Ep 176: Rethinking Youth Sports: Can we lessen the pressure and make it more fun? with Linda Flanagan Author of Taking Back the Game

In this conversation, Linda H Flanagan and Jessica Hochman explore the complexities of youth sports today, discussing the pressures faced by young athletes, advocating for a more balanced approach to youth athletics. We discuss the importance of exercise, the risks of early specialization, and the mental health implications of competitive sports. The discussion emphasizes the need for free play, the debunking of myths surrounding sports and character building, and the design of an ideal sports curriculum that prioritizes enjoyment and well-being over competition. A really important conversation, especially for parents who have children involved in sports!  

About Linda:

Linda is a freelance journalist, researcher, and former cross-country and track coach. A graduate of Lehigh University, Flanagan holds master’s degrees from Oxford University and the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy and was an analyst for the National Security Program at Harvard University. She is a founding board member of the New York City chapter of the Positive Coaching Alliance and a 2020–21 advisory group member for the Aspen Institute’s Reimagining School Sports initiative, and her writing on sports has appeared in The Atlantic, Runner’s World, and on NPR’s education site MindShift, where she is a regular contributor. A mother of three and a lifelong athlete, Flanagan lives in New Jersey.

Linda's website: click here  www.lindaflandiganauthor.com

To read her book, Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania are Ruining Kids' Sports--and Why it Matters: click here

Dr Jessica Hochman is a board certified pediatrician, mom to three children, and she is very passionate about the health and well being of children. Most of her educational videos are targeted towards general pediatric topics and presented in an easy to understand manner.

For more content from Dr Jessica Hochman:
Instagram: @AskDrJessica
YouTube channel: Ask Dr Jessica
Website: www.askdrjessicamd.com

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Do you have a future topic you'd like Dr Jessica Hochman to discuss? Email Dr Jessica Hochman askdrjessicamd@gmail.com.

The information presented in Ask Dr Jessica is for general educational purposes only. She does not diagnose medical conditions or formulate treatment plans for specific individuals. If you have a concern about your child's health, be sure to call your child's health care provider.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Linda Flanagan, I'm so happy to have you here. I think what you write about is so interesting, so important. And let's just start off by asking and talking about what inspired you to write your book. Take Back the game. Well, thank you for having me, Jessica. It's a pleasure to be here. Well, let's see, the inspiration has come from many places, and it's been enduring, really, for kind of decades, I would say, since my children were young, and I got involved a little bit, as most parents do, at some level, with their kids, athletics and confronting what was available and what was the expectation. So that was part of it. Part of it came from my experience as a coach. When my youngest was in kindergarten, I was asked if I wanted to be a running coach at a high school. So I did, and I saw the sports world from that point of view. So from parent angle, the coach angle, and then I'm also a freelance writer, so I was able to, like explore some of these interests, some of the various developments I saw that kind of bothered me, and I could kind of explore and do some research and talk to experts, and that all inspired the writing of the book, and kind of it all came together in my book. Take Back the game. Reading your book. There are so many interesting statistics, so many interesting facts that you pointed out, but I found it interesting what a business sports for kids has become Can you talk about that a little bit? Can you share some of the statistics in terms of the financial investment that parents are putting into sports these days? Yes. Okay, so the industry is there's a lot of variation in the estimates on what the youth sports industry is worth, but it's somewhere in the neighborhood of $28 billion so massive if and if you break it down. You know, there's all different kinds of ways to break it down. The Aspen Institute sports and Society program did a study and found that, like writ large, parents spend an average of $883 per year per child, which you know is doesn't sound like an astronomical number for its prohibitive in some cases. But when you slice it down even further, and you look at another study that was done by Harris Poll, it was a Harris Poll survey in 2019 it found this was just of parents of families who had kids playing club sports, which is what most middle and upper class families now do they invest in travel or club teams? They found that in those homes, 27% of parents spent $500 a month per child on the sport, and 7% spent at least $1,000 per month. So you know, when you take the aggregate, it's a much smaller number, but when you look at the what individual families who are investing in the club and travel teams, it's a lot higher. You know, over$12,000 a year per child, in some cases. So it's a massive number. Something that I find interesting that you talk about is how sports has shifted from becoming more fun, more more about team sports, learning life lessons, and now it's become more of a stressful experience, potentially can be more intense in nature. Do you think that this in part, has led to this shift happening? Absolutely, in fact, one of the consequences