The Pica Perspective

Children Failing at Physical Activity

Did you know that traditional competitive sports don't provide children with the opportunities necessary to acquire, practice, and refine their motor skills -- or even the skills required by the sports themselves?

Consider the following results of a variety of studies, reported by Steve Grineski in his book, Cooperative Learning in Physical Education:

• 75% of ball contacts were made by 40% of the players during a 3rd-grade soccer game.
• 35% of players never caught the ball, while 52% of players never threw the ball during a 5th-grade kickball game.
• Three students never touched the ball or ran the length of the gym floor during a 5th-grade kickball game.
• Twenty 3rd-grade children participating in a one-hour softball game had a total of 39 throwing and catching opportunities. The average number of throwing and catching opportunities for each child for the one-hour game was 2.3.
• Children participating in an hour-long hockey game had possession of the puck less than two minutes each.

In other words, the children involved in these situations had very few opportunities to improve their throwing, catching, kicking, dribbling, or stick-handling skills. And these were elementary-school children! Younger children forced to play adult games without adult skills find they don't even know what they're expected to do when finally given an opportunity to perform.

But you don't need the results of studies to know this is true. If you've ever been to any organized contests involving young children, you've probably witnessed it yourself. There's the right fielder who grows so bored waiting for a ball to come her way that, by the time one finally does arrive, she's busy finding creatures in the clouds. Or the "wide receiver" who hasn't seen the football in so long he's forgotten what his job is and periodically just trots down the field and then back to the huddle. How, exactly, are these children supposed to be improving their skills?

In short, if traditional competitive sports programs don't provide children with the opportunities necessary to acquire, practice, and refine their motor skills, how likely is it that improved motor development will take place? And doesn't this also say something about the ability of organized sports programs to improve physical fitness? If organized sports turn out to be nearly as sedentary as sitting on the couch, fitness certainly can't be the expected result!

But perhaps the more important questions are: If a child experiences more failure than success in organized sports, what happens to the love of movement she started life with? How likely is she to make physical activity an integral part of her later life?

The theory of flow, put forth by University of Chicago psychologist Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi, contends that people are happiest when the challenges they face are equal to the skills they possess. So what happens when the challenges presented to children are beyond their ability to succeed? Anxiety is one probable result. Another is the development of learned helplessness: the expectation, based on past experience, that one's every effort will lead to failure.

Motivation theorists have discovered that when failure is attributed to lack of ability and ability is considered beyond one's control, the cycle leads to embarrassment, withdrawal, and a decline in performance. And it makes perfect sense. What would your reaction have been if, as a child who hadn't yet "broken the code" of putting letters together to form words, someone insisted you read Shakespeare? What if, before you even knew how to add and subtract, your parents had urged you to try solving algebra problems? Chances are, you would have blamed yourself for your inabilities, concluded you would never master such tasks, and simply given up.

When we put children into situations for which they're not ready, we set them up for failure. And failure, of course, feels bad, which is the last thing we want for our kids. More significant, numerous studies have shown that negative early experiences with sports are a major factor in why kids quit participating in physical activity altogether. And then what happens to fitness and health? Hint: we end up breeding more couch potatoes.

Do Sports Build Character?

According to a recent report, Susan Connor, manager of the injury prevention program at Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital in Cleveland, and her team studied the responses of more than 13,000 U.S. high school students who took part in the 2007 Youth Risk Behavioral Study, an assessment of adolescent high-risk behaviors conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For boys, the study found that participation in team sports correlated with an increased likelihood of fighting, drinking and binge drinking. Rates of depression and smoking, however, seemed to decline. The piece below was first posted in October of 2007. But, with the release of this new information, I thought I'd run it again.

It's a given that parents only want the best for their children. And that's one of the reasons they enroll them in organized sports -- often at a very early age; they believe that sports participation builds "character."

People can go on and on, expounding on the many values children supposedly learn by taking part in competitive sports. It's been the conventional wisdom for longer than I've been alive. But the truth is, there's little research to support the theory. There is, however, evidence to the contrary.

