Calling It Quits What Do You Do When Your Child Wants To Give Up His Or Her Sport?

After 10 years, hundreds of competitions and thousands of dollars in lessons, Megan Irving hung up her figure skates.

She was 12.

“Last summer I was skating five hours a day, five days a week. It takes up your whole life. I really wanted to try something else. I just really kind of got sick of it,” says the Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich., teen, who started eighth grade this fall. “My parents supported my quitting, but they also felt bad because I’d spent so much time and money on it. I knew I wasn’t going to the Olympics, but I was pretty good.”

As fall sports gear up, thousands of once-eager young athletes are dropping out before they start.

Travel soccer? “I don’t want to play anymore.”

Bantam hockey? “Takes too much time.”

Middle-school basketball? “It’s boring.”

When your young athlete comes to you and says he or she wants to quit, what do you do? How do you react?

First, realize you’re not alone.

An estimated 38 million children between ages 5 and 18 participate in one or more organized sports programs in the United States but every year, a third of them quit. Some switch to other sports, some pursue other interests and some just burn out.

Many parents are supportive of sports participation as long as their child is doing what they want them to do. But some who have invested a lot of time, cash and miles in a child’s sport get upset when that child suddenly walks away. They may worry their son or daughter is spoiled, a quitter, lazy or wasting potential. They may be angry and hurt. They may see their own dreams slipping away.

What can you do when your child wants to quit his or her sport? Here’s a guide, based on the newest findings from a conference at the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports at Michigan State University:

Q. Which kids are most likely to drop out of youth sports?

A. Yours.

Just kidding. But chances are good that your children will try many sports and stop playing most of them by age 14.

Here’s why:

* Your child is growing up. Until age 12, a child pretty much goes along with what Mom and Dad suggest. But between 12 and 14, he suddenly starts to make his own decisions, including participation in sports. This can lead to conflict. By adolescence, peers are replacing parents as influences, including whether to play sports, found Maureen Weiss, professor of sports psychology at University of Virginia.

* Your child may have a personality that makes him more likely to drop out. Some children are “ego-oriented” they think sports ability is a gift; you either have it or you don’t. Other kids are “task-oriented” they believe you can improve with practice. If you are high in both task and ego orientation, you are most likely to keep playing. If you are low in both, you are most likely to drop out.

“Unfortunately, low-task, low-ego motivation is overrepresented by girls,” says Stuart Biddle, professor of exercise science at Loughborough University in England, who studies the psychology of sports attrition and motivation.

* Your child may be playing sports for the wrong reason. If her external motivation is high that is, if she has been playing to please others she risks dropping out. Children with internal motivation a personal love of the sport will keep playing, says Biddle.

* Your child may be anxious. About 10 percent of children who play sports have anxious personalities, says Daniel Gould, professor of sports science at the University of North Carolina. They tend to have lower self-esteem, expect their team will lose and expect they won’t do well.

These children have frequent worries about the coach, have less fun and are less satisfied with their performance, win or lose. They also may be afraid their parents will be angry if they don’t do well. They want to drop out to avoid the worries.

Q. Any difference between girls or boys?

A. The world hasn’t changed much, Gould found. Boys play sports even if they’re not very good at them. They participate in sports for reinforcement of their masculinity.

Although sports participation by younger girls is soaring, by high school only girls with high skill levels tend to play organized sports. For girls, there is a very strong correlation between skill level and participation. If they’re not good at a sport, they drop out. Why? Girls are accepted by peers whether they play sports or not; they don’t need it for status.

About 30 percent of high school freshman girls play sports, but that number drops to 17 percent by senior year, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation. Your daughter may need more encouragement to stick with a sport.

Q. Why do kids drop out?

A. Researchers have long tried to quantify the reasons why children drop out of youth sports. A few years ago, USA Swimming, the national organization that funnels the nation’s best young swimmers toward the Olympics, studied why a third of its swimmers dropped out every year.

The study found one simple reason: It wasn’t fun.

Kids who dropped out thought swimming took too much time, the coach was negative or it was boring. Kids who stayed thought swimming was fun because they got to be with friends, got complimented and encouraged by the coach, they won races, and they had a reputation as a good swimmer.

“We also found that what used to be fun at age 9 might not be fun by age 13,” says Suzie Tuffey, sports psychology director for USA Swimming in Colorado Springs.

In addition, children who believe their skills and ability are low are more likely to drop out than those with better skills.

Two other recent studies mentioned at the MSU conference - one of children in Mexico ages 9-18 and one of junior tennis players ages 12-23 in the United States - found similar results. The children and teens who dropped out felt they were missing out on other things in their lives, there was too much emphasis on winning, and they had developed what pros call a “unit dimensional identity problem” - they thought of themselves only as tennis players.

Q. Can a coach cause kids to drop out?

A. Yes. Some children drop out not because they are pressured but because they are ignored and neglected by the coach. If a child is benched and never gets to play, he or she likely will drop out, says Jody Brylinsky, associate professor of sports studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.

Worse, a child who is afraid of the coach or teammates will likely quit. A 1997 Canadian study found that 25 percent of children playing youth sports reported they’d been verbally abused by the coach or other players. A poor coach or hostile environment can drive a child off a playing field faster than the threat of lightning.

Advice to parents * Direct chThis sidebar appeared with the story: ildren toward sports from a young age but let them have a say in the decisions. * Never say to a child, “It’s time to get serious about your sport.” That’s just a code word for no fun. They’ll bolt. * Realize the world of sports today is different from when you were a child. They have more choices. There are more pressures. Don’t keep comparing your own childhood sports experiences with those of your child. * Encourage your children to cultivate a nonteam sport they can play for a lifetime. Why? Researchers at the University of Manitoba found that sports participation plunged 56 percent for girls and 19 percent for boys in the two years after high school. The sports with the highest carryover percentages were golf and bowling, two individual sports played for a lifetime. * People who worry about the future of youth sports like to point out that it’s the experience of being on a team, of playing a game, of learning rules that will someday be valuable to children, not whether they won or lost. Remember that, and when your child comes to you one day to announce he’s joining the art club instead of the hockey team, you’ll have one response do your best, kid, and have fun. Source: Detroit Free Press