Young Athletes Encouraged to Chase Impossible Dreams Are More Likely to Develop Anxiety.
Youth sports participation is a common activity for children, often driven by personal interest or parental encouragement. According to data from the Project Play Aspen Institute, 50.7% of children aged 6–17 take part in team sports. While encouragement is widely viewed as a positive force that boosts motivation and confidence, it can also create harm by setting unrealistic expectations. Parents, in their desire to support their children’s dreams of collegiate or professional sports, may unintentionally contribute to increased anxiety and self-doubt. This pressure, compounded by the low likelihood of professional success—NCAA states that “fewer than 2%” of collegiate athletes make it—can lead to significant mental health struggles. Unrealistic dreams foster emotional, physical, and mental harm, including depression and self-harm. Therefore, understanding the complex effects of encouragement is crucial to protecting young athletes’ well-being, as it can trigger mental health issues, which will be discussed in the following paragraphs.
While the popularity of sports participation is clear, there remains a lack of understanding about why children continue in these activities. The answer lies in the “why” behind their participation—whether it stems from personal enjoyment or from the encouragement they receive from parents or caregivers. Personal enjoyment of a sport comes at a young age, when athletes start to learn what the sport is about. They get an adrenaline rush when they make their first points, but as time goes by this energy may fade. This is where encouragement comes into play from parents. According to Stuart Biddle and Marios Goudas, who published a study on children’s physical activity and its association with adult encouragement, this encouragement is a powerful tool for growth, boosting confidence, and fostering motivation. With administering a questionnaire to 147 boys and girls, they concluded that there is a high association between physical activity and adult encouragement.
However, while encouragement is typically seen as a positive force, it can also be harmful if it becomes excessive. For many children, encouragement from parents creates unrealistic expectations or puts undue pressure on them to achieve goals that may not be feasible or sustainable. When success becomes the only measure of worth, children can experience anxiety, self-doubt, or a fear of failure, particularly if they feel they are unable to live up to their parents’ or their own lofty aspirations. The pressure to meet these expectations, combined with the unrealistic hope of achieving success, can have long-term emotional consequences and affect their overall well-being. The following sections will delve deeper into how these pressures can lead to mental health issues like anxiety and depression, which arise as a result of encouragement that focuses more on unattainable goals than on healthy, realistic growth.
As teenagers grow older, they begin deciding whether they want to continue their sport at the collegiate level or pursue it professionally. At this stage, parents often encourage them to follow their talents, even when their children may not be the best. This encouragement can lead to increased anxiety for two reasons. First, athletes may worry they are not good enough for the professional level. According to Rudolf Dreikurs and Don Sr. Dinkmeyer in Encouraging Children to Learn, “studies indicate that one of the causes of anxiety is the fear of not belonging.” When athletes don’t feel they measure up, but are still encouraged to chase the dream, it intensifies their anxiety. The second source of anxiety comes from talented athletes who don’t make the final cut. Despite their skills, the odds of becoming a professional are slim, like previously stated—only about 2% of student-athletes make it to that level. This overwhelming statistic shows that parental encouragement can turn into pressure, pushing youth athletes to pursue an impossible dream while they face inevitable disappointment. As a result, the pressure from both themselves and their parents can heighten their anxiety, knowing that success is unlikely.
Anxiety is just the start; below the surface, depression and self-hatred can develop, leading to self-harm. Encouragement, instead of fostering hope, can become a destructive force. According to the article, Reasons for Adolescent Suicide Attempts: Associations With Psychological Functioning, the most frequent reasons for self-harm were to die, escape, and seek relief. This applies to athletes who endure the pain of failure, resorting to self-harm as a means of coping with the relentless pressure to succeed. While most athletes understand how difficult it is to make it professionally, the weight of years of encouragement to follow that dream can make it hard to give up. This is where loved ones should intervene and help them face the reality of their goals. As mentioned by Hugh McCutcheon in Championship Behaviors, “a dream can cause real emotional, physical, and mental damages.” The pursuit of an impossible dream, like becoming a professional athlete, often leads to mental, emotional, and physical harm. If parents or coaches help athletes understand the improbability of their dreams early on, they can spare them from unnecessary suffering and the toll it takes on their mental health.