Consider this: a 1995 poll of 198 Olympic or aspiring Olympic athletes, reported in Sports Illustrated, showed to what lengths individuals will go to win. Asked if they would take a banned, performance-enhancing substance that would both go undetected and enable them to win, 195 said they would; only three said no. And when asked if they would take such a substance if they wouldn't get caught, they would win every competition entered for five years, and then die from the substance's side effects, more than half of the athletes said yes!

But, you may be thinking, those were athletes whose lives had revolved around winning for many years; they're probably an exception to the rule.

Maybe, but the attitude had to begin sometime and grow from there, as this story indicates: a survey of 965 students at four middle schools in Massachusetts found that almost 3% of the children were using anabolic steroids to enhance their appearance and performance. From where do children as young as 10 learn such skewed priorities?

Other research shows that long-term participation in sports results in the display of less sportsmanship and more aggressive behavior -- and that even if athletes learn some prosocial behaviors on the field, they rarely transfer them to other areas of their lives. Studies have also demonstrated that competitive children are both less generous and less empathetic than others.

Most recently, the Josephson Institute of Ethics released a report on the impact of high school sports on the values and ethics of student athletes. Here's part of what it found:

• Boys who play baseball, football, and basketball are more likely to cheat on the field and in school.
• Nearly half of the baseball and football players saw nothing wrong with using a playbook stolen from a rival team.
• A high percentage of both male and female athletes thought it was okay for a coach to tell a player to fake an injury.
• About half of all baseball players thought it was okay for a coach to tell a pitcher to throw at the opposing batter.

Still, people continue to believe that sports participation builds character. But is that the kind of "character" we want our children to grow up with?

Toddling Triathletes

Do I lead an overly sheltered life? Am I impossibly naive? Or am I just easily surprised?

Seriously, it seems that every time I think I've seen everything where today's parenting is concerned, along comes another stunner. Another piece of information that drops my jaw. Today I read about triathlons for children ages...get ready for it: 3 to 15.

Yup. As young as 3. But don't worry; children 6 and under are only asked to swim 25 yards, then bike one mile, then run a quarter of a mile. Okey-dokey.

What more can I say about hurrying children than I've already said, in a variety of ways? Sometimes I'm tempted to throw my hands into the air and yell "uncle!"

If you're curious to know more about this cultural phenomenon, click here to read the article in yesterday's New York Times.

May Is the Month to Get Moving!

This May is the 26th anniversary of National Physical Fitness and Sports Month, with May 1-7 designated as National Physical Education and Sport Week. These events are sponsored by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE).

The preeminent national authority on physical education and a recognized leader in sport and physical activity, NASPE is a non-profit professional membership association that sets the standard for practice in physical education and sport. NASPE’s 16,000 members include: K-12 physical education teachers, coaches, athletic directors, athletic trainers, sport management professionals, researchers, and college/university faculty who prepare physical activity professionals. NASPE seeks to enhance knowledge, improve professional practice, and increase support for high-quality physical education, sport and physical activity programs through research, development of standards, and dissemination of information. It is the largest of the five national associations that make up the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation & Dance (AAHPERD).

NASPE recommends that schools and families incorporate at least 60 minutes of moderate physical activity into each child’s daily routine. The challenge isn’t finding enough time in the day for a child to exercise, rather, it is helping each child identify a sport or activity that he or she enjoys as much as watching television or playing computer games.

“For many young kids (those under the age of eight), the problem isn’t inactivity, it is trying to slow them down. However, children between the ages of eight and 10 seem to choose one of two routes: the athletic way or the non-athletic way. Those who choose the athletic route play on teams, participate in dance clubs or martial arts, for example."

“As youngsters enter middle school, however, organized physical activities become limited. Thus the challenge for parents is to assist their children in finding physical activities that they enjoy doing with their friends, and that does not require a coach or instructor. Kids need to discover what else is out there for them: riding a bike, in-line skating, dancing, golf, tennis, martial arts or maybe going to the gym. It is important to allow them to explore these different opportunities and determine what activities they truly enjoy.”   

NASPE also suggests that parents limit the amount of time their children spend in front of the television or computer to less than two hours a day, and that they see their parents having fun participating in physical activities of their own choosing. Children learn by example. If you enjoy and participate in physical activity, so will your children.

Each day during kickoff week has a different theme: Adventure Day, Dance Day, Sport Day, Recreation Day, and Personal Fitness Day. For activity ideas, click here!

