How young is too young to start encouraging your kids to go for the gold?
When does encouraging cross the line into pushing and shoving?
The New York Times recently highlighted a new trend of parents hiring sports psychologists to increase their children’s performance potential.
In the article, we learn that kids as young as seven years old are seeing (or, more accurately, being taken to see) psychiatrists to help them excel at sports.
Apparently, rather than dabbling in a bunch of different athletic activities, more and more kids are being urged to pick one sport and perfect it. According to Dr. Marty Ewing, a former president of the Association of Applied Sport Psychology:
“If an 11-year-old is told that focusing on one sport is all that matters, it obviously puts a lot of pressure on every outcome in that sport.” …. “We are asking that 11-year-old to play a game at a level that is disproportionate to his or her cognitive development. That’s development you can’t rush, but people try.”
But if a kid has a knack for athletics, and loves to play, is it such a bad thing to help them achieve their dreams?
“On the one hand, it’s foolish not to teach kids mental skills they may need,” said Daniel Gould, a sports psychologist. “On the flip side, is it just contributing to the professionalism of childhood? Because these kids aren’t playing for the New York Yankees. And worse, I worry that some parents are doing it just because their neighbor did it for his kid.”
One real danger of putting all your kids’ eggs in one sporty basket, of course, is that if for some reason they’re suddenly unable to compete, they may lack the confidence to achieve on other, more metaphorical playing fields. Take for example Grand Slam winner and Olympic Gold Medalist Jennifer Capriati, who recently told the NY Daily News she had contemplated suicide due to a shoulder injury that kept her off the tennis courts.
“When I stopped playing, that’s when all this came crumbling down,” Capriati says. “If I don’t have (tennis), who am I? What am I? I was just alive because of this. I’ve had to ask, ‘Well, who is Jennifer? What if this is gone now?’”
With that kind of object lesson the message seems clear: Kids (and parents), don’t try this at home.