← The Pediatrician Next Door - Simple Advice on Parenting and Family Health
The Pediatrician Next Door - Simple Advice on Parenting and Family Health
Ep. 135: Year-Round Sports for Kids: What Age to Start Competitive Teams
00:19:58
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- [00:00]
Dr. Wendy Hunter
Imagine being 12 years old, already having 30 bone fractures and wondering why can't I just play like other kids? I'm Leigh Ann and I was diagnosed with brittle bones disease. Now I'm running the bank of America Chicago Marathon for Lurie Children's. So every kid can just be a kid. Join bank of America in supporting Leanne's cause. Give if you can@b of a.com supportleann what would you like the power to do? Bank of America references to charitable organizations is not an endorsement by bank of America Corporation. Some days call for work up a sweat, working on your passion and endless action. Ditch the glitch with Liquid IV's new energy multiplier, sugar free refreshing flavors like strawberry kiwi and BlackBerry lemonade. Scientifically formulated to support physical energy, hydration, focus, mood and social stamina. Liquid IV's new energy multiplier, sugar free hydrating energy. Tap the banner to learn more new here. Welcome. I am Dr. Wendy Hunter. I'm a pediatrician and a mother and this is the pediatrician next door. I'm that doctor friend you call when you're trying to figure out if what your kid is doing is normal or if you should be worried. The other day in clinic I saw a 10 year old soccer player. Her coach told the family she should quit playing basketball and instead play year round soccer and quote, get serious. That's what the coach said. He said she needs to get serious if she wants to stay competitive. Her parents looked at me and they asked me, do you think that's true? Should we do it? I don't have a simple answer. I do have an opinion based on what I've seen happen to my patients. I mean, I have taken care of plenty of elite athletes. I take care of a pro downhill skateboarder. I didn't even know that was a sport. I have a couple of top youth tennis players and a handful of pro surfers who all did start playing their sport young and they seem to be doing pretty well in life. On the other hand, I see kids in my office with injuries and burnout, especially the tennis and soccer players and a few rowers too. Those are the kids who I think their parents make them compete to get into a selective college. So I want to figure this out. What really does happen when kids specialize early in a sport? Is it a golden ticket like a lot of people think? Or is it a gamble on your kid's mental and physical health? I'm Dr. Wendy Hunter and I'm the pediatrician next door. I'm that Doctor friend, you call for practical advice about your kid's health. I mix the science of medicine with the reality of parenting. Let's start with this. What do we even mean by specialization? It's when a kid chooses one sport and plays it year round, sometimes before they've even hit puberty. The thinking is simple. Parents think more practice equals more success. But is that actually how kids bodies and brains work? I'm not so sure. I've read plenty about how real successful pro athletes played a variety of sports when they were younger. Kind of like cross training in a way. For example, Jackie Robinson was the first and only UCLA athlete to letter in four varsity sports. Baseball, basketball, football and track. And Michael Jordan. He was a multi sport athlete, famously. And as a high school sophomore he was cut from the varsity basketball team. And look how he turned out. He retired from the NBA and he went on to play minor league baseball. I thought the best place to start to figure this out is by looking at what happens to the body. Do kids who specialize get stronger at their sport or do they actually break down? To answer this question, I have Dr. Nirav Pandya. He's a pediatric orthopedic surgeon at UC San Francisco. He takes care of tons of young athletes all the time. And he studied this question of early specialization.
- [04:19]
Dr. Nirav Pandya
We're seeing a tremendous amount of kids now who are participating in sports outside of the school setting. Almost six times more kids will actually play sports outside of school as opposed to in school. And as a result of that, kids are specializing in sports at a younger and younger age. We're seeing 6, 7, 8, 9 year olds who are playing one sport year round at the exclusion of other sports. As a result, we're seeing increased injuries and burnout from Sports.
- [04:43]
Dr. Wendy Hunter
According to Dr. Pandya, specializing early puts kids at a higher risk for injuries. That matches what I've seen. I remember a 12 year old baseball pitcher who came in with elbow pain that was so bad he, he couldn't lift his backpack up. He had been throwing hundreds of pitches in weekend tournaments. His parents thought his arm was just sore from working hard, but his growth plate was inflamed. That's a pretty common injury that we used to only see in college pitchers. But now we're seeing it all the time in young athletes. So instead of making kids stronger, specialization may actually set them up for more injuries. But maybe the payoff comes later. Maybe kids who specialize are the ones who stick with their sport.
- [05:27]
Dr. Nirav Pandya
We know that when kids are specializing in sports, they're going to have an increased risk of injury, a several fold increased risk. And some studies say that if kids are playing more hours per week than their age, they have 70% increased risk of injury compared to those who play multiple sports. We also see 70% of kids will actually drop out of sports if they're specializing by age 13. So that's another thing. Kids just aren't staying in sports because of the fact that they're playing one sport year round. And when we look from a long term standpoint, kids actually aren't as good at their sports if they're specializing at one sport at a young age. So once again, we're really hurting kids from multiple different levels if they're specializing.
