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"It's child abuse"


FKIM01

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This is not the first time I've heard a healthcare professional say something like this.  I played high school athletics and I remember the pain of broken bones, sore knees, sprained ankles and wrists and jammed fingers.  It's a very legit question...are we pushing young athletes too hard?

https://www.koco.com/article/its-child-abuse-surgeon-has-message-for-parents-of-student-athletes/22832674

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Dr, Kremcheck is the team doctor for the Cincinnati Reds.  He hasn't been able to fix what ails them for several years, so I'm not sure I trust him on this.

Seriously, the one thing that stands out to me in the story is the piece discussing the focus on a single sport.  I do think that is bad, for both the athlete and the sport.  Quitting baseball in high school will not make you a better basketball player, and quitting basketball in high school will not make you a better football player.  High school should be a life experience, not a training ground to play Division III or NAIA athletics.  

 

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9 minutes ago, 5fouls said:

Dr, Kremcheck is the team doctor for the Cincinnati Reds.  He hasn't been able to fix what ails them for several years, so I'm not sure I trust him on this.

Seriously, the one thing that stands out to me in the story is the piece discussing the focus on a single sport.  I do think that is bad, for both the athlete and the sport.  Quitting baseball in high school will not make you a better basketball player, and quitting basketball in high school will not make you a better football player.  High school should be a life experience, not a training ground to play Division III or NAIA athletics.  

 

I think playing a sport year around is what is hurting athletes the most.  You need to be able to rest your body and let it recover but we push them to be the best so they work year around.  I feel sorry for kids today who are pushed into playing just one sport and having to play travel ball all summer.  One thing I cherish from my childhood is playing sports with my brother and our friends during summer vacation.  we played basketball and baseball at our house and even made a baseball field in our back yard with a fence and baselines.  Our yard was so bi that center field was over 300 feet and we had enough kids around town to field a game of 9 on 9.  I don't think the kids get to just enjoy playing sports for the fun of it and allowing themselves to love the game.

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2 hours ago, 5fouls said:

Dr, Kremcheck is the team doctor for the Cincinnati Reds.  He hasn't been able to fix what ails them for several years, so I'm not sure I trust him on this.

Seriously, the one thing that stands out to me in the story is the piece discussing the focus on a single sport.  I do think that is bad, for both the athlete and the sport.  Quitting baseball in high school will not make you a better basketball player, and quitting basketball in high school will not make you a better football player.  High school should be a life experience, not a training ground to play Division III or NAIA athletics.  

 

Yeah, not a fan of "Doc Hollywood" myself.

As far as the second paragraph.  I played 3 sports in HS.  Football, basketball, and ran track.  I couldn't wait for summer to come.  So I could go fishing, stay at my cousin's houses that I didn't get to see that often, take the annual family vacation to Tennessee, etc.  Football season would come around too fast for me.  

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37 minutes ago, Billingsley99 said:

My oldest son played 3 sports at a 1A school.   Between his regular season off season workouts and travel ball in a calendar year he had a total of 11 days off. That is how he wanted it. Playing 1 college sport he is bored to death

11 days off in a 365 day calendar year?

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5 hours ago, 5fouls said:

Dr, Kremcheck is the team doctor for the Cincinnati Reds.  He hasn't been able to fix what ails them for several years, so I'm not sure I trust him on this.

Seriously, the one thing that stands out to me in the story is the piece discussing the focus on a single sport.  I do think that is bad, for both the athlete and the sport.  Quitting baseball in high school will not make you a better basketball player, and quitting basketball in high school will not make you a better football player.  High school should be a life experience, not a training ground to play Division III or NAIA athletics.  

 

I’m grateful for the opportunity to have played college basketball (D2). It was an great experience. With that said, as a 40 year old now, I absolutely regret that I quit other sports in high school to focus solely on basketball.

Nobody made me do it, I chose to, heck my Dad even tried to talk me into sticking with baseball numerous times, but I always said no. Our volleyball program is a juggernaut in PA and the coach and players were always asking me to join the team (basically because I’m 6’6”) and I always said no. I’d have a couple state title rings (they won 3 out of 4 my four years of high school) if I did it, and I love playing volleyball. 

