By Stacy DeBroff 

With visions of Olympic medals, lucrative professional contracts, or college scholarship money, many parents feel tempted to start their children as early as possible in order to get as much experience as possible. Unfortunately, this early start approach can also lead to early burnout long before a child gets anywhere close to her parents’ lofty goals.

Because every child and every sport is different, there are no absolute answers about the best time to start. You may be able to measure your child’s readiness for organized, competitive sports in terms of motor skills, social maturity, and the ability to understand and follow rules and regulations. But the best indication of readiness comes from your child. She should be eager to try the sport and enjoy it once she starts.

You should never push your child into team sports, but by the time she is six years old, you may want to see if she is ready. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that your child does not start team sports prior to this age, but you know your child best. Just because she meets the suggested or minimum age for a particular program doesn’t mean she’s ready for the activity. If the demands exceed your child’s developmental level, she may feel frustrated. In addition to age, you also need to consider your child’s physical coordination, size, and emotional maturity. Your child should be able to take directions, cooperate, express an interest in joining a team, and focus on a task for more than ten minutes.

Until then, enroll her in a program that emphasizes fun and physical exercise, not one whose primary concerns are rules and competition.

Many parents begin trying to find sports and activities that pique their children’s interest as early as 3 years old. Yet many preschoolers get stressed if a parent does not stay right by their side. Others have trouble listening, following directions, or getting along with others.

Sports teams for children under 5 have cropped up everywhere, leading many children to be proficient at a sport by age 7, while their peers who have not started yet feel hopelessly behind. Many children aren’t ready for team play until well into elementary school when they can understand the rules, cooperate with teammates, and practice good sportsmanship.

Make sure your child is in a class or program with other children of similar age and ability. Consider the age range of children playing. If your child is on the younger side, will the older kids overwhelm her? It is important that players of similar size, maturity, and skills are matched as opponents and the rules or play area should be adjusted for the age, ability, and size of the participants. For example, the basketball net should be lowered and the size of the soccer field reduced for younger players.

If your child is physically much smaller than her peers, you may want to wait an extra year before beginning organized sports.

SPECIALIZING EARLY

•    In an age of such prodigies as Tiger Woods and Venus Williams, a common parental temptation is to find your child’s strength early and focus on helping her to realize that potential to its fullest. However, having your child specialize early in a sport or activity has tremendous repercussions. Even if your child says she enjoys the concentrated focus, early specialization precludes trying other activities or sports, and can result in a complete lack of downtime.

•    The three-sport athlete is disappearing to be replaced by the year-round specialist. Most elite teams go year-round, including summer training camps or programs. Summer sports specialty camps have proliferated for kids age 5 and older. To participate in even two competitive sports often involves incredible time management skills and tough sacrifices for your child and family.

•    You may find yourself torn between whether to allow your child to specialize when she is younger or whether to engage her in numerous activities that build different skills. Most Olympic sports now try to identify future stars for specialized training before the end of fifth grade. Media coverage of sports, such as gymnastics, ice skating, and tennis, highlight very talented young athletes, and hold them up as models for others to follow suit.

•    Let your child explore a myriad of options before settling on only one sport in which to specialize. By sampling and participating in a variety of diverse sports and activities, your child develops a wide range of skills, experience, interests, and passions. A key advantage to encouraging your child to diversify her interests is that less success in one activity can be offset by more successes in others. Delaying an exclusive single-sport focus also helps ensure the opportunity for your child to pursue a sport that really interests her rather than fulfilling your or a coach’s aspirations.

•    Children who participate in a variety of sports and specialize only after puberty tend to become more consistent and less injury-ridden athletes. Also, research indicates that the greater the number of sports a pre-adolescent child plays, the more she will succeed in a specific sport in later years.

•    Specializing early should not only be a matter of talent, but also really be about your child’s passion for the activity. Through increased exposure, your child can pick and choose among what she likes best and what makes use of her talents and natural gifts. She’ll have a comparative base, and her self-esteem and identity won’t be wrapped up in one activity.

•    Keep in mind that for every young Olympic star, there are thousands of children who specialized in a sport at an early age, devoted vast amounts of leisure time to pursuing it during countless afternoons and weekends, and did not make the cut as they got older for elite and high school teams. Of the many kids who seem to be incredibly gifted at a sport or activity at age 6, very few will still stand out at age 11. Most early athletic prowess stems from how fast children physically develop, rather than core differences in inherent talent. When it seems that you have a talented child on your hands, the pressure mounts for you to encourage her to specialize in the activity. Yet when other kids start catching up around puberty, your child can feel that all the time and energy that she put into the sport hasn’t paid off, or that she has failed to live up to the coach’s or your expectations for greatness.

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