How Parents Turn One of the Best Things for Children’s Mental Health, Sport, Into a Source of Stress

Sport should give children confidence, enjoyment and less anxiety. But pressure from parents and an early push toward competition can turn it into a source of stress.

Edit Bračo-Sánchez, a primary-care pediatrician at Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center, described that experience in an article for CNN. She also hosts the American Academy of Pediatrics podcast Healthy Children for parents.

Soon after her oldest son turned four, he was invited to play in an exclusive basketball league with five- and six-year-olds. He had been the best player in his local group of three- and four-year-olds, and his parents thought an older, more talented environment would challenge him. They paid the membership fee and reorganized their schedules to take him to weekly practices.

At first, he was excited. He ran onto the court in a jersey that nearly reached his knees, impressed everyone with his dribbling and made shots that older children missed. But as the drills became more complex, his four-year-old mind could no longer keep pace. He was almost always last when the children ran. Over the following weeks, his parents watched him become anxious before practice and then start refusing to go. “It’s not fun anymore,” he told them.

Bračo-Sánchez contacted friends in child psychology and psychiatry and developed strategies to help him finish the season. She had believed it was important for him to complete what he started. The experience eventually made the family question how they had spoiled something that should have been enjoyable.

In conversations with other families, she realized they were not alone. She describes an earlier model of children’s sport as closer to neighborhood play, with local games, recreational leagues, community teams and plenty of informal activity. Children of different ages organized games and created rules themselves, while adults largely stayed out of the way. Experts now warn that intensive training and early specialization can increase burnout and lead children to quit, often for the simple reason that sport no longer feels fun.

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It’s not fun anymore.