of the commercialization of sports, and it makes a lot of sense, if you think about it, is that when you have private entities opening gyms, leagues, teams, and they're selling sports to kids, you know, the whole idea of a season kind of disappears, because if you own a soccer club, you don't want you know, do you have to pay rent? You have to pay your employees year round. You can't just say, well, we're paying you in the fall. So there's the selling. Specialization has been sold to families as a way to, you know, keep the lights on in a lot of cases, because if you run a business, you don't only want it to be operating three months of the year. So as a result, Families are encouraged to specialize, have their child, their second grader, play soccer, certainly in the fall and the spring, but better still, year round and third grade and fourth grade. So at younger and younger ages, kids are being encouraged to pick one sport, one sport only, and devote themselves to it. You know, we've seen a loss and a degradation of the sort of fun based play, where everyone can participate and where it's local, and you just, you know, go to the town park if you have one, and it's low key, and it's just about participation and maybe learning some things and being with friends. Now it's serious, it's competitive, it's intense, and it this is the expectation for for most families that they if you try, you know, if you have any hopes of your child being a high school athlete, you better start them in second grade. Go hard. Last week, I was talking with a friend of mine. We were on a walk together, and she was telling me how her son, who. Is in eighth grade. He loves playing soccer, and the problem she was telling me is that everybody else started at the age of two or the age of three, and he, quote, unquote, missed the boat, and he's not eligible to play in the team at school. He's too old, and there's no place for him to play soccer for fun. And we were just talking about how it's so unfortunate, because the way he's doing it is the way I wish kids would do it nowadays, where, yes, they're playing because they love to play, and they're getting exercise in a fun, light hearted, low pressure way. And it's a shame that we don't see that, that we're not encouraging that more, right? Even if you don't want to do join in this stuff, like you don't want to put your second grader in a travel team, because that's insane. You feel like you have to, or you end up like you know your eighth grader doesn't have a shot at playing on a team. Now I would say that while that may be the case in with this particular family, other kids who start late and who play multiple sports, who don't specialize into, you know, through middle school, but play multiple sports and develop as an athlete in, you know, their entire body, or most of their body, by the time they get to high school, all bets are off. When once they go through puberty, things change like that's when the at the real athletes emerge. And if you have a coach who is can see potential, even with a kid who doesn't have, you know, tremendous soccer skills, they might see something in that, that kid who has more overall athletic ability and isn't so narrowly focused than the kid who's been playing since he was five. Also that kid who started when he was five might just be sick to death of it by high school, and say, I'm not doing this anymore. And what? No part of it. It's all a gamble. You know, for parents like, do you do this in spite of yourself? Like, I think this, I hate this idea of travel, but we're going to do it. We'll in the off chance, you know, if to give them a spot, or do you take a risk and help them develop their overall bodies, their overall interests, for that matter. And you know, let the chips fall where they may and and if the child has a real interest that, you know kicks in around 12 or 13, that they'll pursue it on their own. Thank you for this reminder, because I think there's such a feeling amongst us parents that you can miss the boat, that if you don't start your kid at too early of an age, if you don't start them right away from preschool, from early elementary school years, that there's no chance for your child to do well in it, so you might as well just not participate at all, or not look for the sport to participate in. So this is a great reminder that you're right. The right coach will recognize a child that is interested, enthusiastic, that has some natural talent, and they won't dissuade them from participating in the team sport. And there are also sports that don't require any kind of special skill, you know, that kids can pick up in ninth grade, running, wrestling, football. I think a really good runner by the you know, could also pick up soccer fairly well. Like these are transferable skills. So, you know, I'd like to, there's so many quotes I'd like to share with you, like Steve Magnus, who's a coach to Olympic runners. So he's, you know, he coaches the very, very best athletes. He has written, There is no such thing as an 11 year old sports star. The game starts at puberty. So, like, let's just remember that, you know, you might develop sure that an eight year old who's been working at it for four years is going to have more skills in soccer or whatever, versus an eight year old who hasn't, but it really doesn't matter until after puberty. I mean, the very high skilled sports, there is some of that, but the majority of sports that kids play, you know, they'll have an opportunity, and if they if they have the chance to play in some at some level, and it doesn't become a grind, see, that's it is such a grind for kids, and I would carve out here, but some kids love that, and they want that, and it's great. Okay, there are