilkoff practiced primary care pediatrics in Brunswick, Maine, for nearly 40 years. He has authored several books on behavioral pediatrics, including “How to Say No to Your Toddler.” Other than a Littman stethoscope he accepted as a first-year medical student in 1966, Dr. Wilkoff reports having nothing to disclose. Email him at pdnews@mdedge.com.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has wisely chosen to draw our attention to the distressing statistic that by age 13, 70% of children have dropped out of organized sports.

Seventy-five years ago news of this dramatic decline in participation would have received a quizzical shrug because organized youth sports was in its infancy. It consisted primarily of Little League Baseball and for the most part excluded girls. Prior to middle school and high school, children were self-organizing their sports activities – picking their own teams, demarcating their own fields, and making up the rules to fit the conditions. Soccer Dads and Hockey Moms hadn’t been invented. To what extent this attrition from youth sports is contributing to the fact that more than 75% of this country’s adolescents fail to meet even the most lenient activity requirements is unclear. But, it certainly isn’t helping the situation.

Wilkoff_William_G_2_web.jpg

Parsing out the contributors to this decline in organized sport should be high on our priority list. In the recent AAP Clinical Report published in Pediatrics (same reference as above) the authors claim “Burnout represents one of the primary reasons for attrition in youth sports.” This statement doesn’t quite agree with my experiences. So, I decided to chase down their reference. It turns out their assertion comes from an article coming out of Australia by eight authors who “brainstormed” 83 unique statements of 61 stakeholders regarding “athlete participation in the high-performance pathway” and concluded “Athlete health was considered the most important athlete retention to address.” While injury and overuse may explain why some elite youth participants drop out and represent a topic for the AAP to address, I’m not sure this paper’s anecdotal conclusion helps us understand the overall decline in youth sports. A broader and deeper discussion can be found in a 2019 AAP Clinical Report that addresses the advantages and pitfalls of youth sports as organized in this country.

How we arrived at this point in which, as the AAP report observes, “Youth sport participation represents the primary route to physical activity” is unclear. One obvious cause is the blossoming of the sedentary entertainment alternatives that has easily overpowered the attraction of self-organized outdoor games. The first attack in this war that we are losing came with affordable color television. Here we must blame ourselves both as parents and pediatricians for not acknowledging the risks and creating some limits. Sadly, the AAP’s initial focus was on content and not on time watched. And, of course, by the time handheld electronic devices arrived the cat was out of the bag.

We also must accept some blame for allowing physical activity to disappear as a meaningful part of the school day. Recesses have been curtailed, leaving free play and all its benefits as an endangered species. Physical education classes have been pared down tragically just as teenagers are making their own choices about how they will spend their time.

We must not underestimate the role that parental anxiety has played in the popularity of organized sport. I’m not sure of the origins of this change, but folks in my cohort recall that our parents let us roam free. As long as we showed up for meals without a policeman in tow, our parents were happy. For some reason parents seem more concerned about risks of their children being outside unmonitored, even in what are clearly safe neighborhoods.

Into this void created by sedentary amusements, limited in-school opportunities for physical activity, and parental anxiety, adult (often parent) organized sports have flourished. Unfortunately, they have too often been over-organized and allowed to morph into a model that mimics professional sports. The myth that to succeed a child must start early, narrow his/her focus and practice, practice, practice has created a situation that is a major contributor to the decline in youth sports participation. This philosophy also contributes to burnout and overuse injuries, but this is primarily among the few and the more elite.

When the child who is already involved in an organized sport sees and believes that he or she hasn’t a chance against the “early bloomers,” that child will quit. Without an appealing alternative, he/she will become sedentary. Further damage is done when children themselves and their parents have witnessed other families heavily invested in professionalized youth programs and decide it doesn’t make sense to even sign up.

In full disclosure, I must say that I have children and grandchildren who have participated in travel teams. Luckily they have not been tempted to seek even more elite programs. They have played at least two or three sports each year and still remain physically active as adults.

I don’t think the answer to the decline in youth sports is to eliminate travel and super-elite teams. The drive to succeed is too strong in some individuals. The answers lie in setting limits on sedentary alternatives, continuing to loudly question the myth of early specialization, and to work harder at offering the broadest range of opportunities that can appeal to children of all skill levels.

Dr. Wilkoff practiced primary care pediatrics in Brunswick, Maine, for nearly 40 years. He has authored several books on behavioral pediatrics, including “How to Say No to Your Toddler.” Other than a Littman stethoscope he accepted as a first-year medical student in 1966, Dr. Wilkoff reports having nothing to disclose. Email him at pdnews@mdedge.com.