086: Playing to Win: How does playing sports impact children?

Individual sports or competitive?  Recreational or organized?  Everyone gets a trophy or just the winners?   And why do sports in the first place?  Granted there are some physical benefits, but don’t we also hope that our children will learn some kind of lessons about persistence and team work that will stand them in good stead in the future?   In this interview with Dr. Hilary Levy Friedman we discuss her book Playing to Win: Raising Children in a Competitive Culture, the advantages that sports can confer on children (which might not be the ones you expect!), as well as what children themselves think about these issues.   Jump to highlights 02:24 Introduction to Dr. Hilary Levey Friedman, sociologist and author of Playing to Win 06:08 The immediate benefits of organized sports: teamwork, structure, and performing under pressure 07:59 Health benefits of sport, and the flip side: rising injury rates from early specialization 14:07 The long odds of going pro or landing a full athletic scholarship 16:09 What parents say they want from youth sports versus what's really driving it 17:18 Introducing "Competitive Kid Capital" and why upper-middle-class parents value it 19:09 How playing sports in college shapes hiring outcomes later, even outside sports careers 24:11 The self-esteem movement in schools versus the rise of competitive extracurriculars 27:09 Balancing competitiveness with teaching kids to be good teammates 35:30 What kids actually say matters to them: friendship over winning 37:32 Comparing today's organized sports to historical child labor, and the coping mechanisms kids develop either way 38:52 How narrowly defining "success" as elite college admission limits who can ever achieve it 39:50 Dr. Friedman on her own lack of athletic background growing up 40:38 A look at Dr. Friedman's own kids: soccer that flopped, and letting interest lead   References LaBella, C.R., & Myer, G.D. (2017). Youth sports injury prevention: Keep calm and play on. British Journal of Sports Medicine 51(3), 145-146. Myer, G.D., Jayanthi, N., DiFiori, J.P., Faigenbaum, A.D., & Kiefer, A.W., Logerstedt, D., & Micheli, L.J. (2015). Sports specialization, Part II: Alternative solutions to early sport specialization in youth athletes. Sports Health: A Multidisciplinary Approach 8(1), 65-73.