those kids, but I think as more and more parents have felt they have to do this, whether their kids are really into it or not. It just doesn't apply. So the Steve Magnus quote, Nira Jayanthi, he runs Sports Medicine Research at Emory. He says there is no advantage to specializing early in the majority of sports. There just isn't in terms of optimal physical Outlook or their prospects, they should specialize no sooner than 12 or 13, and later is better. It's interesting. You say that because I know so many people that look to the Tiger Woods in this world, who started from the age of two or younger. I don't know. I remember his documentary. He started at the. Very young age. So I think, I think it's in a lot of our heads that to be a great athlete, you have to start from a younger age to develop those skills, or to have an advantage over the other kids that are participating. Starting younger is better. I think that's really helpful to realize that that's not the case. Another good example is Andre Agassi. He, you know, he wrote the memoir open about his tennis experience, and he had a terrible relationship with his father, who compelled him to play, play, play. It kind of can ruin childhood. You know, he's obviously reaped the rewards, but the overwhelming majority of kids are not going to be under Agassi or Tiger Woods, they're just not and that's should be fine. You know, it's like you're not going to win the lottery either. But that's okay. What I think about a lot is I want children to have more of a quote, unquote, normal childhood, a childhood where they are happy, go lucky. They play outside with their friends, they play sports on the cul de sac, they get together with their peers and play sports for the sake of having a good time. And yes, building a skill, yes, getting better at something, learning how to lose, learning all of those good life values. But I feel like we're getting lost, and so I think we're we're missing it on two ends, some kids, I think, are too active, too involved. And then there are other kids that are not involved enough. And for me, as a pediatrician and as a mother, I wish we could get back to that more normal, playful childhood. Yeah. I mean, the way I describe it is feast or famine. You know, in some neighborhoods, it's like all sports all the time. Parents gone all weekends, dividing and conquering, driving kids from across state lines to their have their eight year olds play soccer tournament. And then our system does not encourage late development, because you can be easily discouraged if you're not developing physically. The early matures are rewarded because, oh, that kid has talent. So then the kids who are like, maybe they're a little younger, or they're just later to mature, they get discouraged and they just want no part of it. So that is a real, real problem. And there's a lot of there's a lot of parents I talk to that hold their kids back intentionally so that they're older for their grades, so that they have an edge in sports. I've heard that, and I think that's shocking to me. That's shocking that you would do that for sports. I mean, it's one thing if it's for academics. I mean, I guess I'm naturally inclined to think that academic success is, is more important. I think doing it for athletic reasons is is somewhat misguided. I think it came from Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called outliers, and he was looking at birthdays amongst hockey players, and he noticed that there was definitely a statistical significance that professional hockey players had birthdays such that they were older in their grade school years. And he hypothesized that having a birthday that made you older for your grade gave you an edge, gave you an advantage, and I've noticed that since then, or maybe it's, you know, a multitude of factors, but they want their kids to be on the older side for their grade. But in reality, how many kids end up actually being professionals at the sports that they play? Okay, so I think it's always good to be reminded of what the data say. Okay, so you can just look at high school sports, so six to 7% of high school athletes, that's not even the whole high school population. High school athletes, go on to play in college. So it's a very small number who even go on to play in college, let alone professionally. From college, about 2% go on to play professionally. So, I mean, it's a very, very small number if you're if you're banking on that, you know, you might as well start buying a lot of lottery tickets, because to say it's not a shirt, that is an understatement. So why do you think it is, then that parents become so involved and potentially obsessed with their kids sports? Well, I see, I think there's a lot of factors, and part of it is the the college question that you know maybe they'll get recruited, the prestige associated with getting recruited, the fact that colleges are there is a it's they relax their standards with Athletes, with the admissions process, it's easier to be admitted with lower academic standards. So I think in the back of most parents minds, I shouldn't say I'm speculating. But you know, when your child does really well, you think, and people are telling you, I'd say a little Johnny could play in college, and he's only nine years old. You know that plants, that coach or that performance might plan to see that this is a possibility. So then you want to keep pursuing it. So I think part of it is the draw of college. I think there's also just the and this is something that I don't think we talk about enough as parents. It's that, you know. So none of us knows what we're doing, right? All parents are just making it up as we go along. Nobody knows what they're doing. We follow our parents or