- [06:02]
Dr. Wendy Hunter
70%. That was a lot higher than I expected. If early specialization is supposed to keep kids in the game, why are most of them quitting by age 13? I think about a 13 year old swimmer that I know. She had been in the pool every morning at 6am since third grade. And one day she told her mom, I don't want to swim anymore. Her mom was really devastated. They had invested a lot of time and a lot of money. But the truth was this girl was just done. She wanted to sleep later, like past 6:30 and hang out with friends and she wanted to try theater. So sports specialization doesn't necessarily build commitment. In fact, it might push kids right out of sports. I remember when I worked in the emergency room, it was really common to see football players come in, especially on Saturday. They were complaining of massive amounts of pain, saying they couldn't walk because of a knee injury or a groin strain. And they always insisted they needed a note to get out of football practice. What was strange was that I usually couldn't find anything physically wrong with them. Then I talked to one of our registration admins. He had played college football and he explained it to me. He said a lot of these kids were just burned out, but they didn't have any other way to admit it to their families. So instead they exaggerated their injuries. I felt bad for them, so I started writing those excuse notes. This made me wonder, maybe these kids weren't just burned out emotionally. Maybe their bodies are taking a beating too. And research shows that early specialization is tied not only to higher dropout rates from sports, but also to a much higher risk of serious injury.
- [07:53]
Dr. Nirav Pandya
I think we see injuries from kind of two different facets with kids who are specializing. Number one, we're seeing a tremendous amount of increase in traumatic injuries. So ACL tears used to be something we would see in 17, 1819 year olds. We're now seeing 10, 11 and 12 year olds get ACL injuries. And the rate of ACL injuries has actually gone up 12% over the last decade in this adolescent age group, which is a tremendous increase. In addition, we're seeing these overuse injuries where kids are getting knee pain, shoulder pain, et cetera, from doing too much of the same activity again and again and again. Not only are we injuring kids and they're ending up with surgery at a young age, but also they're missing time because they're just playing too many sports. They're having knee pain, they're having shoulder pain, and they simply just can't participate. Be healthy and active with their friends.
- [08:36]
Dr. Wendy Hunter
All right, hearing that still surprises me. ACL tears in a 10 year old. Stress injuries that sideline kids who should be out running around with their friends. I mean, stress injuries. And here's what else I found. Some studies show that specializing early doesn't make kids better athletes. In fact, kids who play multiple sports are more likely to stay active and and perform better in the long run. And that fits with what we know about child development. Kids learn best with variety, right? It's like school. If you only ever do math, you don't become a better student overall. The same goes for sports. Running, climbing, balancing, catching. All those skills from different sports feed into each other. I once had a soccer coach tell me that his best player was also a basketball and track athlete. And he said she sees the field differently and she anticipates better. That's the kind of advantage you don't get from repeating the same drills all year long. So as I suspected, specializing early doesn't guarantee success. In fact, variety might be the real secret weapon here. We're going to find out all the details and specific ages for your child's best chance at sports success after the break. When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more at WhatsApp.com.
- [10:37]
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- [12:03]
Dr. Wendy Hunter
Before we find out exactly what age it's appropriate to specialize in a sport and how best to get there, there's one more issue I want to consider. How does early specialization impact the family, especially given the cost and how much competition is involved? And something that I wonder about is which kids even get the chance to do this? Dr. Pandya shares information from the Aspen Institute, which is a nonprofit that runs a program called Project Play. They bring together research and experts to improve youth sports in America and their big focus is on keeping sports accessible, safe and fun for all kids, not just the ones on elite teams. Here's Dr. Pandya one of the things.
- [12:50]
Dr. Nirav Pandya
That the Aspen Institute has shown is that families will spend on average about $1,000 per year for these travel or private club sports. So that's a big financial burden for a lot of families. In addition, the reason why a lot of families are doing this is because they want their kids to potentially get a college scholarship. Colleges are very expensive right now and potentially if they're specializing in sport playing on these club teams, they can get to that level. What families don't understand is that the average four year college scholarship amount is only $11,000 and of all kids are playing sports, only 2% of them are actually going to get a college scholarship. So you can imagine a couple years of playing club sports, travel, baseball, etc. The amount of money that these families are going to Spend is going to be far exceeding any kind of amount they're going to get for a scholarship. Even if they are that lucky, 2% of high school athletes that go on.
- [13:35]
Dr. Wendy Hunter
To get one, that's not far off from what I expected. The patients that I've had that have gotten scholarships, the amount was like nothing. It would be like $2,000 a year at a school with a $65,000 tuition cost. I didn't realize that only about 2% of kids will get a scholarship. But families still spend thousands every year chasing that possibility. And at the same time, kids from families who can't afford those fees, it seems like they're left out. I've seen it in my own practice. One mom told me she was spending almost $10,000 a year on travel hockey, while at the same time another family that I take care of couldn't afford the rec league fee. Two equally talented kids with completely different opportunities. And I want to know what Dr. Pandya thinks of this.