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12 hours ago, rico said:

11 days off in a 365 day calendar year?

From jan 1 2016 through dec 31 2016 11 off days.

Basketball 6 days a week pitching coach on sunday. Lost sectional championship and baseba started the next monday. 3 days off for Spring break. Next day off not until July moratorium travel baseball most tourneys start on thur some are all week.  Had a few off days in the summer. Once football started no off days we play a game over fall break. And pitching or hitting on Sundays. Lost sectional championship to eastern greene basketball on monday.  Thanksgiving off and a few days off around Christmas. 

 

We charted it because we felt it was too much. We enjoyed and he gas said he has no regrets. Down the road who knows 

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12 hours ago, rico said:

Yeah, not a fan of "Doc Hollywood" myself.

As far as the second paragraph.  I played 3 sports in HS.  Football, basketball, and ran track.  I couldn't wait for summer to come.  So I could go fishing, stay at my cousin's houses that I didn't get to see that often, take the annual family vacation to Tennessee, etc.  Football season would come around too fast for me.  

For these kids now there really is no off season. If 1 team is doing it then as a coach most tend to follow.  When i was coaching during summer we went 3 days a week. That was plenty but now its 4 or 5 days and games on the weekend.  A friend of mine said his son 6th grade travel team plays basketball starting in sept and continues throught june and they play around 80 games. We joked about it being an NBA season. As a coach it'sa tough spot if you dont do it you are not committed if you do it is truly way too much

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2 hours ago, btownqb said:

Yes.. we are pushing them too hard, but unless someone somewhere starts regulating it.. nothing is going to change. 10 year old baseball teams should NOT start hitting in Feb and then play tourneys in late August and Sept. 

My 8 year old is playing Fall baseball, and I was talking with some dads at practice last week and one of the dads starts telling us all the different pitches his son throws (curve, slider, etc.). I looked him straight in the eye and said, “You’re out of your mind, he’s going to blow his arm out before he ever gets to high school.” 

The guy started hemming and hawing about release point and a bunch of non-sense like that. I just said “you’re crazy” one more time and walked away. 

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11 minutes ago, BGleas said:

My 8 year old is playing Fall baseball, and I was talking with some dads at practice last week and one of the dads starts telling us all the different pitches his son throws (curve, slider, etc.). I looked him straight in the eye and said, “You’re out of your mind, he’s going to blow his arm out before he ever gets to high school.” 

The guy started hemming and hawing about release point and a bunch of non-sense like that. I just said “you’re crazy” one more time and walked away. 

Unreal. Release point for an 8 year old. Haha...ask him in about 10 years how that release point is treating his son when he either A) isn't playing anymore or B) is having arm surgery.

 

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1 hour ago, BGleas said:

My 8 year old is playing Fall baseball, and I was talking with some dads at practice last week and one of the dads starts telling us all the different pitches his son throws (curve, slider, etc.). I looked him straight in the eye and said, “You’re out of your mind, he’s going to blow his arm out before he ever gets to high school.” 

The guy started hemming and hawing about release point and a bunch of non-sense like that. I just said “you’re crazy” one more time and walked away. 

Good for you. Parent's are crazy. Dr Guse former dr for the Twins was adamant no curve or slider untik growth plates begin to close. Thats high school for most boys.  All the no hitters  at age 8-13 arw not worth the injuries

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3 minutes ago, rico said:

Sadly enough quite a bit of that pressure comes from the parents.

Parents think their kid is going to get a scholarship but most of these kids will never play past high school.  I knew I was not good enough to play any sport past high school and back then we did not have all of these travel sports.  I just enjoyed going out during the summer and playing what ever from the time we got up until dark but today kids just don't experience that.

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“Child abuse” seems like a ridiculous overstatement to me.  I specialized in one sport in high school.  Played youth football, baseball, soccer, and wrestled at various points through elementary and middle school.  Once high school came around, I decided to focus all my efforts on wrestling year-round.  Doing that made a HUGE difference in my skill level and ability to compete compared to guys that didn’t specialize.  Most of the best wrestlers I knew competed year-round.