we disregard what our parents did. We read things, we hear things, we listen to what our parent or friends are doing. You just kind of make it up as you go I mean, with sports, when kids are out there performing and they do well, when your child does well, it is just such a wonderful feeling. It's like, wow, I'm I've done something right. Look at, you know, it makes you feel like you've done a good job. Because, look, my child scored the winning goal, or, you know, got the foul shot that won the game. It just makes you feel great as a parent. And I think it's, you know the youth sports system, which is so many games, so many competitions, there are all these opportunities for you know, parents get their little dopamine hits from their child's athletic performance, and I know that. I mean, I felt that with my son, like disproportionate pride and delight, and I think it's partly because we really don't know what we're doing, and we're all sort of doing it alone, raising kids, and it's a public demonstration of your child's success and therefore your ability as a parent. And I think that is at the root of a lot of it. And I don't again, I don't think there's anything wrong with feeling proud of your kids. You know, there's enough heartache with children. It's just that it can tip over into an unhealthy kind of reason for playing sports, like it's more important to the parents that their child plays than that the child wants to play, and the parents might be devastated if the child wants to quit, because it becomes so important to them, which I totally understand. I think it's natural, but I also think it ought to be resisted, because we need to let kids have their own games, their own experiences. Yes, I can see that it's all about having a healthy moderation, keeping it in perspective. I can, you know, picture a parent after their child loses or wins. You want to, you know, discuss it, but you don't want to perseverate on the win or the loss. Yeah, and it was an experience that happened, but it shouldn't really become more than that. Yes, I think about myself. I was never a natural athlete, but I always tried my hardest. So as you pointed out at the beginning, when we were talking, that running is a great is a great sport to participate in if you don't have any earlier training or skills. So I was one of those students in high school where I joined the cross country team, and I remember thinking that my parents really didn't come to that many of my track meets, which was fine, because I wasn't that great and I was always on the junior varsity team. My mom came to a couple of meets. She came and watched me, but I think she was at the bake sale most of the time. I don't think she was there at the finish line or knew what my time was, which was fine, but I have to say that now I'm 44 years old, and I still like to run. I ran this morning a couple of miles. I do run most days of the week, and I enjoy it, and I do feel, as I've gotten older, grateful that they weren't so invested in my athletic prowess or lack thereof, because I was always able to keep it light and fun. And now it's, you know, it really is a stress relief for me, whereas I wonder if it was intense in high school, maybe that would have taken the fun away from the sport, and maybe I wouldn't love it so much today. So I do think that's something important to keep in mind for parents, that a lot of this is about building habits so that kids enjoy they learn. Maybe it's a skill that as they go through their adulthood, they'll be able to lean back on it and enjoy well. And I think that's why those of us on the youth sports like reform side of things really emphasize the importance of fun, because that's the number one reason why kids say they want to play sports. And if it's fun, they'll want to keep doing it. And if you fit, if you believe, as I do, that the purpose of youth sports is to develop those healthy habits, you know, get into a frame of mind of being active, like that's just a part of life, learning how to work with others, all those sorts of things we attribute to being on a team. Then, you know, it doesn't have to be then this super competitive nature of youth sports does not necessarily contribute to that fun. It can for some kids, but you know, if it's too intense, too young in age, it's not fun. And kids, that's why kids give it up. They're sick to death of it. They're tired of the rat race. They're tired of the relentless grind, the summers and the vacations spent on these activities that ought to be fun. And, you know, there's this interesting study I wanted to point out by a woman named Amanda visit from GW University. She had looked at what the attributes of fun are, you know, because I think there's this notion among many parents like to serve to have a goal of how. When the kids sports be fun is kind of not serious. You know, you're not it shouldn't be about fun. It should be about learning hard things. And you know, when you're eight years old. And what she found in her research is that fun for kids, and across all different levels, was having a positive team environment, a positive coach and working hard. So it's like those three ingredients, not goofing off and, you know, just sitting around and, you know, playing playing games. It's working hard for something together in a positive environment with a positive coach. That's what across the spectrum all these kids said was what made it fun. So I really think we need to, like reframe what we mean by fun when we talk about it in sports, that it's like that is what kids like to do, and that should always be the goal. What do you think about coaches that are very intense? I talked to a mom last week who was really upset because a coach yelled at her child