Is Your Child Socially & Emotionally Ready for Sports?

Today's post rounds out our exploration of children's developmental readiness for sports.

As I mentioned in my last post, children dont understand the process of competition until at least 4th grade. Similarly, the "team" concept doesn't begin to develop until children are between the ages of nine and 13. That's partly because preschoolers are egocentric -- which isn't a condemnation; it's just a stage of development. During the early years, children see the world as revolving around them.

Where sports are concerned, this egocentricity has two major implications. First, if children are going to be required to be part of a team, they're going to have to learn to cooperate with others. But putting them in game situations that oblige them to interact in ways they don't understand is not going to teach them cooperative skills. After all, they're being asked to pass the soccer ball to teammates, to throw the baseball to the first baseman, and to hand off the football to the running back. They don't want to relinquish these precious objects, and they have no idea why they're being asked to do so.

Second, the fact of self-centeredness means she takes everything personally, including words that are meant as constructive criticism. Young children don't separate what they do from who they are. So if a coach or parent is telling them they've executed a skill incorrectly, they may take it to mean they personally have done something wrong. A child under the age of eight will feel as though she's being criticized as a person, so you'll have to be careful to offer kindness along with the critiques.

Remember, too, that anything that confuses a child is also likely to scare him. Imagine, for example, how terrifying it would be if, with no training in the electronics profession, you were suddenly thrust into the role of computer repair person. (Having had my own computer crash earlier this week I have some recent experience with how frightening this whole arena can be!) Someone deposits an implement into your hands, and your technical team is rapidly relaying instructions to you, most of which consist of terms you've never heard before. Moreover, there are people on the perimenter of the room shouting additional instructions and encouragement, letting you know how much they're counting on you. At this point, it would be pretty strange if you weren't in a cold sweat. But as an adult, you would have the capacity to put a stop to it -- at the very least, to explain why you shouldn't be expected to do this. A child doesn't have that capacity.

Finally, if there's one common principle advocated by child develop speciasts and early childhood educators, it's that for young children, the importance of process far surpasses that of product. In art, that means the act of mixing and applying the colors teaches kids more than the "picture" that results. In early mathematics, stacking and restacking the blocks teaches vital lessons, whether or not a tower is created. In early science, planting seeds and watering them matters more than whose flower grows the biggest.

In sports -- or any physical activity, for that matter -- the process is in the playing. Children don't care about winning, nor about how well they're playing -- unless the important adults in their lives make it clear that they care about those things. What's important to children is that they have fun! They enjoy -- and learn from -- the doing and the social interaction involved in playing with others. For children, stopping in the middle of the field to chat with a friend counts more than scoring. There's more to be gained from the discovery of a garter snake -- and in sharing that discovery with teammates -- than there is from idly waiting for a ball to come your way. Counting the number of cars in a passing train teaches more -- and is much more immediate (children live fully in the present moment) -- than keeping score.

Unfortunately, there's no screening process to determine the readiness of young children for sports participation. Rather, programs are typically arranged by chronological age, a notoriously inefficient method of grouping children, as children develop at different times and different rates. Moreover, the physical, social/emotional, and cognitive domains rarely develop at the same pace. Therefore, a child who has the body size and possesses the physical skills to play may well lack the social skills to cooperate with teammates or the emotional skills to handle loss. Similarly, a child who demonstrates advanced social and emotional maturity may be physically uncoordinated, or lack the strength, body size, or practice and experience necessary to successfully execute the physical skills required.

When looking at your child with sports in mind, take into consideration his physical, emotional, and cognitive maturity; and ask:

• Is she coordinated?
• Is he as big as the other kids his age?
• Does she cooperate with others?
• Can he pay attention for minutes at a time?
• How well does she understand and follow directions?
• Has he expressed an interest in playing?
• And, once playing, does your child continue to have fun?

Is Your Child Cognitively Ready for Sports?

In March, I wrote a post called "Is Your Child Physically Ready for Sports?" When we consider anything physical for children, physical development and its related issues typically come to mind. But whether we're talking about sports or schooling, "readiness" will always involve all three domains of a child's development.

