Tara Scanlon has seen a lot while researching stress in children`s sports. She has seen the worried ice skater who couldn`t get through a 3 1/2- minute routine, the expectant wrestler who was a basket case before he ever hit the mat, the overwrought soccer player who considered herself a failure for losing a single match. She has seen all the mind games kids play at the behest of our sports-crazed society.
All of us have heard about Little League fathers and mothers, coaches who believe that winning isn`t everything, it`s the only thing. As youth baseball and soccer seasons get into full swing, many of us are discovering these people anew, or worse, turning into them. Scanlon, an associate professor of kinesiology at UCLA, is among a handful of people in the country
scientifically measuring their impact on kids.
”There`s a lot of controversy about youth sports,” she says. ”But until about 10 years ago there was really no evidence, just a lot of opinion.”
In some ways Scanlon`s work and that of her colleagues confirms what we suspected all along about the impact of organized sports on kids. In others, it shows that things are not as bad as we might think.
Yes, youth sports have become an institution. An estimated 20 million youngsters 6 to 16 compete in leagues and associations outside of school.
”Sports are very important to this society and that filters down to children,” Scanlon says. ”Movement and prowess are valued.”
More than that, they are promoted vocally in pint-sized arenas for tiny participants, increasing the pressure to perform. In organized sports children ”are evaluated publicly,” Scanlon explains. ”If you fail a math test, only you and the teacher know. If you strike out, there are a whole bunch of people watching. The other thing is, we like winners. The win-lose approach is very failure-oriented because in competitive sports some participants always fail.”
Failure affects self-esteem. Poor self-esteem, combined with competitive demands, can lead to stress, a combination of anxiety and physical changes.
To get some idea what this feels like, Scanlon urges, ”think of all the little things you have to remember when you`re learning to drive a car–the turn signal, the rear view mirror, all of that. Now, take half your mind and fill it up with worry.” Kids experiencing stress spend as much time worrying about whether they will play well and what others will think of them as they do about executing the skills of the game.
Children manifest stress in different ways. Sometimes their muscles tense up until they ache. Sometimes their hearts beat faster. Sometimes they get hyper. Sometimes they just give up. But the essence of stress is that it is a bad feeling that hinders performance and erodes the image even more. It is a vicious cycle.
As Scanlon says, ”Billy is never going to become Lou Gehrig if he thinks he`s a nerd.”
The good news is that would-be Gehrigs far outnumber self-proclaimed nerds.
”People like to write that we`re creating a nation of neurotics,” says Rainer Martens, a professor of physical education at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana who has studied the subject extensively. ”But the research doesn`t show that. It`s just a few children. I`d estimate that less than 1 percent of the 20 million kids participating in organized sports show abnormally high levels of stress.
”Now, as you move into the more elite performers (i.e. superstars), you see higher levels. There`s more pressure to perform because the parents are investing thousands of dollars for camps and individualized instruction to help their children become the best.”
The ironic thing is that a child`s view of himself as an athlete may bear little or no relation to his actual ability. In a study of young soccer players, Scanlon found that before a game perceptions of incompetence caused stress, independent of skills. In other words, it isn`t what a child can do that matters; it is what he thinks he can do. And if he thinks he can`t do what the game demands, then he almost always feels bad about playing.
In too many cases, Scanlon`s and Martens` research has revealed, the premium placed upon winning distorts not only what children need from athletic competition, but also what they want.
”Youngsters learn as young as 5 years old that self-worth depends on how they achieve,” Martens explains. ”Physical things are a way children measure achievement.”
But then society adds to the equation, Martens continues, by teaching that winning equals achievement. ”Children begin to feel they are worthy if they win and not worthy if they don`t.”
This is ingrained in Americans, reinforced by sporting metaphors applied to business, glamorized by news media hellbent on deifying champions. The struggle to win is part of our national identity, at once a source of its greatness and tunnel vision. But whether it is good or bad, it exists, even when coaches and officials try to minimize the importance of victory.
”The league didn`t keep standings,” recalls Paul Sehl, a former coach with the American Youth Soccer Association in Chicago. ”It wanted to steer clear of them. The only people who kept win-loss records were the kids. The kids wanted to know regardless of what the league wanted.”
Scanlon insists that this focus must be learned, because her research tells her it is unnatural.
”Kids play sports to have fun,” Scanlon says. ”They play to improve skills and make friends. They play because they like the excitement. Way down on kids` lists is that they want to win.
”Ninety percent of the kids we asked said they`d rather be on a losing team and play than sit on the bench for a winning team.”
Ryan Daly, a 9-year-old baseball player from Homewood, judges his performance not on whether his team wins or loses but ”if I caught a few balls.” In contrast, his 8-year-old teammate ”asks somebody how I did.”