really intensely, and she felt really upset because her kid, who usually has a great attitude, came home in tears, and she really even thought about maybe switching schools or talking to the coach. How do you think parents should handle coaches that take it too far? Yeah, well, I think it depends on the child's age, for one, if the child is in high school, I think as much as possible, a parent should encourage the child to try to work it out with the coach, which can be really hard. And I know that's really hard for kids, especially if the coach is an ogre. I think the coach really was coming down on the child, saying that this needs to be the only thing that they do in their life, that all day, on the weekends, Saturday, Sunday, this needs to be what they live and breathe. And the mother can't tell if it's coming from the higher ups at the school, if there's pressure on the coach to do well from the school's perspective, or if it's the coach himself. So I think it's a sad situation, because here you have a kid who's very talented, very motivated, but he's a 14 year old and he doesn't want to make it his life, which I think is so normal, which we should be encouraging. So I guess what I'm saying is, there's, it seems like there's many reasons and many levels for why kids are feeling stress and pressure, that it's yes in part, possibly the parents in part, possibly the culture, but also the coach themselves may be maybe playing a role in the stress. Absolutely, no question about it. I mean, my experience has been that schools want the kids to have a good experience, and they want the coaches to be good people, that it's not about winning at all costs. You know, certainly there are some that are like that, but so that I think college is a different story, like, if the coaches, coaches have to win in order to keep their jobs. But in high school, you know, some schools, yes, but most schools know. And I so I, with that being said, I think that particular coach may have that perspective, that this has to be your entire life. I have to tell you as so I'm a mother of three kids, and none of my kids play in any sport that takes more than one day a week. And sometimes I feel bad about it because my husband played in multiple sports in high school. We all we both believe that sports are really important. But I look at children that, for example, play baseball, and it seems to be every weekend, it seems to be so encompassing for the families, for their life. And I'm intimidated by that. I don't, I don't really, I don't want to encourage that for my children, which I feel bad about. So I wish there was some way, and maybe you have some advice on this, to think about a sport where it doesn't become all encompassing. I wish that was more prevalent today. I do too. But let me just ask you, why do you feel bad about that, that you don't want to be part of that? Because I think that's what people parents need to interrogate their thinking on that, like, Why do I feel bad that? You know, I I worry that they're missing out on making friends, that they're missing out on learning the lessons of how to lose, how to be happy when they win, how to share, exercising more. I think all of these factors that I believe are healthy about sports, I worry that they're missing out on but it sounds like your kids are playing sports. They're just not playing as intensely. One day a week they do rock climbing. I'm all for activity like I what? I think we confuse sports with exercise like because you can get the benefits, the benefits that we think of going with sports, the teamwork, the discipline that can come from other activities, getting a job after school, for example, being in debate club, being in a theater production. There's all kinds of things that require other activities, that require discipline and teamwork and getting along and all of that. But exercise is important too. And I think, you know, there are ways to encourage that as parents, without saying you need to join the tribal baseball team. And we do do that. I have to say we do make sure our kids are active, that we you know, we're frequently taking them on hikes. We took them to all the national parks. So. For spring break last year. We like to get our kids moving. So I You are making me feel better. So I appreciate that, because while they're not in sports, our kids are admittedly active well. And I think I guess Jessica, you know, my view is, if they really want to play sports, great, but kind of, you know, kicking them out the door and making them with their teenagers, or, you know, I don't know. I think that kind of usually backfires. Yes, they are definitely not asking for it, and I and I mention it to them, I say, Would you guys like to play? Would you like to play a sport? What do you think about basketball? What do you think about swimming? And nothing's really catching their tent, their attention. It was only the only rock climbing did they ask for. And so that's what we're having them do. Well, and I don't know how old are your kids? My kids are 911, and 14, so when the younger to get into high school, they might decide, if their friends say are on a team, that they want to join the cross country team like you did, and then they'll have that opportunity. You know, it's, it's not like the door is slammed shut because they didn't start playing travel T ball at five. You know, they can pick these things up. And it also, I think, what is your long term goal? I think sometimes we get caught up in the short term. I think if you want your kids to be active throughout their lives, it's not necessarily by being in a travel sport at a young age. You know, when those kids burn out. We haven't even talked about injuries. You know, the injury issue is