For example, an adult spectator at his child's T-ball game may find it enormously frustrating when an outfielder is picking dandelions when the ball finally comes his way; when the children on the bench discover a grasshopper in their midst; or when a multi-car train passing along nearby tracks, or a helicopter flying overhead, causes a major distraction in the middle of the game. But for kids such diversions are part of the magic of childhood. Young children have short attention spans because they're wired, at this age, to dabble -- to have a wide variety of experiences. Children need to taste and touch and see and feel and hear all that interests them so they can discover which of these experiences appeal to them most.

Certainly as significant as physical development, then, is the issue of a child's cognitive development, beginning with her ability to pay attention. Children under the age of eight don't behave like "space cadets" because they're being unreasonable; their spaciness derives from the fact that their cognitive processes still have a long way to go, and it's perfectly normal for them to have an attention span that can be measured in moments. What's unreasonable is expecting them to remain interested and attuned over the course of time it takes to get to a game, listen to detailed instructions (which their developmental stage doesn't allow them to completely understand), and play the game to its completion.

Still, it's not just the child's attention span (or lack thereof) that affects sports performance; a great many aspects of cognitive development come into play. For one, the ability to understand rules and strategies is simply beyond them; they don't have the capacity to comprehend the idea of tactics until they're about 10. That's why you can explain positions and passing until you're blue in the face and still get "beehive" or "clump" soccer. Or why your shouted instructions from the sidelines disappear in the wind -- or, worse, cause your child to stop and wave at you from the playing field. Research shows that children don't even understand the competitive process until their middle to late elementary-school years.

Chances are also good they won't understand all the words rattled off anyway -- because their language capacity is still limited. Not only do they know the meaning of fewer words, but young children are also quite literal in their interpretations. Darrell Burnett, author of It's Just a Game! describes two perfect examples of this: the child whose coach told him to "cover second base" and therefore threw his body over the bag, and the seven-year-old whose father told him to "mark his man" during the soccer game and therefore picked up some dirt and rubbed it on an opponent's shoulder! These humorous incidents are not rare exceptions, and they're certainly not intended to aggravate the adults for whom success in sports has become so critical. Rather, they're examples of kids being kids and why it's critical that we not have adult expectations of them.

When Kids Cooperate - Part I

With spring here, bringing with it a new sports season, I thought it was time to revisit one of my favorite topics: cooperation.

Used here, the term cooperation is not intended to refer to good behavior or compliance. Rather, it means the positive collaboration that takes place between and among children -- as seen, for example, when children devise their own games, alternate turning the jump rope for one another, and play cooperative musical chairs (described in next week's post).

Unlike competition, which research shows can foster antisocial behaviors, cooperation has been determined to promote prosocial behaviors. Steve Grineski, author of Cooperative Learning in Physical Education, says the social skills needed for cooperative learning include:

• Listening to others
• Resolving conflict
• Supporting and encouraging others
• Taking turns
• Expressing enjoyment in the success of others
• Demonstrating the ability to criticize ideas, not individuals

In No Contest: The Case Against Competition, Alfie Kohn identifies a great deal of research demonstrating cooperation's positive effects on both social and emotional development. Kohn says cooperation:

• Is more conducive to psychological health
• Leads to friendlier feelings among participants
• Promotes a feeling of being in control of one's life
• Increases self-esteem
• Results in greater sensitivity and trust toward others
• Enhances feelings of belonging
• Increases motivation

When children are given the chance to work together toward a solution or common goal -- whether creating a game or building a human pyramid -- they know they each contribute to the success of the venture. Each child realizes he or she plays a vital role in the outcome, and each accepts the responsibility of fulfilling that role. They also learn to become tolerant of others' ideas and to accept the similarities and differences of other children. Furthermore, cooperative activities seldom cause the feelings of inferiority that can result from the comparisons made during competition. On the contrary, because cooperative and noncompetitive activities lead to a greater chance for success, they generate greater confidence in children.

Although competition is commonly believed to be human nature, Scott Scheer, an associate professor in the Department of Human and Community Resource Development at The Ohio State University, contends we humans actually have a "cooperative imperative" -- a desire to work with others toward mutual goals that can run the spectrum from conceiving a child to sending a rocket to the moon. He may be right. Using MRI technology to determine the effects of both competition and cooperation, scientists at Emory Univeristy found that when people collaborate, the brain sends out pleasure responses!