In conclusion, encouragement, though often seen as beneficial for children, can have unintended consequences when it pushes them toward unrealistic goals. While parents and others may believe they are fostering growth by offering constant support, they are unknowingly contributing to mental health challenges. Encouraging a child to pursue a dream with slim chances of success, especially in highly competitive fields, fosters anxiety, stress, and self-doubt rather than resilience. Studies have often linked encouragement to improved confidence, performance, and mental health, but this view fails to account for the long-term effects of excessive pressure. Instead of promoting well-being, encouragement that reinforces unattainable goals can lead to burnout, emotional strain, and feelings of inadequacy, especially when it pushes children toward dreams that may never materialize. Unfortunately, this same harm can occur when children with real athletic potential are discouraged from pursuing their goals. Ultimately, both excessive encouragement and discouragement can be damaging, and in either case, the parent is at fault, as they either set their child up for failure or prevent them from realizing their true potential.
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
Counterintuitive Fall 2024 
Let’s talk organization and rhetorical strategy, Taco.
Your first paragraph is impossibly long because it’s not one paragraph.
This is your first paragraph:
—The main idea this paragraph purports to develop is that we know why kids START to participate in sports, but we don’t know why they CONTINUE.
—You suggest there’s evidence for why they SIGN UP but none for why they DON’T QUIT, to put it a different way.
Here’s your second paragraph:
—Now you suggest instead that in fact THERE IS evidence for why children CONTINUE in sports.
—Your main idea here is that parental or adult encouragement is the motivation.
—For some reason, you can’t let go of the SECOND reason you’ve hinted at before, although you have so far developed just one and have resisted SHOWING us that some stay in sports out of pure self-interest.
—You don’t exactly say WHAT Biddle and Goudas concluded, but you suggest it supports Adult Encouragement as the motivation for kids to keep playing.
Here’s your third paragraph:
—Here, clearly, you wish to make a third claim with a new Main Idea: that encouragement is harmful.
I respect your desire to introduce all your main themes into your Introduction, but when the paragraph consumes 1/3 of your total word count, it’s not an Introduction.
What would qualify as a pure Introduction that lays out the bones of your causal argument start to finish?:
It would touch ever-so-lightly on the claims in your causal chain.
—Kids take up sports out of self-interest
—Whether that’s love of the game or to please others
—Early on, they continue for the same reasons
—Those with skill are encouraged and take pride in the esteem of others
—When their “self-assessment” does not coincide with others’ expectations, doubt and anxiety are the result.
—This can occur whether the child believes MORE or even LESS than others do in their ability and the odds of their success.
—When self-worth depends on success on the field, losing is devastating.
—Parents who won’t let mediocre players quit inflict psychological trauma (forcing them into repeated failure and disappointment, self-hate)
—Parents who pressure mediocre players to quit inflict psychological trauma (trashing their self-esteem and hopes)
—Every level of competition changes the odds of further success and re-opens the chance to injure the young athlete’s psyche either way: 1) nobody believes in my dream, or 2) why do I have to keep failing at someone else’s impossible dream?
—The higher the stress, the more likely are clinical depression and self-harm to result
—When quitting is prohibited, the other options to “escape the failure” of someone else’s dream are quite dire.
—The odds against ultimate success are real, but reality is brutally hard to accept for those who hope and for those who dismay of succeeding.
Your ultimate conclusion is up to you, but beware of letting yourself off too easily. Both encouraging and discouraging kids to pursue their athletic dreams (check that; their dreams of stardom and fame) are fraught with danger.
In short, all your paragraphs are too long because they try to develop too many main ideas. AND, if you want to use your Introduction to sketch out your entire causal argument, don’t skip the essential steps, and don’t exceed 150 words.
This draft is remarkably better, Taco, and still suffers from much the same lack of fluency I mentioned in my recent Reply to your Bibliography. The same offer also applies. We can continue with feedback until you get sick of it. I have not made this offer to any other student. I think with your openness to criticism, you’re the candidate most likely to benefit from it.
Regraded.