

If you force a child to play a sport when they don’t want to, that won’t make anyone happy. Don’t push kids to the point of risking injuryĪnd if your child still wants to quit? So be it.Take whatever time is necessary to explain and work with kids on new skills.

Let kids play with their friends, not with a recruited roster of junior all-stars.Use positive motivation rather than criticism and yelling.If the focus isn’t on fun, then the solution might not be quitting the sport, but quitting this team. How intense is the pressure to succeed? How harsh is the coach? Do the kids seem like they’re having fun? Does everyone get to play? … you may have uncovered a problem with the way the sport is being handled. If she feels over-committed and stressed because it's one of many activities she’s involved in, that could be a good reason to drop it. So, with that in mind, when your son wants to quit baseball or your daughter wants to drop lacrosse, first ask why. Kids need to participate and have fun with friends, not sit on the bench of a team made up of ringers who they don’t know, he says. That leaves less talented kids on the bench. All too often, he says, coaches are so focused on building competitive teams - even among 8-, 9-, and 10-year-olds - that they “draft” rosters of top players. Most of all, Scarlett says, make sure your child gets to play with their friends. Let them play with trading cards or other memorabilia with friends.Encourage them to read about sports heroes.To support their love of being active and help motivate them to move: “But to do that, they need to be surrounded with support, not just coached during games.” “At 7, 8, and 9, many children are ready to fall in love with a sport,” says Scarlett. They do it mostly because they want to have fun. Young children don’t decide to play baseball, or soccer, or tennis, or any other sport because they want to win. Notice anything that’s missing from that list? That’s right - winning. When asked, most children say they're motivated and want to play sports because they want to: He is deputy chair of the Eliot-Pearson Department of Education at Tufts University and author of The Baseball Starter: A Handbook for Coaching Children and Teens. The answer is to look back at why he wanted to play in the first place, says George Scarlett, PhD. How do you help him manage his emotions so he can stay motivated to be active? So is it OK to let him just quit? What’s a “good enough” reason to quit a sport? You want to make sure he’s getting 60 minutes of activity a day. You want to him to learn to love being physically active, though. “I don’t want to play baseball anymore,” he says. Now it’s June or July, and he drags his feet whenever it’s time to grab his glove. Patti said she knows her dad only wanted the best for her when he pushed her to train and improve her fitness.In April, your 10-year-old was eager to start Little League. She says tennis started off as a bonding experience for her and her father, who attended all of her matches and would often show his emotion while watching her play. I just kind of decided that’s not what I wanted anymore.” Patti Cohn was being recruited by college coaches when she decided to quit playing tennis. After losing a tournament match - the first one ever that her dad wasn't there to watch - she said, “I realized that I was partly playing for him. She has mad skills,” he said proudly of Patti, who just finished her junior year of high school and turns 17 next week.īut as the college recruiting process intensified, Patti found that she had lost her passion for the sport. “I was a dad trying to encourage her to be the best she could be. With his daughter, he admits that he often pushed her to train, often asking “How are you going to improve?” Patti Cohn in a tournament match.
#MY TEENAGE SON WANTS TO QUIT ALL SPORTS PROFESSIONAL#
In his business, Cohn advises professional and amateur athletes on using mental toughness to elevate athletic performance.
