"Dont Burn Him Out"?? Too Much sports?

[syidewayz]

I hear it and see on many threads, Coaches always say it.
Even In my Post, he hits at least 40 balls a bay hes 5 yrs old , they say dont burn him out


at 4 yr old he played T-Ball and flag football back to back days, I was told dont burn him out.

@ 5 he was playing on 2 teams, I was again told dont burn him out...

So if my kid wants to play baseball at home , then go play on his team, play flag foot ball the next

go to the batting cages once a week do I tell him NO???
Go play video games, which he doesn't once in a while.


And what exactly are the symptoms of this burn out? Will he hate sports forever when he's older? No ones forcing him to play.

[HeinekenMan]

I'll give you an example. My son loves baseball. He'd like to play baseball every day. He signed up for an academy and got on a travel team. Suddenly, he was doing leg lifts and holding his feet six inches off the ground for two minutes, running sprints, going to indoor practice two days a week and fielding practice two days a week. One week, we had practices Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Then we played four tournaments in two days in 95-degree heat.

Did he want to be on that team? Yes. Was he excited about practice? Yes. Was he excited about the tournament? Yes. But how do you think he felt Sunday night? I can tell you this. He didn't feel like playing baseball on Monday. I sensed this. So I had him skip practice on Monday and Tuesday.

Now, that's burn out in just one week. Imagine a kid out there week after week after week after week. Sure, he loves the game. But there's a limit to everything. There is having fun and trying to stave off dehydration to finish a baseball game. There is playing wiffle ball in the yard and there is running laps at the ballfield.

If burn out was not a real occurrence, none of these people would be talking about it. If you're like me, you discount what other people say only to find out the hard way that they were correct. On this one, though, I'm listening to the people who have been there and who have seen kids go from baseball star to disinterested. It happens.

[syidewayz]

On this one, though, I'm listening to the people who have been there and who have seen kids go from baseball star to disinterested. It happens.

Your Right it does happen! As it happened To me. But it wasn't from burn out.

I fell in love with baseball at the age of 6, everything was baseball for 8 years until i was 14.

Was an all star most years, we were even champs and made the local paper. etc.etc

There was never a chance in hell I would get burned out I did the normal spring league once a year, no other sports, practice once or 2x a week, 2 games a week.

Didn't play at all off season no extra practice at the park, Dad just didn't have the time.

After age 14 high school Happend, Girls,Booz , Pot, Cars happened.

Bamn, no longer interested in Baseball, From age 14 until about 22 baseball was forgotten, the 1st love of my life gone. Now im 31 wishing I never stopped playing and can barley get enough guys to get a softball team, lol


But what if baseball was taken more serious by my parents like I do with my kids ,
if they want to sign up sure lets do it, 2 teams? sure why not
I never say no to catch or batting practice no matter what im doing, Baseball is like a religion in my house,

We all watch our SF giants games as a family and play wiffle ball as a family mom sisters too almost nightly!

Maybe too much baseball might have helped me stay straight in school and make the grades to make the team.

Hopefully to my kids life without baseball is Just insane and whatever they have to do to make the team (Stay in school ,make the grades) they will do!

Maybe A little Burn out it ok!

[jdfromfla]

Maybe too much baseball might have helped me stay straight in school and make the grades to make the team.

In this day and age it is very difficult not to allow ANY outside activity in front of the slow decline and tailspin into video games and being a house blob. What happens though is that what looks like a grand thing in your description, turns into a single-minded grind. Where fun and goodtimes become judgements on worth and where all else is excluded..it corrupts the beautiful thing you have right now. All of those commitments have to be followed through on..or the kid loses standing...so on those days that HeinakenMan mentioned, where the kid is just flat tired and wants to go outside and play army or something...he's is forced by those commitments to get out there...not an issue once in a while, but at 6...just how many times in the next 6 before he's 12 before the sport becomes the advesary? This is what happens, balance IS the key...encourage his love, feed it...but always leave him wanting more, steer him to a variety of activities that augment and assist his skill aquisition for baseball and you'll never face the burnout issue.
I play catch to this very day with my sons who are 32 and 22 so don't ever expect burnout from that...kids love to have a catch with the old man :-)

[Jake Patterson]

This topic is discussed often. At our clinics we had several child psychologists talk about this and there always seemed to be a few common threads.

1. Too much of anything can have a negative effect on a child's development.

2. Playing can be a helpful developmental tool in child development.

3. Too much of the organized, well supervised environment of league ball can be detrimental - Playing for a child is good, but oftentimes playing is not playing.

4. Parents are in charge of their child and they have to find a healthy balance for their child... Sometimes taking a few minutes, doing something different, exposing your child to things other than sports (like playing a piano, go fishing, etc.) can provide great developmental opportunities.

