Neither did my daughter which is actually another indirect benefit to her sports participation. Due to work I was not available for pick her up from school and cart her off to place of sport, so starting at around the age of 10 she learned to navigate public transportation. She had a cell phone (dumb phone just for emergency calls) and a bus pass and was responsible for getting herself to sport, participating in sport, and getting herself home afterwards. She learned to be pretty independent and self-sufficient - and of course learned to get around. As she got older, she encountered classmates who couldn’t even read a bus map, much less navigate the local bus system. She was glad she had learned to get around at a young age.
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You’re confusing a subset of the population with the entire population.
There is substantial evidence that participation in youth sports is correlated with higher levels of physical activity, lower BMI, obesity levels, better mental health, etc, several decades later. Especially among women.
This can be true of a subset of adults (those who participated at moderate or high levels) while at the same time the overall population of adults is experiencing high levels of obesity, diabetes, etc.
That doesn’t mean youth sports need to be as intensely focused early on as they are in some sports and in some places.
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Both of my kids abandoned sports after middle school, but working on a school newspaper (and rising through the leadership ranks in both cases) cultivated every one of these qualities. In fact, they learned a lot more about teamwork, collaboration, and sacrificing individual gain for the sake of the team on newspaper than they did in sports.
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But your kids aren’t the same. Even with same GPA/scores, they wrote different essays and got different letters of rec. They have different interests and personalities. That could be the difference. And who’s to say if sports son went a different direction if they’d be happy. We’ll call mind sports daughter, and she wouldn’t have been happy in a different path. Whatever a child is passionate about will teach them something.
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actually sports have two totally different directions - one big category -individualized mainly such as cross country, tennis, swimming etc., the other category - team mainly such as soccer, football that involving in more than 10 people on the field – the team destiny heavily relies on team collaboration that college/society really looking for, plus resilience and composure etc. These are not easily gained in any other high school activities. if you go Stanford website, you will see “what Stanford looks for” - one note: particularly mentions “In some cases, exceptional abilities in athletics may influence our decision if the applicant is otherwise well qualified, but such abilities never, by themselves, ensure admission to Stanford…”
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I have been coaching youth soccer since 2001 so i have some thoughts about the concept of “wasting time on sports.” I live in a community that has recreational soccer through the end of high school.
Not everything kids do has to be done with a view towards college admission. For the kids I coach soccer is an escape from the pressures of school. We have 1 practice a week and i hsve kids come even the night before big tests/projects just to take a break.
At the younger ages soccer is the vehicle by which kids grow in confidence, and build connections I have coached teams where players were part of different cliques at school and so would never interacted but because thhey were teammates.
Similarly, families in kindergarten know the easiest way to build relationships with other families is soccer. In some schools ovet 50% of kids in the lower grades are soccer players
I believe that playing a sport is just part of a balanced liife for people of all ages (i still play soccer 1-2 times a week.
Bottom line-sports have huge benefits fot kids (google and you can find the studies) that are hard to match with other activities.
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The posts that I have read including “jmnva06” offered good perspectives on youth Sports. Someone may have already said this but our perspective was that our daughters engage in MIND, BODY and SOUL. MIND being Academics, etc. BODY being Sports, Fitness and Nutrition and SOUL being the Arts and Social endeavors. In High School, both were in the Engineering Academy (Project Lead the Way), both were involved in Music and both played multiple Sports. We never considered it as the pathway to a better College but a foundation that would help them long term Physically and Mentally.
Today, one is a practicing Civil Engineer who is Physically and Mentally fit. Ironically, plays two recreational Sports neither of which was what she played in HS. The other is a Mech/Aero Engineering Student who is involved in Academic Clubs and plays on two Club Sports teams. Same as her sister, she is Physically and Mentally fit and enjoys Hiking and Camping in the Summer.
Sports for our daughters has been and continues to be a great outlet for them to stay in shape Physically and Mentally. When I hear how so many young people are struggling with their Body Weight or Mental Health, I am glad that our daughters found sports and fitness as one of many ways to avoid those issues.
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Practice once per week at the high school level is a wonderful thing, and I think everyone would support that. It is also unheard of in our area, where practice 5x week plus a game on the weekend is the standard minimum.
If everything was as balanced as your area, there wouldnt be an issue.
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Lots of great discussion here and one of the things I see more and more of these days is the great focusing on “packaging” students for college admissions and focusing on the value added outcome of different choices, versus the enjoyment a high school student has from participating in athletics, artistic pursuits, taking certain classes etc.
If a kid is enjoying playing lacrosse, or playing the viola, or taking higher level math classes, that is great and they should be supported in these endeavors for the learning, experiences and sense of achievement and joy which they take away from these activities. But, often they are pushed to think about their passions through the lens of what this means for their college acceptances, or as an investment in the future. I have seen way too many families who have put in a ton of time, money, travel, sacrificing vacations etc. for sports in the pursuit of a leg up in admissions or athletic scholarship which may or may not be in the cards. But as long as the focus is on making sure that kids are having fun, learning to get along with teammates and learning some lessons about teamwork, resilience etc. I guess I don’t see it as a waste…so long as the focus is on the present rather than the future.
Both my kids were heavily involved in music when they were young and through high school, and we loves seeing their concerts and recitals throughout the years. Although neither of them continued with musical scholarship in college and it was definitely not a hook for them in the admissions process, I don’t think it was a waste of time for them or for us as parents. Son was a recruited athlete, daughter was not but I think they both enjoyed their time doing their different activities as young kids and hopefully the lessons the memories they made and the fun times they had will be as important as any life lessons.
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