Many speculate that children who start too early in sports not only puts stress on the child, but also on family life altogether. “In the past 20 years, says Alvin Rosenfeld, a New York psychiatrist who specializes in adolescents, structured sports time has doubled while family dinners have been cut by a third and family vacations have decreased 28 percent” (Cary & Comarow 2004). With all of the traveling for tournaments, driving to practices, and late night games, families with athletes can rarely find time to be together and spend much needed quality time with each other. Ed Smith says it very short, sweet, and to the point when he writes, “Childhood is good for children after all” (2014). Kids need the chance to be kids and to grow up having…show more content… In one of the stories, a little girl named Amari, who was 8 years old, had been playing golf competitively since she was 3 years old. Her father, Andre, was shown constantly criticizing her play and would cuss after almost every single swing that she took. He even called his daughter crude names and told her that she was doing horrible for most of the scenes that showed her. Almost every other scene of Amari showed her crying or wiping tears from her eyes because of her father constantly yelling at her. In one scene she even said, “I can’t do this with you yelling at me!” to which her father responded by continuing to scold her. In another story, a boy named Derek started playing organized basketball since he was at least 7 years old. His father, Steve, told the people who were interviewing for the movie that by the age of 10, Derek was taking 20-25 pills a day and his father was putting supplements like Creatine and Glutamine in his food and even his milk! (Trophy Kids). Steve also mentioned that by the age of 13 Derek had 4 trainers and coaches that made him train every single day doing vigorous workouts and working on his specific skills in basketball. Derek’s goal was to get a D1 scholarship and both he and his father believed that the only way to do that was to push Derek beyond…show more content… If anything, they get worse, and the children will have to deal with it all their lives as they grow in to adults and later on when they grow old. Those in favor of starting children early in sports also use the argument that starting early helps kids develop better and healthier physically. “Fine motor skills are developed at very young ages, such as between 3-8”, according to the article “Why to Start Your Kids in Sports Early” (2014). Although this may be true, children don’t need to be pushed to compete beyond having fun in order to develop those skills. They can develop them just as well by just going out and playing with their friends. In order to avoid the negative effects of injuries sustained by children, there are ways to prevent those effects. According to both Bob Bigelow-former Boston Celtic and father of 2- and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), parents should wait until their kids are at least 12-13 years old before they start specializing in any sport (Wolcott, 1995). Specializing in a sport means that they start training and playing at a competitive level. Another tip from the American Academy of Pediatrics is to encourage children to play more than one sport. According to Rockville, Md., youth coach Tony Horos, “every sport has a countersport”. A countersport is another sport that a child would participate in that develops similar muscles, but in different ways. For example, ice hockey players are encouraged