And wrestling is a pretty grueling sport, especially when you consider the weight cutting aspect.  I cut 15 pounds off my 125 pound frame junior year, which was brutal.  Broke my collarbone in half when I got tossed in an off-season tournament during the spring of my sophomore year.  And I could tell you countless stories of guys who cut even more weight, and guys who pushed through pretty serious injuries to get on the mat.  Today, pretty much all of them would tell you that their experiences with the sport instilled a toughness and work ethic that they’ve carried with them ever since.  Kids aren’t fragile little flowers, and I think it’s a mistake to start treating them that way.

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39 minutes ago, FW_Hoosier said:

“Child abuse” seems like a ridiculous overstatement to me.  I specialized in one sport in high school.  Played youth football, baseball, soccer, and wrestled at various points through elementary and middle school.  Once high school came around, I decided to focus all my efforts on wrestling year-round.  Doing that made a HUGE difference in my skill level and ability to compete compared to guys that didn’t specialize.  Most of the best wrestlers I knew competed year-round.

And wrestling is a pretty grueling sport, especially when you consider the weight cutting aspect.  I cut 15 pounds off my 125 pound frame junior year, which was brutal.  Broke my collarbone in half when I got tossed in an off-season tournament during the spring of my sophomore year.  And I could tell you countless stories of guys who cut even more weight, and guys who pushed through pretty serious injuries to get on the mat.  Today, pretty much all of them would tell you that their experiences with the sport instilled a toughness and work ethic that they’ve carried with them ever since.  Kids aren’t fragile little flowers, and I think it’s a mistake to start treating them that way.

Now think about what you just said there.

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1 hour ago, FW_Hoosier said:

“Child abuse” seems like a ridiculous overstatement to me.  I specialized in one sport in high school.  Played youth football, baseball, soccer, and wrestled at various points through elementary and middle school.  Once high school came around, I decided to focus all my efforts on wrestling year-round.  Doing that made a HUGE difference in my skill level and ability to compete compared to guys that didn’t specialize.  Most of the best wrestlers I knew competed year-round.

And wrestling is a pretty grueling sport, especially when you consider the weight cutting aspect.  I cut 15 pounds off my 125 pound frame junior year, which was brutal.  Broke my collarbone in half when I got tossed in an off-season tournament during the spring of my sophomore year.  And I could tell you countless stories of guys who cut even more weight, and guys who pushed through pretty serious injuries to get on the mat.  Today, pretty much all of them would tell you that their experiences with the sport instilled a toughness and work ethic that they’ve carried with them ever since.  Kids aren’t fragile little flowers, and I think it’s a mistake to start treating them that way.

There are a lot of soldiers too that say their experiences toughened them. A lot of domestic abuse and bullying victims that say the same thing. Toughening and instilling a great work ethic does not make it non abusive. I am not saying that it is or it isn't.  I would have given just about anything to have been good enough to play for Coach Knight and endure the abuse. I witnessed 1st hand. I would never allow my son to experience that though.  

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2 hours ago, rico said:

Sadly enough quite a bit of that pressure comes from the parents.

Bingo.

This is where most of the problem lies, IMO.  Even if a kid wants to play 365 days a year, I think parents owe it to them to seek medical opinion about what is too much and shut them down as necessary.  Instead, I see too many crazy parents pushing for more, more, more when it's obvious there's far too much pressure.  Coaches share some responsibility as well, but ultimately, it's up to the parent to say "that's too much."

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I quit basketball after my sophomore season because it became a chore to me because of being pressured all the time. I then focused on football.  we weren't any good but at least I had fun.

I barely talked to my dad for 3 years after and even then, when I did it always went back to me quitting.

I think alot of parents try to live vicariously through their kids.

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21 hours ago, FKIM01 said:

This is not the first time I've heard a healthcare professional say something like this.  I played high school athletics and I remember the pain of broken bones, sore knees, sprained ankles and wrists and jammed fingers.  It's a very legit question...are we pushing young athletes too hard?

https://www.koco.com/article/its-child-abuse-surgeon-has-message-for-parents-of-student-athletes/22832674

Blanketly calling it child abuse isn't fair, but it is at least a better argument than a parent sending their child to a prep school.