To be continued...

Infant Swim Programs

Where do you stand on infant swim programs? There's no doubt that they're highly popular (about five to ten million infants and preschoolers participate in formal instruction). But the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has issued warnings about them.

Drowning is the leading cause of unintentional injury and death in young children, with rates highest among American children ages one to two. Still, the AAP feels strongly enough about the issue of infant swim programs that is has released two policy statements on the subject, the fist in 1985 and an update in 2000.

According to the association, children are not developmentally ready for swimming lessons until they're four years old. Although they maybe able to perform elementary swimming motions at about 12 months, these motions are more along the lines of a dog paddle than a traditional swimming stroke, or front crawl. And, as with other skills learned before children are developmentally ready, aquatic skills take longer to learn and are limited by the children's neuromuscular capacity. Furthermore, starting early doesn't translate into "a higher level of swimming proficiency compared with those taking lessons at a later age."

In other words, the situation is the same as it is with hurrying other motor skills. Earlier isn't better, and it's certainly not going to help create a future Olympic swimmer. Also, the training itself may have a long-term effect on the child's sense of autonomy (self-sufficiency), as motivation is an essential ingredient in the learning of any skill -- and motivation is not yet in the infant's emotional repertoire.

But there's much more to consider here. Even when the program's intention is to focus on water safety knowledge rather than actual swimming skills (as is the intention of the aquatic programs of the YMCA and the Red Cross), caution is the key. Warns the AAP, "When instruction attempts to optimize learning by reducing fear of water, children may unwittingly be encouraged to enter the water without supervision."

Says David Elkind, in Miseducation, if parents enroll their babies in swim programs specifically to prevent drowning, they may unintentionally be shifting the responsibility for not drowning to the children themselves!

Furthermore, a child without the necessary cognitive skills may be unable to transfer his knowledge from one context to another. I well remember a story told by Kelly Ripa on "Live with Regis and Kelly" that illustrates this point. Kelly was telling Regis and their audience about her family's trip to Hawaii during which her preschool son was standing in a koi pond feeding the fish. He suddenly slipped and fell facedown into the pond. But, since he'd been enrolled in swimming programs -- several days a week for years -- and possessed many certificates proclaiming he could swim, she and her husband merely waited for their son's swimming skills to kick in. But they never did! He remained facedown and then began to sink. It appears the child knew what was expected of him in one situation (the swimming lessons) but not in an entirely new situation. (Being unable to transfer knowledge from one situation to another is to be expected, given the cognitive level of a preschooler.)

As Dr. Elkind points out, there may be other hazards as well. Infants in swimming classes are at risk for "middle-ear infections and potential permanent hearing loss, for autoasphyxiation from swallowing water, and for diarrhea, since the babies are not toilet-trained and the water may be polluted."

This is a highly controversial subject. Enthusiasts of infant swim classes defend them vehemently, claiming that their children have only benefited from them. What have been your experiences? What are your thoughts?

It's a Brave (or shall I say "crazy") New World

Every time I think I've heard or seen it all, along comes another news story that has me shaking my head and wondering what the world has come to. The latest? Genetic testing to determine a child's athletic strengths. To determine which sports best match a child's "talents."

Honestly, this is one of those stories that has caused more than head-shaking; I'm hoping against hope that it can't be true. Alas, as reported in the New York Times, a company in Boulder, Colorado, "is playing into the obsessions of parents by offering a $149 test that aims to predict a child’s natural athletic strengths. The process is simple. Swab inside the child’s cheek and along the gums to collect DNA and return it to a lab for analysis of ACTN3, one gene among more than 20,000 in the human genome."

Parents, of course, are taking advantage of it. One parent quoted in the article -- the mother of a two-and-a-half-year-old -- thinks it's a great idea...to alleviate parental frustration.

I'm sorry, but what about a child's frustration at being pigeonholed at an early age? (This testing is being done on children birth to age 8.) What about the child's right to be a child, which involves discovering for oneself where strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, passions and indifferences lie? What about the fact that there's a lot more than genes involved in sports success and failure? After all, nearly every Sunday during football season I hear commentators discuss some player who was thought to be "too small" or too something to succeed. And there he is, making a name for himself in the NFL.

