Prevent Burnout in Youth Sports

It’s quite simple to prevent burnout in youth sports: let kids be kids.

Burnout in sport includes physical, mental and emotional exhaustion that can happen in highly competitive situations that overvalue outcomes or winning.

When I was a little kid I rode my bike around town, swam at the city pool and played basketball in the backyard. I also have fond memories of playing baseball and football with my two younger brothers.

Free play

The way I grew up playing was what kids did most of the time. It’s called free play and it means we chose or made up the game and rules. There were no adults making the rules or enforcing them.

It’s not that I didn’t play organized sports. I was the only girl on the boys t-ball team. I played competitive softball and golf. And, basketball was a constant during the school year.

What’s different is we didn’t practice as often or as long, and certainly didn’t play as many competitive games as kids are participating in today. We always had time for free play in addition to our competitive or adult-organized activities.

Kids who have free play and explore a variety of sports:

(1)    have an increased chance of playing at the collegiate level and beyond

(2)    increase the probability of staying healthy physically, mentally and emotionally

(3)   are more likely to stay active and engaged in sports for a lifetime

Sport specialization

The great myth is that kids need to specialize in one sport early to play at an elite level later. If a kid shows interest in a sport, then the tendency is for adults who have the means to rush their kids to practices, lessons and competitions.

American culture tells us that if we don’t do these things for our kids, then they’ll fall behind. Some call it Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) syndrome.  On the contrary, we know if kids play multiple sports – called sampling – when they’re young they are more likely to play at elite levels.

Allowing kids to engage in free play and multiple sports helps keep down the wear and tear on their developing bodies. Research has repeatedly shown that kids who compete and overtrain are more likely to burnout or become injured.

If you want your kids to stay involved in sport for a lifetime, then consider that kids play sports for three reasons: (1) fun, (2) friends and (3) improving skills. When adults create kids’ sports worlds that mimic our adult mentality, our two worlds collide. Well-meaning adults can get in the way of why kids play and, ultimately, hold the key to either facilitating or eliminating burnout.

Even if you have a young kid who is highly competitive and favors one sport, it’s the adult’s responsibility to be supportive, but also to help balance the time and schedule so the kid doesn’t burnout at an early age.

I encourage all adults who have kids, or are coaching kids, to consider the warning from coachingyoungathletes.com:

Competitive sporting success at an early age can have very limited relevance in predicting the potential of a young athlete. Keep things in perspective.

At the end of the day, let’s let kids be kids! By doing so, we can inspire them to have fun and become more active without the risk of burnout.  

Be well,

Beth Brown, Ph. D.

Author, Adventures with Divot & Swish