a massive problem in the kids who specialize early and play around. I agree with this. The rate of overuse injuries has dramatically increased with children. This is so true, yes. And, you know, I spoke about neurogyn. He heads Sports Medicine Research at Emory. He said that they've, what he sees is they've advanced injury types by four years. So what they used to see in 20 year olds, they now see in 16 year olds. What they used to see in 16 year olds, they now see in 12 year olds. So all the early specialization and year round play. Yes, your nine year old is going to be a better lacrosse player than the nine year old who didn't pick play lacrosse year round, but that nine year old is also more apt to get a potentially serious injury, to be derailed from his or her sport and to have a vacuum of other interests. See, that's the other problem, in my view, one of the biggest issues with early specialization and the intensification of youth sports is that it it sort of leeches out the rest of life that might be important to you. Maybe you want to be able to go away in the summer, go to the national parks. You want your children to be able to go to, you know, a museum every now and then, to go to their grandmother's 80th birthday party, to spend time with their cousins, to be on the theater, to club. It just leeches out the rest of life when children, in my view, ought to be experiencing a lot of things as they grow up. Yes, we want them to be well rounded. We want them to be well adjusted. And you bring up such a good point, what if a child gets injured, which they do, and their whole life is defined by, let's say, their soccer and then they tear their Achilles. I mean, we're setting our kids up to be depressed and sad because that was the only thing in life that define them? Yes, and you know, I should point out that it's especially hard for girls, because girls are much more apt to get those catastrophic injuries that can, like, derail them for at least a year, and that's like ACL tears. So you know, the anterior cruciate ligament in the knee, girls get those four times the rate of boys in comparable sports. So like basketball, soccer, lacrosse, girls are much more apt to tear their ACLs, and you're going to tear you more up to tear your ACL if you're playing year round, and if you started at a young age, and if you've been doing that, it makes it all the more important to your life, because that's your life. So then when you lose it, it can be like a catastrophe, just catastrophic emotionally, because your whole life, who are you if you can't play lacrosse? So you know, it's all of these intertwined factors, the injuries and the mental health and and meanwhile, I always want to say sports are good because they really they promote mental health, they assuage depression, they can kind of put the tamp down on anxiety. It's so exercise is important and it keeps kids off screens. I find, yes, the kids that play sports, they don't have time to be on their screens all day, which I think this day and age especially, is so important. Yes, that's right, they're not on their phones when they're playing a sport. You know, with any luck, Jonathan heights efforts to, you know, eliminate social media for kids, or seriously limit it will have, will also have that effect, because there's no question that screens are terrible disruptor and destroy. Action and just even pernicious influence in kids lives. I completely agree. I think this is the key here is, how do we I think what I'm struggling with so much is, how do we help our kids get back to that childhood where they're not on their screens all day, they're not overly stressed in competitive sports, but they're just enjoying their childhoods where they're getting back to that pure childhood of playing their sports for enjoyment, where it's not so serious, that things aren't so stressful, yeah, and so I think one of the first steps in getting back to that is recognizing the points that you make in your book, that we don't want it to be that stressful for kids, and that we as parents need to keep perspective to help our kids keep the sports at a level that that makes sense for your individual family and child, and for the long term, you know, like, if you think about what do you want in the long term, does it really matter if they win the soccer game in fifth grade? You know, for their travel team, it really doesn't matter, but it's really it's so hard to keep perspective when you're watching an emotional game and your child is doing something great or something terrible, and you get wrapped up in it, which I understand, but, you know, I do think parents need to fortify their backbones a little bit about, like, what am I doing here and why and who's driving this? If the child is driving it, that's a different story, but who's driving this and to try to reclaim some of those values that you're talking about. And I, you know, if you've heard of Peter Gray, I love Peter Gray. He was a guest on the podcast maybe about a year ago. Okay, so he, I asked him this question, like, what are parents to do? You know, you can say, great, go out and play, but everyone's inside, or everyone's off doing their, you know, club sport, or whatever it is, or Kumon lessons, or whatever the particular intensive parenting example is. And he said he's going to take a little initiative, but in your neighborhood, go find some other neighbors who have kids, talk to them about the benefits of free play, which is all about like kids are having this mental health crisis. Here's an is one of the antidotes, or one of the corrections to that, talk to the neighbors about the benefits of free play, and carve out, say, Saturday afternoons and take turns. He said, Take turns. Being like