7 Youth Sports Insights From American Academy of Pediatrics
Recently, the NY Times published an article covering a new clinical report on youth sports from the American Academy of Pediatrics. This is one of those rare must reads for all youth and high school sport parents.
This report from the American Academy of Pediatrics contains multiple nuggets of insight as well as specific recommendations. Below, is a summary of the 7 best insights I took away.
Insight 1: Know What Makes Youth Sports Fun
The evidence shows that what makes sports really fun for kids is trying hard, making progress, being a good sport, [and] experiencing positive coaching. – Dr. Kelsey Logan
Insight 2: Embrace Variety, Find Balance
Parents with younger preadolescent children should embrace variety in the way your kids move. If all they do is a running sport like soccer, they aren’t getting all the movements they need. You’ve got to enable younger kids to move their bodies in as many ways as possible, organized sports but also free play…
Children should balance a running sport like soccer with a sport that uses more upper-body motion like baseball or swimming or tennis or with an activity that requires more motor control like martial arts or gymnastics or dance. – Dr. Michele LaBotz
Insight 3: Playing Team Sports Does Not Always Equal Active and Healthy
Both pediatricians and parents assume that kids in organized sports are getting enough physical activity, but they actually might not be. There can be a lot of standing around at practice. Watch what your kid is doing on the field. You might be surprised at what you see. – Dr. Kelsey Logan
Insight 4: Rest is Important
It’s important to train hard, and I say this to patients all the time, but it’s also important to recover hard. Working out, you’re breaking your body down — it gets stronger in that recovery period in between workouts. – Dr. Michele LaBotz
Insight 5: Parents Matter More than Coaches
The coach-athlete relationship is incredibly important, but the evidence shows that parents have an even more central role in helping children get the most out of their participation in sports. Organized sports needs to be tailored to the child’s developmental stage, not just their age, so it’s particularly important to be sure that the coach is working with children in a developmentally appropriate way.
Parents can play an important role here, looking at their children to see what they are developmentally ready to do, and not pushing them too early into situations that will be frustrating. – Dr. Kelsey Logan
Insight 6: Injuries Beget Injuries
The biggest predictor for future injury is past injury – Dr. Michele LaBotz
Insight 7: Parents Must Keep Asking Questions to Prevent Abuse, Hazing, and Bullying
Most parents don’t ask any questions of the sponsoring sports organization. The most prevalent forms of abuse on sports teams are between teammates, hazing, bullying. [Pay] attention to a child’s emotional experience on the team. Watch for the same kind of signs you might see with bullying in other contexts — is your child shying away from teammates?, does your child’s personality seem to be changing? — and most of all, keep talking, keep asking questions, stay involved. – Dr. Michele LaBotz