5. Back to balance... Too often coaches and people who make a living off the backs of parent who drink the kool ade, convince parent their child needs to play 24/7 in order to excel... If there is one thing in youth baseball that I feel needs to change it's this... Let kids be kids.

[Standballdad]

Its great that your son wants to live and breath baseball. My son is the same way. If it was not for his mom he would do nothing but baseball. Thank god he has other interest as well. As I was nurturing his baseball skills, mom was pushing music and scouts. She had the wisdom to understand that kids need more than one outlet to pass their time. He is now entering HS and will play in the school marching band as well as the Jazz band. He is also in the planning stages of getting his Eagle scout this year. All his other time is dedicated to Baseball. We hit almost every night in the cage and he is currently playing on a TB team. HS baseball will start when school starts. If he only did baseball, what will he do when starts to struggle against the competition (everyone does at some point in their career). I suspect this is where a lot of the kids get burnout and start to stray into other things like girls, drugs, video games etc... They need other things to focus some of their time on. It cannot be baseball 24/7 IMHO.

[CircleChange11]

No kid at 5 wants to hit buckets of balls or do non-stop reps of fielding grounders.

You really need to alter this line.

I'll do it for you ....

"No kid at 5 wants to PICK UP buckets of balls after they hit them or do non-step reps of fielding grounders."

But, hit em or field em ... heck there's plenty that could do that all day. I know kids that would jump at the chance to come to the diamonds with us. Heck, they'd be happy doing *something* with *somebody*.

I don't know many kids that don't enthusiastically enjoy doing something they are good at (or even outside with other kids).

I don't like blanket statements like this because I feel they are inaccurate and used in a way to paint something as good (highly ambititious and enthusiastic) as being bad. I don't understand how ANY kid can like piano lesson or Vacation Bible School, but some do.

I do concede that there are kids that will do anything to spend time with dad. I just wish there were more dads that would do anything to spend time with their kids.

I don't know how many kids at 5 really enjoy hitting at 5 or are being forced to. My experience is that any time you "make a kid" do something, you should expect that they'll do it with such poor effort or enthusiasm that it's almost an insult to the activity. In short, you'll quickly wished you wouldn't have forced them to do it. For us, this occurs when we try and 'force them' to try something new.

I think there are plenty of dads that really aren't interested in playing baseball with their kids on a daily basis ... or really doing much of anything with their kids on a daily basis. Letting their kids "do what they want" and "just have fun being a kid" frees up a lot of time for dad to do what dad really likes to do. I'll be even more honest, it's not always fun to throw 200 balls of BP or hit 2 buckets worth of grounders, and there's plenty of days where catching 50 pitches isn't all that fun either. There are days when we'd like to be doing something else ... especially those days where you can feel your eyebrows melting. But, our kid really enjoys it, it helps them improve, etc. There's also times where dad would have mor fun playing son on PS# than reviewing for the Science test, but dad and son know what's what.

When I look at how "screen time" (as researchers are calling it, TV, PV, Video games) is rapidly increasing among adults and kids (and obesity) and I see that "being a kid" is no longer running around outside all day but rather staying inside and watching what adults watch on tv, while eating the junk the adults eat ... I'm not sure "just being a kid" is healthy anymore. If there's anything in this country that's truly tragic or heart-breaking I think that's it. When I look at myself and realize that I can go 3 days - or more - without watching TV (even missing Storage Wars!), I realize just how weird that is in our society. I look at the dads and sons that exercise daily together (practice sports, etc) and you'll quickly notice that those boys pretty much excel at everything they do, both in the classroom and out and that it's not a coincidence.

Anyway, rambling aside, I submit that there are kids that want to do these things daily and genuinely enjoy them ... even (perhaps especially at 5). There's not much at age 5 that isn't really fun (except for cleaning your room and things of that nature). I think with us, we had a unique situation of son really enjoying and excelling at an activity that dad highly valued. A perfect storm, so to speak. Had he been awesome at soccer (something I have minimal interest in), I would have learned to like soccer and we'd have been the dad-son idiot that we at soccer fields every day IN FULL UNIFORM no less. *grin*

[songtitle]

It's hard to tell the difference between burnout and puberty.

Burnout: when parents want it more than they do.

child psychologists

IMO, most of these people are idiots, or radicals, or trying to sell a book/speaking. My wife and I have listened to one with a radio show, and he doesn't even have kids. He's a complete imbecile.

I trust actual parents with more than one kid. (The first kid is usually an experiment in child psychology )

[CircleChange11]

Is burning out REALLY a problem?

