Should Early Age Organized Sports Rethink their Purpose

Up until the past few decades, the main playground for kids to play physically active games was typically someone’s back yard or some vacant field. Activities were loosely organized with the kids themselves developing and enforcing the rules. Although scores were often kept, they were not as important as just having fun.

In those days, the main purpose of organized sports such as “Little Leagues” was to introduce competition into what was mostly a bunch of neighborhood affairs. Kids and parents would use “Little Leagues” and other organized sports to learn to function effectively in a more competitive environment. It seemed to offer a great balance.

Now days, in most cases anyway, organized sports have grown to be even more competitive. Is this something children still need at their early ages? After all, just about everything is super competitive including but not limited to school grades, the clothes kids wear, cars owned, neighborhoods lived in and the list goes on. Add in the fact that back yards and vacant fields are no longer available to most children for non competitive fun.

So we’ve gone from decades of friendly neighborhood play for plain fun (which also provided good fitness development) and organized sports for more competitive experiences, to an environment where almost everything is competitive and there’s very little opportunity for just plain friendly, fun play. With this in mind, maybe more organized sports should rethink their purpose and provide more opportunities for just plain fun play. After all, ask most your children why they are playing and they’ll say “to have fun”!