Young Athletes Encouraged to Chase Impossible Dreams Are More Likely to Develop Anxiety. 

Many children start youth sports at a young age either because they have an interest for it or their parents want them to get involved. This can be seen in the data provided by Project Play  Aspen Institute, which reports that 50.7% of children aged 6-17 have said they either participated or took part in some kind of sports team. With the knowledge of this, the readers can observe that sports participation is very popular, but there is no conclusion on why they continue to participate. There is always a reason or a “why” for why people continue what they are doing. For some their “why” can come from their parent’s encouragement or it can come from their enjoyment in their sport. Speaking of encouragement from family and friends, this is one important reason for a child to continue their sport, according to Stuart Biddle and Marios Goudas who published a study for an Analysis of Children’s Physical Activity and its Association with Adult Encouragement and Social Cognitive Variables. Encouragement is a powerful tool for growth, boosting confidence, and motivation. When people are encouraged they will try harder to work toward their goal. Even though encouragement is spoken in a positive way, this writing will prove that it is actually harmful. Encouraging a child in a sport can set unrealistic expectations or just pressure them to try to achieve dreams that are not feasible. So with parents over-encouraging their child, it can lead to anxiety, self-doubt, or a fear of failure, especially if success becomes the only measure of worth. In the following paragraphs, it will go into further detail about how anxiety and other mental diseases can become involved just by being encouraged.

As time goes by, teenagers decide whether or not they want to continue their sport at a collegiate level or even professionally. Parents interfere at this point by encouraging them; they encourage their child’s talents, even if they are not the best. This causes many players to have increased anxiety because of two reasons.  One reason being that they think they are not the best or cut out for the professional level. This reason leads to a type of anxiety as stated in a book called Encouraging Children to Learn. Rudolf Dreikurs and Don Sr. Dinkmeyer states that “studies indicate that one of the causes of anxiety is the fear of not belonging.” Athletes may feel they do not belong in a professional league because they do not feel as they are the best, but with their parents encouragement it causes them to continue trying to achieve this impossible dream with this anxiety. The other reason for an increase in anxiety at a players’ perspectives comes from that they are very talented players, but they do not make the final cut. Although there are many talented athletes, according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association only about 2% of student-athletes actually go on to become professional. With that being shown, the audience can see that the encouragement from parents will become pressure and anxiety because their child will continue to try to make it professional, but will likely be declined due to the small percentage that actually makes it. All in all, youth athletes that are being encouraged to reach this impossible goal of becoming a professional athlete will have an increase in their anxiety because of all the pressure they are putting on themselves and from the pressure their supporters are putting on them. 

Anxiety is just the tip of the iceberg, laying underneath is depression and self-hatred leading to self-harm. In other words, encouragement not only causes anxiety in athletes but it also causes self-destruction. According to the results section of an article called Reasons for Adolescent Suicide Attempts: Associations With Psychological Functioning, multiple authors stated that “most frequently endorsed motives for self-harm were to die, to escape, and to obtain relief.” This correlates with athletes that are encouraged because they cause self-harm to escape or obtain relief from not being able to accomplish their dream. The constant pressure for them to continue their dreams as well as to not give up is a constant reminder that they are nowhere near this impossible dream they have. Most athletes know that getting into a professional career is a hard goal, but when someone has been dreaming of it since they were a child it makes them want to continue. At this point this is where the people that encourage this athlete should step in and let them know how impossible this dream is so that their mental status does not decline to this point. This is what Hugh McCutcheon means when he mentions that a “dream can cause real emotional, physical, and mental damages” in his book called  Championship Behaviors: A Model for Competitive Excellence in Sports. Dreams that are impossible, in this case becoming a professional athlete, causes these mental, emotional, and physical damages leading to the root of their depression and self-harm tendency. If a loved one told them the reality, which is that their dream really is not attainable, then they would not suffer from these damages. 

In conclusion, encouraging children to keep pursuing their dream, even if they do not got that much of a chance, results in increased anxiety and even depression leading to self-harm. Even if a parent thinks they are doing the right thing of encouraging their child to follow their dream, they are not. Instead, they are just causing their child to have bad mental health. People deal with small amounts of anxiety everyday, but to have this continual pressure causing immense amounts of anxiety, eventually leading to depression is not good at all. This is why parents and others should not encourage young athletes to follow their dreams of going professional because it does not cause anything positive. All in all, going professional is extremely rare, so everyone telling their athletic child that they can achieve their dream is just wrong. They are instead leading their child to suffer from horrible mental illnesses.

References

Aspen Institute. (2022). Youth Sports Facts: Participation Rates. Project Play. https://projectplay.org/youth-sports/facts/participation-rates

Biddle, S., & Goudas, M. (1996). Analysis of Children’s Physical Activity and its Association with Adult Encouragement and Social Cognitive Variables. Journal of School Health, 66(2), 75–78. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1746-1561.1996.tb07914.x

‌BOERGERS, J., SPIRITO, A., & DONALDSON, D. (1998). Reasons for Adolescent Suicide Attempts: Associations With Psychological Functioning. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 37(12), 1287–1293. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0890856709666594

Encouraging Children to Learn. (2024). Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=qL-65yykPMYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=encouraging+children+to+learn&ots=ivz-QfJhAt&sig=MdC1pAmblCZR0Gp2OUhyyVeN3ZY#v=onepage&q=encouraging%20children%20to%20learn&f=false

McCutcheon, H. (2022). Championship behaviors. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=pONgEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT3&dq=%22motivation%22+%22achievement%22+%22chasing+the+dream%22+%2Bathlete+%22psychological%22&ots=y8udN-f1N3&sig=TW3sKZKZdjYHWd-CajV0TQeZ1MI#v=onepage&q&f=false

NCAA. (2014). NCAA RECRUITING FACTS. NCAA. https://www.nfhs.org/media/886012/recruiting-fact-sheet-web.pdf