Competitive sports is an issue that is hotly debated. The majority of communities in the United States offer some form of sports program of students. Competitive sports require kids to possess a strong mindset for the challenge they will face. Research shows that competitive sports build character.Competitive sports should be banned because sports are bad for kids mental health, injuries caused from competitive sports can affect your life, and competitive sports experience too much pressure for kids.
Competitive sports impact kids mental health in a negative way, “kids will do anything for recognition which can lead them pushing too hard,” according to the article “No Pain No Gain.” For instance if a kid wants to become more popular the child may push him or herself too far which could lead to catastrophic results like a mental breakdown. In addition, the article The Mental Game: What to do when you get benched mentioned “when you are benched and forced to face adversity, you have a great opportunity to develop the skill of mental toughness. If you have the wrong mental approach, you are left with nothing but bitterness” Sure some kids may take the right path but what about the kids that really can’t. Finally, competitive sports “can make kids give up down time which leads them to sacrifice their interests.” Imagine a child fences and and swims. They are forced into swimming but they chose fencing themselves. Overtime if the kid becomes better at swimming, their parents will force them into swimming more, when their real passion is fencing. More hours of swimming means less hours of fencing and sooner or later they will be forced to quit fencing completely. This is why competitive sports impact kids mental health in a negative way.
Competitive sports should be abolished due to the amount of injuries sustained by children. These devastating injuries can impact their future. For example, Gabby, a former cheerleader, “was hurt in a stunt which lead to her losing full motion in her right arm and causing her to have to relearn to do everything with her left arm,” according to the article, “Dazzle and Danger.” In addition, research from NBC News shows that, “one in five kids have lost one or more school days due to sports-related injuries.” That doesn't even include sick days which “average about 4.5 days per student per year,” according to the article, “School Absenteeism Due to Illness - Fact or Fiction?” My final and most important fact is that “when you receive a concussion, you face memory loss, loss of focus and experience other side effects,” according to Deadly Hits, the article, Competitive sports injuries can result in other side effects, which include migraines, nausea and vomiting. Is playing competitive sports really worth your life and health?My final reason competitive sports should be banned is they cause kids to experience too much pressure. According to the Boston Globe, “Three out of four American families with school-aged children have at least one playing an organized sport” and “by age 15, as many as 80 percent of these youngsters have quit because of an overload of pressure from family, friends and coaches.”
So basically because of the excessive amount pressure, all the previous years of work went to waste. The article Why kids quit sports claimed “The #1 reason kids quit is because sports is no longer fun. In a 2014 study for George Washington University, researcher Amanda Visik interviewed numerous youth athletes and asked them why they played sports, and 9 out of 10 said the #1 reason they played was it was fun!” It was because there was so much pressure the game wasn't even fun anymore. Kids already push themselves and they don’t need to be pressurized more from family and coaches. “Parents who live through their child’s accomplishments can fall into that dark pit and put excessive stress on the child to continue to perform without allowing any room for second place,” according to the article Pressure to Perform.
When the expectation bar is raised to unrealistic standards, kids tend to build up more and more stress and pressure expecting themselves to always get gold. This is how youth competitive sports cause too much pressure which is just another good reason why we need to ban them.Although competitive sports may teach you some nice life skills like teamwork, it’s not really worth risking your life for it. As I said before, the impact of competitive sports for youth are bad for the mental health, can cause injuries that will affect your life and finally will cause too much pressure. This is why I am against competitive sports for youth and hope to ban them.