When we compare the number of people that are burnt out on sports (or anything) to the people that are apathetic to doing anything, is being burnt out in sports really a problem?

Our society has a problem, being burnt out on anything from being too active or driven isn't anywhere close to being the problem.

How come no one ever gets burnt out on TV watching, playing video games, or facebook? Yet, they do those activities far more hours than anything else? And why doesn't anyone get burnt out on junk food?

I'd like to see more threads discussing how to get kids off the coach or how to get more dads involved into their kids' lives.

As strange as it sounds, it would be wonderful to sit here and have a real discussion about burnout as if it were a real problem facing our young people.

[syidewayz]

How come no one ever gets burnt out on TV watching, playing video games, or facebook? Yet, they do those activities far more hours than anything else? And why doesn't anyone get burnt out on junk food?

Haha so true

[tonyro]

Is burning out REALLY a problem?

When we compare the number of people that are burnt out on sports (or anything) to the people that are apathetic to doing anything, is being burnt out in sports really a problem?

Our society has a problem, being burnt out on anything from being too active or driven isn't anywhere close to being the problem.

How come no one ever gets burnt out on TV watching, playing video games, or facebook? Yet, they do those activities far more hours than anything else? And why doesn't anyone get burnt out on junk food?

I'd like to see more threads discussing how to get kids off the coach or how to get more dads involved into their kids' lives.

As strange as it sounds, it would be wonderful to sit here and have a real discussion about burnout as if it were a real problem facing our young people.

Ding ding ding!
Post of the year.

[Standballdad]

I'd like to see more threads discussing how to get kids off the coach or how to get more dads involved into their kids' lives.

It is the parents job to keep the kids off the couch by keeping them involved with different types of activities. Getting more dads involved with their kids lives must come from within the dad himself.

[jdfromfla]

How come no one ever gets burnt out on TV watching, playing video games, or facebook? Yet, they do those activities far more hours than anything else? And why doesn't anyone get burnt out on junk food?

If forced to do it, excluding all else, you will see burnout, the kids paradigm is that these activities which you mention are "free time"..so they get enamoured..addicted and then it's just a shame (We don't make kids "get up and get out there and get that controller busy"..we "let them" a whole world of difference). The same applies to junk food...we as a society put such "good" connotations to it that they think what they are doing is right..and fun and the way things ought to be.


You can sit there and act as if burnout doesn't happen, it does, now is it a "problem"..well that would be a perspective issue wouldn't it? Some might say that the kid diverged in his likes/dislikes or some other external factor. What I see regularly is parents who have "invested" totally in the kids experience until THAT becomes the driving force in the scenario and at that point...call it burnout, call it rebellion but it would be an "indicator" that the relationship is skewed and the kid is attempting to move on.
It just crushes the parents who remember the times that HeinekenMan pointed out. We've (With a will) subjected many kids to an MBA reality which believes that if we train them with the commitment of an adult that we will get better results..this reduces their humanity and ultimately a certain percentage of that will be repulsed and want to "get away" from that feeling. Kids do want to have fun, my advice universally is what I stated about balance in activity

[JJA]

Is burning out REALLY a problem?

When we compare the number of people that are burnt out on sports (or anything) to the people that are apathetic to doing anything, is being burnt out in sports really a problem?

Our society has a problem, being burnt out on anything from being too active or driven isn't anywhere close to being the problem.

How come no one ever gets burnt out on TV watching, playing video games, or facebook? Yet, they do those activities far more hours than anything else? And why doesn't anyone get burnt out on junk food?

I'd like to see more threads discussing how to get kids off the coach or how to get more dads involved into their kids' lives.

As strange as it sounds, it would be wonderful to sit here and have a real discussion about burnout as if it were a real problem facing our young people.

Burnout doesn't occur from playing too many sports, it's because mom and/or dad make the kid play too much organized sports. I've heard countless dads/moms tell me that little Joey/Susie wants to play baseball or soccer or golf or whatever to the exclusion of everything else. It's usually the parents that are the driver, not the kid. I have often seen little Joey off skateboarding, biking, or doing other non-baseball playing sports when the dad just told me that all Joe wants to do is play baseball.

I'll also opine that this becomes more apparent later. Out of our 14 member LL all-star team, only 6 played on the high school team, including some of our most talented players. Some were absolutely burned out from specializing in baseball too soon, my opinion. Burnout is absolutely an issue in our area.

[raptor]

Out of our 14 member LL all-star team, only 6 played on the high school team.

That's a great LLAS team..Imo...certainly defies the odds when nearly half the team from preteen goes onto play HS. This board often takes the position that few kids playing well at 12 will make their high school teams...and that early success is no determinor of future success.