Don't Force the Next Michael Jordan

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My childhood was always involved with sports and  exercise. Whether this was playing basketball at a friend’s house, playing soccer or football at recess, or taking tennis lessons. I found intense sports to be very fun so I was naturally inclined to playing many sports competitively. I played soccer for a few years and I was quite good, but my family and Lithuanian family friend group played tennis. My surroundings motivated me to play tennis and I seemed to like it just as much as soccer. My parents began pushing me to play more tournaments and I soon became very stressed. I found tournaments to be very stressful at first but as I won more matches, I gained more confidence. 12 years later I still enjoy the sport of tennis as well as the competitive aspect. A MSNBC contributor named Jacqueline Stenson interviewed a few doctors in order to research the affects parents have on their athletes in her article “Pushing too hard too young” . I think that some parents push their children too hard and their children tend to lose the fun they had when playing a sport. Competitive sports become more stressful than they already are to children that have parents that push them too hard.

What some parents don’t understand is that their kids must become the next Michael Jordan or Roger Federer on their own. This means that children must develop the passion for the sport and the motivation to improve without their parents forcing or pushing them to do so. “Parents who live vicariously through their children can be problematic” (Stenson). It’s good for children to dream of participating in the Olympics, but parents that force their kids into playing a sport can cause their children to lose interest. Parents need to stop pushing their children into playing a sport they hate and encourage them to play a sport they like. “Parents -- and coaches -- who push too hard too young, particularly when they emphasize winning above all else, can easily wipe out a child’s motivation to play, says Dr. Henry Goitz, chief of sports medicine at the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo” (Stenson). I have had coaches that have only thought about winning and never about my satisfaction. These coaches become my least favorite very quickly because they made tennis seem as though it was only meant to be played to win. This can happen to many kids and lead to kids quitting a sport. Sports provide healthy lifestyles, ways to cope with stress, entertainment, and ways to make friends and bond with others. Parents and coaches, don’t push kids to lose these benefits.

I plan on researching in the future how competitive sports can negatively affect the everyday well-being of someone.