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1 hour ago, FW_Hoosier said:

“Child abuse” seems like a ridiculous overstatement to me.  I specialized in one sport in high school.  Played youth football, baseball, soccer, and wrestled at various points through elementary and middle school.  Once high school came around, I decided to focus all my efforts on wrestling year-round.  Doing that made a HUGE difference in my skill level and ability to compete compared to guys that didn’t specialize.  Most of the best wrestlers I knew competed year-round.

And wrestling is a pretty grueling sport, especially when you consider the weight cutting aspect.  I cut 15 pounds off my 125 pound frame junior year, which was brutal.  Broke my collarbone in half when I got tossed in an off-season tournament during the spring of my sophomore year.  And I could tell you countless stories of guys who cut even more weight, and guys who pushed through pretty serious injuries to get on the mat.  Today, pretty much all of them would tell you that their experiences with the sport instilled a toughness and work ethic that they’ve carried with them ever since.  Kids aren’t fragile little flowers, and I think it’s a mistake to start treating them that way.

To put it bluntly, I don't want us to raise a generation of pussies either, but there's a happy medium in there somewhere and the trend I see is too many parents pushing young kids too hard.  That in my mind is at least borderline child abuse.  Adversity is a great teacher, but you have to know when you've allowed your child to experience enough and let them be kids sometimes.

For me, I had a pretty introverted daughter who had little to no athletic skills.  She had a beautiful voice and when she showed interest in show choir, we encouraged her to try out.  Solos in front of full auditoriums and dealing with the drama of a dozen other (mostly girl) teens was pretty good at breaking her out of her shell.  What really helped was pushing her to get a job as soon as she was licensed.  Prior to that, she worked in my office earning enough to buy the car (and hating her boring filing/imaging job even though dad was pretty easy on her).  She worked through high school and early college in a J.C. Penney and THAT was key in toughening her up.  She was cursed and insulted by rude customers, she had a shoplifter physically threaten her because she followed her around the store, she had to clean crapped-in bathing suits out of the changing room and she had a boss or two that were just @**holes.  I remember the first time she came home from work shocked that a customer had called her a b*tch for not accepting an expired coupon.  I said, "welcome to adult America, sweetheart."  What a great life experience.  Today, she's afraid of nothing and by next year this time, she'll be in IU dental school preparing to out-earn old dad.  I'm very proud of her, and I'm convinced that she's where she is today because she had very little just handed to her, even though we could have given her much.  I didn't push her hard and we let her be a kid often, but her experiences in the adult world while she was growing up were priceless.  Parents need to find that happy medium and some parents need to quit working their kids like rented mules.

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2 hours ago, FW_Hoosier said:

“Child abuse” seems like a ridiculous overstatement to me.  I specialized in one sport in high school.  Played youth football, baseball, soccer, and wrestled at various points through elementary and middle school.  Once high school came around, I decided to focus all my efforts on wrestling year-round.  Doing that made a HUGE difference in my skill level and ability to compete compared to guys that didn’t specialize.  Most of the best wrestlers I knew competed year-round.

And wrestling is a pretty grueling sport, especially when you consider the weight cutting aspect.  I cut 15 pounds off my 125 pound frame junior year, which was brutal.  Broke my collarbone in half when I got tossed in an off-season tournament during the spring of my sophomore year.  And I could tell you countless stories of guys who cut even more weight, and guys who pushed through pretty serious injuries to get on the mat.  Today, pretty much all of them would tell you that their experiences with the sport instilled a toughness and work ethic that they’ve carried with them ever since.  Kids aren’t fragile little flowers, and I think it’s a mistake to start treating them that way.

That really sounds healthy and smart to treat your body like that

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11 minutes ago, The Daily Hoosier said:

Blanketly calling it child abuse isn't fair, but it is at least a better argument than a parent sending their child to a prep school.

For sure.  I see plenty of parents being reasonable and it's unfair to tar everyone who has kids in sports as abusive.  Sadly, I've also seen multiple examples of parents that I think it would be fair to label as abusive when it comes to how they push and berate their kids over a game that should be fun for the kid.

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