Argumentative Essay On Youth Sports

Youth sport is a topic that has been under heavy scrutiny in recent years. People are questioning the safety, ethics, and values of all people involved with the activity. This doesn’t mean only questioning why the children are participating in sports but the effect that coaches and parents have on them and the way that they compete (Friedman, 2013). One key question that is being asked is whether participating in competitive sports at a young age has and negative impact on children and their future participation in sport. Many people have different views regarding this question. Some people think that competition at a young age shouldn’t be aloud due to the dangers that are involved concerning the child’s health, however others think that youth sport competition is necessary for their development into an adult because of the skills that they acquire and lessons they learn.
With competition at a young age it is important to think about the winners and losers. Some people think with youth sport there should be no losers that everyone should win regardless whereas others believe
Playing many different sports at a young age is seen to be a good thing however as soon as you specialise into one sport people think you are making the wrong decision. This is shown by a statistic I found saying that “by the age 13, 70% of kids have stopped playing” (Lewis, 2013). This therefore is a key problem with future participation within all sport. This could be due to many different reasons but a key part of this early specialisation is parents and coaches. This is because either the parents or coach of the child believes that they can do better if they commit to one sport which then in turn can cause then kids less enjoyment and then for them to quit the sport as they aren’t playing for the same reasons as to when they