Increasing Athletics Requirements Can Be a Burden on Youth Athletes

Youth sports are an increasingly competitive enterprise. Kids are playing in more games and longer practices, while private lessons and exclusive leagues exploit parents’ wallets. As a result, coaches and parents are faced with a challenging dilemma: follow the trend and risk burning the young athletes out, or ease expectations and risk the athletes falling behind?

It can be tempting to do whatever is necessary to put your athlete in a position to be the best. But there are other, more important factors to consider. Different kids will react in different ways, and there is no easy solution. But through this guide and the use of a sports team website, coaches and parents can hope to make the best decision possible.

The limits of time and money

Let’s face it - the Bank of Mom and Dad is not a bottomless pit, and there is a cost-benefit analysis involved in funding youth sport endeavors. Additionally, there are only 24 hours in a day, and a plethora of extracurricular activities will cut into the allotment for academics and that oft-overlooked necessity for youngsters, free time. With that said, parents still want their kids to be the best they can be and will often spend outside their budgets to find that leg up on the competition.

But there are alternatives to top-flight instructors and camps. Many star athletes got to their vaulted status by putting hours and hours of their own personal time into developing their games. How many stories are there of Michael Jordan putting up shot after shot on his own? It is possible to advance in sports without the help of 5-star camps and $100 per hour private coaches.

The burden of high performance

For a number of young athletes, parents are the driving reason for their commitment to the sport - in other words, they don’t care about it as much as Mom and Dad do. As a result, what might start out as progress and advancement may soon turn into a burnout. Kids are all different, and many of them will not respond well to the grind of constant practices and coaching sessions. Motivation can be coaxed through external means, but it has to exist within the player. Forcing the issue will not get him or her anywhere.

Coaches can gauge parents’ and players’ interest in increased or decreased practice time and season length, among other factors, by using sports software to create a messaging platform.