The number of children that have been mentally and physically damaged over the years because youth sports has escalated greatly. Many parents, coaches, and experts in the field are now protesting against youth sports. Youth sports have led to many things such as an increase in injuries, parental violence, changes in social status and much more. Clearly, when a person plays a youth sport it can be mentally and physically damaging to children and even their childhood.
One of the first major issues that damages children playing sports children playing youth sports is the issue of social status. The issue of social status can depend on whether the child is good at sports or not and then that affects how popular the child is. For example, even …show more content…
Parents have started engaging in physical contacts with other parents and sometimes even kids. A father of a child playing a youth hockey game was charged with manslaughter after fatally beating another father to death over rough play. He pleaded not guilty (Butterield). Some professors have even studied the increasing amount of violence in parents. Professor William Pollack of the Harvard Medical School claimed the number of reports of parental violence has increased over the past five to ten years, as well the number of injuries in youth sports are increasing because parents are encouraging children to play more aggressive (Butterfield). Many parents are even assaulting youth referees because they don’t agree with a call. In one incident a parent broke the jaw of a child referee. Bob Still, a spokesman for the National Association of Sports Officials, got a report that a coach of a youth sports team broke the jaw of an umpire who was 13 years old in a little league game, because he did not like a call. (Butterfield). A mother of another child had an altercation with a different youth referee. …show more content…
Some parents are going to extremes to see children exceed at a high level Parents request surgeons to make their daughters more flexible, which is a major advantage in gymnastics. Some pitchers obliterate their arms by the seventh7th grade, and parents shun doctors' mentions for surgery because it could have a possibility to ruin their child's athletic career. Parents make their child diet before weigh day so they can play into a lower division (Gold and Weber). This means a parent wants to see a child succeed so bad that the parent with spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so. Other parents are lying to others just to see a child get on an elite club or even just to make an all-star team. One mother of an the first alternate on youth sports, called another with the seemingly intent to congratulate her, but she started describing the burden of being on an all-star team. One thing she described was the harsh practice schedule, which included nine a.m. and five p.m.9 a.m. and 5p.m. workouts. Everything she said was a lie. (Gold and Weber). Now parents are willing to risk everything to see a child