My children are now entering the age of youth sports. I am distressed and saddened how things have become.

First, let me say that there are some things that are greatly improved since my childhood. Perhaps the greatest improvement are that the leagues are much more organized and the coaches much better trained. This results in a better learning experience for the child. The extra number extra learning opportunities are also astounding.

But - that is about all I have to say on the positive side.

Almost every sport is now three seasons. This is pressuring families into specializing or trying to participate in nearly everything. This has no good upside. At 16 children may be well served to narrow their athletic focus - but at 7 this is folly. At younger ages they are better served to do a wide variety of activities. Each activity, whether it is a sport or not, offers a unique learning experience.

The specialization also creates an "arms race" of participation. More and more practices and more and more organization. The steam and energy to do this is from the adults - not from the children. And yet, I hear the same parents that are organizing these things bemoaning the fact that kids don't have any initiative nowadays. Well - "why would they?" is the question I always ask. I remember frequent pickup soccer, baseball, football and just about everything else you can imagine when I was young. We weren't going to wait for the adults to organize things for us - because they weren't going to. But they allowed us to go to many of these spontaneous activities. In some ways that may have made them better parents then we are today. Teaching us far more about how to succeed in life. We learned the lesson of "if you want it, go do it".

The amount of adult organizing is compounded because the local sports organizations don't seem to talk to each other. There seems to be a competition among these organizations to recruiting the kids and getting them committed to the sport for all three seasons.

Now that my kids are getting to that age - I am going to attempt to stop this trend (to the inane). I am going to suggest that there be a quarterly "all hands" meeting of all organizations. As adults, we should be making sure that the children have balance to their lives. Making sure that our kids have the ability to try new things and also have the space and time to play without adult organization.