The select team in question. The culprit is second from the right, middle row.
Try to imagine this happening today: a select soccer team huddles before the starting whistle, focused and intent. The 13-year-olds, all girls, take turns amping each other up. “Let’s go!” they growl. “We’ve got this!”
The whistle blows, the game begins – and within forty-five seconds, the other team scores. One player, cursed with an overdeveloped sense of the absurd, tries in vain not to find humor in the situation. But the juxtaposition between the pre-game seriousness and the immediate collapse of the defense is too much, and she begins to laugh. Her teammates scowl, her parents attempt to disappear into their folding chairs on the sidelines amid disapproving frowns, but that only makes it worse. She can’t stop.
Eventually, she collects herself and gets back in the game. Everyone forgives and mostly forgets her momentary lapse of reason.
Were this to happen today, that behavior would at minimum earn a scolding from the coach and at maximum, an invitation to leave the team. But this was 1980, and no such things happened. I know because I was that girl.
Youth sports have changed dramatically in the last forty years, and not always for the better. A significant percentage of kids drop out by age 14, with girls twice as likely to quit as boys. Between ages 14 and 18, the attrition rates are 51% and 31%, respectively.
Multiple factors contribute to this exodus, including draining the joy of team sports by pressuring children to become competitive at increasingly younger ages. Soccer coach Tony Cutillo hosts Fighting for Overtime: A Youth Sports Pod focused on issues of anxiety and depression in youth sports. Recently, he interviewed me as part of the publicity campaign for Play On: From Adversity to Advantage Through 140 Years of Women’s Soccer. “Do you feel like youth players today are overworked?” he asked.
I didn’t have a ready answer based on my experience as a coach; I haven’t been involved with youth soccer since 1995. But I did have some borrowed insights from my time as a freelance writer, interviewing everyone from insurance brokers to auto mechanics – and youth and family therapists. It was one of the latter who shared what she witnessed over decades of working with teens and children. Cary Hamilton, owner of Olympia Therapy, has noticed unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety in today’s youth.
“The biggest issue is that kids are overscheduled,” says Hamilton. “In an attempt to make sure they’re ticking all the boxes to become well-rounded, their parents are putting them in soccer and karate and ballet. We’re making them stressed out and overwhelmed.” Multiple activities leave them with no time for what was once a childhood staple: free time.
One solution to the overscheduling crisis is free play – unstructured time without adult intervention during which kids are left to their own devices (not literally; free play often does not involve technology or other external stimuli). Research has consistently found that free play builds creativity and the ability to dream up unique ideas, develops motor planning skills, fosters decision-making ability and independence, and develops social skills and collaborative play skills.
“Play calms the central nervous system and brings our bodies into regulation, particularly after a hard day at school where kids have had to sit still, be focused, do everything they’re told and transition six different times,” says Hamilton. “Instead, they come home and have to sit down, do more work or get ready for their next activity. That goes against our body’s growth and development mechanism and perpetuates anxiety and stress as well as low mood and irritability.”
Two other areas that suffer when free play goes away are imagination and intrinsic motivation. When every activity is scheduled, no time exists for the creative impulses that occur unscripted. The result is that when they’re asked to be creative, kids don’t know what to do. This decreases their self-esteem and confidence.
Obviously, soccer practice requires structure and opportunities for kids to develop skills and teamwork. But it seems like free play could be incorporated in ways that keep the joy of the game alive, especially for younger players. What does this look like? As the title of this piece implies, that is the question. Thoughts?