an old fashioned parent, those kids come over, no phones, mixed age groups, go figure it out. And I think, you know, it does take some initiative, so you're going to have to find ways in your own homes, I think, in your own neighborhoods. And maybe it'll catch on, you know, so you have a bunch of kids coming over, and you take turns, and, you know, Let's carve out, even if you can't do it all the time, carve out half a day on the weekend, or a whole day where you have, okay, we're gonna go be old fashioned parents. I have to tell you that the struggle feels real because Lenore skin easy, who was a guest on the podcast about a year ago, she said, why don't you go on next door app and tell parents I'm going to be home on Friday from two to four o'clock. Just bring your kids over. So I did do that a couple of times, and nobody came over. So it's definitely something I'm going to keep working on. But I do feel like it's harder this day and age, hopefully books like Jonathan heights the anxious generation and getting the word out about how detrimental social media can be for kids and how important it is for kids to get free play. Hopefully that word keeps spreading so that it becomes easier, yeah, but it is well, it is tricky. I mean, it just seems like the solution is right there, which is better for parents and better for kids to have more free time, to have time where they can just be playing amongst themselves and not have adults jumping in to fix things. Maybe the case has to be made more proactively that, you know, let's do this in our neighborhood, you know, go around and talk to other neighbors and kind of make it really. Try to make it happen. Parents that are listening, please be this parent, try to get together with other kids in your neighborhoods. Talk to other parents and make a pact that you put the phones away, that the kids get together, maybe bring some sports equipment so they can play outdoors together, you know, with the understanding that our kids benefit from having free play time, being outside, playing sports in the light hearted, fun, stressless way. Yes, well, and because one of the causes of parent anxiety is worry about their children's mental health. You know this free play is it's from what I understand, conducive to mental health, conducive to good mental health, because kids figure things out. They develop autonomy. They kind of work their friendships out, and they have agency. They're not like relying on an adult to do things for them or tell them what to do, which is what all they get in youth sports, is follow these directions if they have to figure it out it's good for their own growth and emotional development. So it just seems like. A win, win. But I know, I know it's hard. It's going to take some persuasion. Can you speak to the myth that playing sports builds character? Yes, this was a kind of a, well, it's, it's sort of a an article of faith, I think, in people who are sports advocates, that playing sports builds character. And of course, how you define character is kind of nebulous. Does it mean being honest? Does it mean, you know, if the ball is out, you call the ball out, you know, it's up to you to be honest. Or is it about are there attributes, like discipline, just developing good like physical habits, like, what does it even mean when we talk about character? But there is a study of 40 years of the research on the effects of playing sports on character, and this study found that there was no indication that kids who played sports were better at working in teams. We attribute these things to sports sort of out of thin air, but there isn't evidence that that's what's happening, and that the young people who grow up to be, you know, fine, upstanding people, maybe they played sports. So we think it's because they played sports well, maybe it had something it was entirely unrelated to sports. They had a job too, or their parents had a particular philosophy, or this is just the way they are born? You know? They just so we don't know, but we like to attribute all these things to sports. In fact, there are some character traits that sports can bring out that aren't so desirable, like aggression. There's higher rates of physical abuse partners in young people are and adults who play the football and wrestling even there's more drinking among athletes in high school who play sports than there are in those who don't. So you know, we just have to be a little more nuanced in how we think about it, the pros and cons about sports and and I say that as an athlete myself, high school player, a runner for most of my life, and a high school running coach like I see, there are, there are wonderful things that can come from playing sports, but it's not just by definition. It's all dependent on the environment. Yeah, I mean, we both agree there, and I'm sure everybody listening can agree that there are definite, tremendous values in playing sports, but it sounds like you wanted to be coming from the child themselves. We want to we want to keep the sport in moderation, in terms of their life balance. And it's so important that we as parents keep perspective on what we're looking for to come from their participation in sports, yes, and to not make it about ourselves, which is what you know when you are like, just on cloud nine, because your child played well on the sport. I get it, but it shouldn't really, you know you I think it's probably wise to try to acknowledge that that's not a great thing, because you don't want your child's athletic performance to dictate how you feel about them. So I'm just curious if Linda Flanagan was in charge of designing the perfect sports curriculum for middle school, for high school. How would you design it? What age should