Fun

Adults involved in youth sports are the ones who are ultimately responsible for the quality of a child's sports experience. To create a positive sports environment for youth athletes to ensure they have fun, parents need to ask six key questions.

Whether you are a parent, youth baseball coach, piano teacher or faculty advisor for the chess club, your mantra should be the same:  to create a fertile environment where kids can learn, compete, and have fun, says youth baseball coach and author, Dan Clemens.

Youth sports may have become more and more about competition and winning, but kids are, in a word, still kids: the number one reason they play sports is still to have fun, and, even at the high school level, most would still rather get playing time on a losing team than sit on the bench of a winner.

An athlete who specializes early or plays on an ultra-competitive select team is at increased risk of burnout or withdrawal from sport as a result of chronic stress or burnout.