Is Your Child Focusing Too Much on Sports?

Every father seems to enjoy when their child does well at sports. Quite a few mothers are jumping on this bandwagon, too. It is exciting for them, and it gives them a chance to relive their own sports days as they watch their kid excel in athletics. Hopefully, it doesn’t develop quite so far, though, as Bruce Springsteen sings in Glory Days.

There are kids that focus on sports so much that they can recite their favorite player and team statistics to an amazing degree. It is a bit like the movie Rain Man when Dustin Hoffman’s character has a fascination with numbers. They are passionate about it, so they remember it unbelievably well. Now if only they would display this sort of amazing comprehension ability for their school subjects.

This is when it can get complicated. You might have to ask yourself if your child is focusing too much on sports at some point during their school career. Sometimes it can be a fine line between excelling at sports and obsessing about sports. There are some key signs to look for when determining if your child is losing their focus on school and could use a bit of an intervention.

Are Their Grades Suffering?

One of the main concerns when figuring out if your child needs a talk about how much time they are spending on sports all centers around their grades. Have their grades been steadily falling off? If their scores are suffering, then you have an unpleasant conversation ahead of you. If their grades are maintaining what they have always done, then to use a sports term, no harm, no foul.

Spending Too Much Time Away from the Family

Another concern you might have with your child spending so much time on sports is that it takes away from the family. With your kid traveling from sporting event to sporting event with their team, it shortens the time with the family. However, if you are able to, you can travel with your child as well. It could actually strengthen the family bond if everyone can make these events. It just would require a change in your schedule.

Too Competitive

As an educator, I have seen my fair share of students that were too competitive in everything that they did, including sports. It can drive a wedge between them and the other students if they are not careful. They can often carry competitiveness too far, and in the process, become sore losers. If your child is too aggressive and combative, it might be time to cut back on sports a bit. Especially if they have acquired the sore loser complex.

If you are concerned that your child is concentrating too much on sports, it could be a good idea to introduce another hobby into their lives. Perhaps you would like them to become a better reader and can work out a compromise where for every hour they play sports, they must read a book for an hour. If your child does not enjoy reading as much as you would like, iAchieve might be of assistance. We offer reading programs where we can strengthen their literacy skills. Loving sports is a natural thing for a child or adult, but when it gets carried a bit too far, it can affect the rest of the paths in their life.

Written by Ryan Crawley

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