children start? How much time should they spend in the sport? How many sports should they play? What would it look like to you? Well, I think the biggest thing is that there would be more options. So there would be you still have varsity sports at the high school level and middle school level, though their middle schools are all over the map with that stuff, but they would also offer both more intramurals, more intramural sports programs, so that say in basketball, which is five, there are five starters in a basketball Team, and hundreds of kids play basketball, but only five start, so teams are typically like 12 or 13 players. So have you know, intramural, more intramural so you don't have to be as having played AAU basketball in order to play in high school. And again, with the goal being that more kids can play, so that it doesn't have to be super intense, that you get more kids playing and moving off their phones, also more club kinds of programs after school, or something where there is that option for more kids. I think you know, Lenore skin azi has this idea of the play clubs after school and the elementary school level. So let's, let's lower the temperature of the elementary school level so and give parents another more of a break. So after school for an hour three days a week, there's a play Club Kids of all group, all ages, loosely supervised. Throw them out in the field with balls and jump ropes or whatever, and let them figure it out for an hour like I would have loved that as a you know, when my kids were little, yes. And for parents listening, you can find more information about that at let grow.org It's a brilliant concept, and I hope more schools implement it. So just more options, more low key options, and so. And also, I'm not saying you shouldn't have those travel and club programs. You. For some kids, they're appropriate. At my high school, I think there are the very serious who want more, but it shouldn't that shouldn't be the expectation for everyone that you have to join a club team that devours all you know, your waking moments, for the entire family, just because you want to have the option to play in high school like it's fine to have those programs for the very serious but the norm, it shouldn't be the norm that families have to do this. So that's how my perfect sports world will look. And it's and to your point, earlier, I've seen so many people pick up pickleball at all ages of life. So it's never too late to start a sport. That's right. And you know this idea that, Oh, you're you're missing out, your child's gonna miss out, like, with any luck, life is long. And I think, you know, it's one friend of mine said that she I thought it was such a great quote, that the her whole community was conspiring to make her think that sports were more important than they are. They're just really not that important. I mean, it's good to be active, it's nice to have these experiences, but it's not, it's not life or death, and it can just seem a lot more important than it is. Very, very wise words of wisdom. Now, before we wrap up, any final thoughts that you have that you'd like to share, before we wrap up, well, you had asked me earlier about a question about a personal experience that shaped, helped shape my views on sports. It was in one of your written questions, and I was thinking about it, and it kind of, it's a good way to end it with the idea that, you know, it really has to come from the child that you really want your children to be, determining, deciding what sports they want to play. You know, give them a lot of options, but let them it has to in. The motivation has to come from them. And I think about my own experience growing up, my parents were tennis players, and they really wanted me to play tennis, so I begrudgingly learned how to play tennis, and I really wasn't very good. I mean, I was okay. And at my last match in high school, I was like, I'm done with this. I didn't want to play anymore. And for always, my parents would be like, Oh, Linda, have you thought about planning tennis? Would you like to come hit, hit around and be like, no, because I didn't like it. On the other hand, I took up running on my own tone, and it's something I enjoyed, like you without a lot. I just like the feeling of it. I like the feeling of being active. I like the feeling of being fit. I loved how I felt afterwards, and I pursued it, joined teams, competed. It's became central to my life, and my parents had absolutely nothing to do with it. It's because I wanted it. And I do think it's really hard when you're the parent, because when you want things for your kids, and you think they'll love it, but ultimately, really has to come from them. You can expose them and introduce them to all these different things, but if they don't want to do it, there's nothing you can do. So that's how I would end it. What you're saying, I completely agree with, I believe, for us as parents are our job is to expose them. That's how we can help our kids in the best way, expose them to everything as much as we can, and then see what sticks. Because something will stick. It might not be a sport, but something will stick, something and thank goodness it's not just a sport. We need all kinds of people, you know. We need artists and writers and, you know, data analysts, we need all kinds of people, like, it's fine if you're not an athlete, as long as you're, you know, reasonably healthy and you get some exercise, it doesn't matter that much. Thank you so much, Linda. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this conversation. You gave me so much to think about, and I really appreciate your time. And thank you so much for being here today, my pleasure. It was nice talking to you. Jessica.