What others think is important. In examining a group of 9- to 14-year-old wrestlers at a tournament in California, Scanlon provided the first scientific proof that children`s perceptions of parental pressure can result in stress.
”A common feeling we found was, `I don`t want to let my father and mother down; I don`t want to disappoint them.` ” The researchers also found a lot of tears among losers, although they were unable to differentiate the crying that was caused by stress from a healthy release of emotions that might naturally follow intense excitement.
”The problem with stress,” Scanlon says, ”is that it`s really detrimental to development.”
Some kids are predisposed to experience stress in organized sports. Research is only now beginning to determine why, Scanlon says. But whatever the cause, these children may actually acquire the skills of a game faster by not playing in a league or participating in organized competition.
On the other hand, neither Scanlon nor Martens sees any reason to abolish organized sports for kids. They would, however, change some things.
”You don`t have to motivate kids in sports,” Scanlon says. ”You have to keep them from losing their motivation.”
Ironically, one way to sustain motivation is to do away with that age-old institution, the pep talk. ”At very low and very high levels of arousal performance is not good,” Scanlon says, sketching a graph shaped like an upside-down U. ”The best performance occurs at a level of arousal somewhere in between. Children are usually beyond that point before a game. So the pre- game pep talk is a farce.”
A more fundamental way to sustain motivation is to de-emphasize winning and losing. In general, Scanlon says, pressure to win leads children to drop out, not improve.
The answer, she says, is to replace a desperate struggle to win with individual goals, even in team sports. To reduce stress each player sets personal goals for each game or event. The coach`s job is to keep these goals in line with the player`s ability, increasing the challenge as skills improve, while being careful not to overstep his limits. For instance, someone who has never scored a field goal shouldn`t set out to score 20 points in a basketball game. On the other hand, there is some level at which every child athlete can succeed, be it staying in position in soccer, swinging only at strikes in baseball or simply being a good sport in any game.
Though this kind of personalized, piecemeal approach may sound puny to the martinets among us, Scanlon insists ”it is not antithetical to winning or developing superstars. The child looks at competition as a challenge instead of a threat. If you`re succeeding, you`re going to keep going for it. The last thing you`re going to do is exert effort if you think you`re going to fail.” The American Coaching Effectiveness Program (P.O. Box 5076, Champaign, Ill. 61820) holds to this basic philosophy as part of its training courses for local sports officials who, in turn, give clinics to the volunteers around the country who coach kids. The program, founded in 1981 by Martens, operates under the motto ”Athletes first, winning second.” It includes instruction in philosophy, physiology, medicine, teaching methods and psychology.
”I had been director of a research lab on physical education and motor behavior,” Martens says, explaining the program`s inception. ”I was giving talks all over the world. I found that coaches in other countries were making more use of our findings than coaches in the U.S. were.”
In the realm of stress, Martens says, coaches must be able to find highly stressed children and work to take away the uncertainty of a game, while at the same time reducing its importance.
Parents fit into this scenario not as purveyors of expectations, but as supporters whose interest and affection demand no particular level of achievement.
As overworked and disregarded as the term is, fun figures integrally into kids sports. Scanlon`s research shows that the more fun a child has during a game, the less stress he feels afterward, regardless of whether he wins or loses.
”This means,” she says, ”that winners don`t necessarily have more fun.”
It also means parents need to tailor their expectations to their children`s desires.
”We`ve all been in the stands and heard parents get fired up,” Scanlon says. ”That`s natural. As a parent you have to recognize that and deal with it. Know why you`re there. This is the child`s world. Respect it. Your child doesn`t come to work and yell at you.”
HANDLING YOUR LITTLE LEAGUER
Parents and coaches,” explains Tara Scanlon, ”are not getting up in the morning and saying, `How can I mess up these kids today?` ”
For those well-meaning but misguided fan/addicts, the UCLA professor offers these guidelines:
— Keep the cheers positive for your child and others: ”The most despicable thing is when you have a 7-year-old standing out there and somebody yells, `Kill the bum.` That`s getting carried away with the pro model.”
— Hold on-field directions to a minimum: ”Trying to follow constant instructions keeps a child from getting into the flow of the game. It becomes start-stop, start-stop. Have you ever heard of paralysis by analysis?”
— Restrict postgame commentary to a few upbeat thoughts: ”Right after the game is not the time to discuss 7,000 things that went wrong. Save it for the next practice.”
— Realize that for children the toughest part of game day may be the ride home: ”Let children vent their emotions. If they want to cry, let them. Don`t say the game doesn`t matter because it does. Support them. Bring out all the good things that happened. If you can`t handle it this way, don`t talk about it.”
