Youth Sports Benefits
The benefits of youth sports
Points
Amateur sports used to mean varsity and JV teams in high school and college, but today more than thirty million kids play on a wide range of recreational and competitive or select teams at younger and younger ages. Parents want to encourage safe sports for their children, both on the field and off. Whether your athlete is a five-year-old beginner or the star of a varsity team, The Young Athlete provides guidance on everything from working with the coach to preventing and treating sports-related injuries.
Jordan D. Metzl, M.D., co-founder and medical director of The Sports Medicine Institute for Young Athletes and one of America's premier pediatric sports physicians, explains: * How to keep your child athlete healthy in mind and body * How to deal with the coach and other parents and help your child handle team pressure * How to recognize and prevent injuries such as fractures, ligament tears, and repetitive …show more content…
Athletes develop relationships with their teammates. For boys, sports are a primary, and unfortunately sometimes the sole, way of socializing with others. In many schools and communities, nonathletic males find it difficult to develop a social network at all. For girls, who according to the feminist theorist Carol Gilligan tend to define themselves through their relationships rather than their achievements, sports offer yet another way to make friends and create an alternate peer group.
According to Mike Nerney, a consultant in substance abuse prevention and education, multiple peer groups are always a good idea for teens, who have an intense need for inclusion and belonging, but who can also be volatile, cruel to each other, and foment destructive behavior as a group. Having a refuge when relations go wrong with one group can alleviate a great deal of stress and offer an alternative for kids who feel uncomfortable or frightened by peers who engage in high-risk
Points
Amateur sports used to mean varsity and JV teams in high school and college, but today more than thirty million kids play on a wide range of recreational and competitive or select teams at younger and younger ages. Parents want to encourage safe sports for their children, both on the field and off. Whether your athlete is a five-year-old beginner or the star of a varsity team, The Young Athlete provides guidance on everything from working with the coach to preventing and treating sports-related injuries.
Jordan D. Metzl, M.D., co-founder and medical director of The Sports Medicine Institute for Young Athletes and one of America's premier pediatric sports physicians, explains: * How to keep your child athlete healthy in mind and body * How to deal with the coach and other parents and help your child handle team pressure * How to recognize and prevent injuries such as fractures, ligament tears, and repetitive …show more content…
Athletes develop relationships with their teammates. For boys, sports are a primary, and unfortunately sometimes the sole, way of socializing with others. In many schools and communities, nonathletic males find it difficult to develop a social network at all. For girls, who according to the feminist theorist Carol Gilligan tend to define themselves through their relationships rather than their achievements, sports offer yet another way to make friends and create an alternate peer group.
According to Mike Nerney, a consultant in substance abuse prevention and education, multiple peer groups are always a good idea for teens, who have an intense need for inclusion and belonging, but who can also be volatile, cruel to each other, and foment destructive behavior as a group. Having a refuge when relations go wrong with one group can alleviate a great deal of stress and offer an alternative for kids who feel uncomfortable or frightened by peers who engage in high-risk