A policy statement issued by the AAP in July 200 begins: "Children involved in sports should be encouraged to participate in a variety of different activities and develop a wide range of skills. Young athletes who specialize in just one sport may be denied the benefits of varied activity while facing additional physical, physiologic, and psychological demands from intense training and competition."

One of the best and most important parts of being a kid is having the chance to dabble -- to explore and experiment. To discover skills in many areas, so one is both well rounded and blessed with a wide variety of choices in life. After all, how much sense does it make to focus on a single skill to the exclusion of all others? Not only does that make for a rather boring life (remember the expression "Variety is the spice of life?"), but it can also be disastrous should an injury or burnout occur. Besides, even if an individual were to go all the way to the pros, there are very few competitive sports one can play for an entire lifetime. A person needs to know how to do something else!

Early childhood expert David Elkind asserts that when a child specializes too early, other parts of her personality can remain underdeveloped, resulting in something either as simple as an inability to talk about any other subject or as disturbing as some really strange behavior. Other experts point out that the people who have the most trouble adjusting to disappointment in life are those who characterize themselves by only one quality.

Do I feel strongly about the subject of specialization in early childhood? You bet I do...and we haven't even delved into the potential for physical injury and mental burnout.

Childhood is a special time. It's a time to be loved unconditionally -- for everything you are and not just one skill you may possess. It's not a parent's job to raise a baseball player or a black belt in karate. It's a parent's job to raise a well-rounded individual who can make great choices in life!

If Your Child Wants to Play Sports

Based on what you've read in this blog or what you may have read or learned elsewhere, you know participation in organized sports before the age of eight is far from ideal. It doesn't provide enough physical activity. It doesn't offer skill instruction or enough opportunity for skill improvement. It's often too competitive and therefore stressful for young children. And children under the age of eight don't possess the physical, cognitive, social, or emotional skills to participate successfully in organized sports.

But he wants to play. It's an all-too-common scenario in today's culture. What's a parent to do?

Well, if you absolutely cannot talk her out of it, the most important thing you can do is make sure any experience your child has with sports is a positive one. Otherwise the possibility of a lifetime of physical activity is in real jeopardy. But just this one task entails quite a lot.

Since too often children are enrolled in sports that their parents are excited about, you'll first want to ask your child what sport he's interested in. Does he want to play a team sport, like baseball, or does he prefer an individual sport, like swimming? Choice is essential to both enjoyment and a sense of autonomy. And, regardless of the choice he makes, he'll want and need your full support -- even when he changes his mind and decides he wants to try something else.

Also, bear in mind that any time you play a child in a situation for which she's not prepared, failure is the likely result. With failure comes loss of confidence and self-esteem and, ultimately, a feeling of worthlessness. Surely this isn't what you want for your child and should be avoided at all costs.

Children join sports programs because they want to have fun. Failure isn't fun, especially when you're too young to understand why you're failing; when, no matter how hard you try, you still can't succeed. While it isn't necessary to succeed all the time, a child will have fun if at least the potential for success is present. And that potential is most apt to exist when there's a balance between the child's skill level and the challenge of the activity. If the challenge is too easy, boredom sets in . If it's too difficult, learned helplessness is often the eventual result.

So, once your child has expressed interest in a particular sport, your first job will be to look for a program that doesn't treat children as small adults or, worse, small versions of professional athletes, which is harmful on any number of levels. In other words you don't want to enroll your child in a program where he's expected to play games (or, in a sport like swimming or karate, to take part in competitions) that haven't been modified radically for young children -- where he's expected to use physical, social, emotional, and cognitive skills he hasn't yet acquired.

What do you look for instead? Look for a program where they actually teach children the skills they'll need to eventually play their chosen sport. Yes, some of the instruction can involve playing games. But these games shouldn't involve winning and losing. Nor should they be played in the traditional manner. Fields should be smaller, balls softer, equipment child-sized, and games shorter. Additionally, rules should be minimal, and there should be a small number of players per team.

Is your child having fun? Staying interested? Then it's the right choice for her. If the answer to either of these questions is no, it's time to look for something else.