- [14:28]
Dr. Nirav Pandya
This definitely does exclude a lot of kids from playing. And if you look at who's participating in youth sports in general, we see the families that are making a significant amount of money are able to have their kids have access to these clubs, to these travel teams. But if you're making less money, your family is a little bit more disadvantaged, then it's very hard to find healthy and affordable ways for kids to actually play. So as a result, what is happening is you have one group of kids who have access to sports because their families have the money and they're getting injured, they're getting the overuse injuries. And then you have another group of kids whose families don't have the money to participate. And therefore, then there isn't really an outlet for them to be physically active because school funding is going down, recreational programs don't exist. So then they get the problems of diabetes, obesity, hypertension, all those problems in the adulthood. So we're creating one group of kids who are getting injured because they're participating, another group of kids who can't be physically active because there aren't avenues out there for them to be healthy and active.
- [15:21]
Dr. Wendy Hunter
Specialization doesn't just raise risks for individual kids. It also widens the gap in who gets to play at all. So what do we do with this? If early specialization raises injury risks, increases burnout, and doesn't guarantee success, is there a better way forward for parents and kids?
- [15:41]
Dr. Nirav Pandya
It's important for parents to understand the data. So that's our role as clinicians, as physical therapists, athletic trainers, coaches to Understand what the data is and give that to parents. I think the second thing is also to not feel the pressure that you have to basically enter this youth sports complex, this $15.3 billion industry where you just need to kind of jump in and kind of feel like that's the only path you can take. There are other paths out there, whether kids are playing multiple sports or doing things like swimming in the off season, where you don't feel the need that you have to be doing the same thing year round. The other thing that we need to do is also just fund these opportunities recreationally. So if you're thinking about donating, donate to your community organization that basically is funding recreational sports or try to push for your school to to have those opportunities for your kids. And finally, it's important for parents if they are going to be playing travel sports or year round sports. Look at the websites of the club. Are they basically promoting kids to be healthy and active in a safe environment? Are they promoting you getting a scholarship or getting to the next level? It's important to place our kids in healthy environments where they're not going to be injured and are going to want to participate throughout their life as opposed to dropping out as I mentioned before, by age 13.
- [16:47]
Dr. Wendy Hunter
I love that perspective because it puts the focus back on keeping kids healthy and active instead of chasing scholarships. That means encouraging variety, building in breaks, supporting school and community programs, and making sure the clubs we choose are about safety and development, not just winning. So here's where I think we land and what my advice will be to parents going forward. Experts recommend delaying specialization until high school, partly for mental health and partly because you want your kids growth plates to be closed to prevent the most common injuries. They want kids to avoid repetitive movements. Those can be hard on a developing body. And keep training hours reasonable. 5:30am Practices for a fifth grader is nonsense. A good rule of thumb in terms of training hours is no more than your child's age or per week. So a 10 year old can practice at most 10 hours per week. I've had kids that do dance or gymnastics and they're practicing like 18 hours or more in a week. That totally sets kids up for burnout. One thing we often tell parents too is that your child should take a break from their primary sport for about a full month, at least twice and ideally three times every year to recover. And finally, encourage your kids to try different sports. And of course, don't forget the value of free play. I love seeing kids who climb trees, play tag, shoot hoops, in the driveway. That's not wasted time. It's how bodies and brains get strong. And I've said this before on the show, when kids aren't on an organized team, they get to make the rules themselves. They can fight with their friends and develop social skills. When they spend most of their time playing organized sports, they are being told what to do all the time. And that doesn't give them an opportunity to make mistakes, try things out and develop who they're going to become. So next time a coach tells you that your 10 year old has to choose, remember this. The science says variety is better. The best outcome isn't a scholarship or a varsity title. It's a happy, healthy kid who loves to play. Thanks for joining me on this episode of the Pediatrician Next Door. If you found it helpful, share this with a coach, a teacher or another parent. And remember, the best kind of success is a child who finds joy in movement for the rest of their life. For more from the Pediatrician Next Door, find me on the web@ pediatriciannextdoorpodcast.com if you've got a question about the weird things kids do, send an email to helloediatriciannextdoorpodcast.com for a chance to hear your voice on the show. I'm Dr. Wendy Hunter and I'm the Pediatrician Next Door. This show is produced by Red Rock Music. Make sure to subscribe and leave a review wherever it is you're listening. I'll be back next time with more.
- [20:05]
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- [20:27]
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Dr. Wendy Hunter
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Dr. Nirav Pandya
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- [20:35]
Dr. Wendy Hunter
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Dr. Nirav Pandya
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- [20:51]
Dr. Wendy Hunter
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