Are Your Children Overplayed?

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 4, Issue 10, 1 April 1926, Page 58

Are Your Children Overplayed?

“ CJhe tendency nowadays is for the sen instruction of children in sport. zAt an early age many become accomplished athletes I' his quotation is the text of an article by dMir. Cf. <A. dhfC. 'Webster in the ‘“Royal ddhCagaziue" whose remarks we have adapted in considering the same query from the Dominion point of view:

Are children overplayed? The question needs a deal of answering. Long ago, when we were children, we made and played our own games by the light of nature and in accordance with the degree of our own inventive faculties. The children of to-day crave instruction in the technicology of athletics, swimming, tennis, and other strenuous pastimes, which were not properly considered “games” for children in the days of our childhood. Active participation in competitive sport was, in fact, withheld until the schools had claimed us. Even then the matter was not taken seriously in the preparatory stage of our education. How things have changed! The speeding up of school education and the wider cult of competition in sport have both set their seal upon the present generation. Indeed, children nowadays take part eagerly and efficiently in public competition, and their photographs get into the papers. It is true that the youngster who gains too great or too early success, and perhaps gets a little newspaper boom of its own, is apt to become precocious ; but, whatever the parents’ feelings may be, the faces of our scholastic authorities are still sternly set against the public exploitation of youthful talent, and therein lies our saving grace. It is true, also, that some fond and foolish parents forget that early success is bound to be ephemeral, if it is developed to the stage where the naturally gifted child is turned into an infant prodigy. 1 | 'HEN again the child’s own in- -*• stinct turns it against specialisation and undue concentration upon any one phase of sport. It is the inclination of every healthy-minded child to flit from game to game, as a butterfly from flower to flower. The normal child does not mind how well or how badly it may play so long as it enjoys the game and. without knowing it, finds a means of working off its own superabundant energy. Every child seeks change, and until the cranks prevail and that very natural, very healthy desire is educated out of the youngsters there is no fear that our children will be overplayed. In the process of initiating many children of preparatory school age

into the mysterious first principles of athletics, cricket and football, it is found that they very soon tire of what they are doing, and want to try something else. In other words, the average child would rather play at games than practise them seriously in the competitive spirit. If children are allowed to follow their own inclinations no possible harm can befall them; but, in this respect, parents are very often the worst offenders. The man who has won his place in Ranfurly and Plunkett shield matches, to say nothing of champions who gained “All Black” honours, is dead keen that his son shall attain equally high honours. He, therefore, bids him concentrate his thoughts upon the game in which he himself has proved super-excellent. In one case out of a hundred the boy follows in his father’s footsteps; but normally, the parent’s over-insistence upon the importance of his own pet particular pigeon so bores the child that it turns its attention to some other branch of sport. 'C'ORTUNATELY the present genA eration of games-masters understands child psychology and realises the limitations of the growing youngsters. The whole system of sport at our secondary schools is based, therefore, upon Kipling’s creed that “The ship is more than the crew.” Each boy is taught to play for the honour of his side, and the individual who is out to make a name for himself does not find favour. That is why team games, such as cricket, football, hockey, swimming, and basket-ball are still so much more popular at our schools than tennis, or golf, in which the individual has a greater chance to shine alone. Our secondary schools system of sport is not all that it might be. Boys are expected to play all the standard games, and alternative recreations are the exception rather than the rule. For example, a great many boys nowadays have no affection for cricket, and others small aptitude for football. At the present time there is a distinct and very proper inclination to teach children to play efficiently and to practise proper methods from the very earliest age. The result of this is that the standard of performance has improved very con-

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siderably of recent years. Modern children enjoy their play more fully than we did, and do not over-strain themselves by unduly exerting strength and nervous energy in attempting to attain results which they do not know how to achieve. T F parents were allowed to exploit their youngsters in any way they liked, then all the arugments of the opponents of the system of teaching sport to children would hold good. Up to a few years ago it was customary for children of exceptional athletic ability to be dragged all over the country upon pot-hunting expeditions by their parents. This was particularly evidenced at sports meetings where dancing was a feature of the gatherings. Fortunately the vogue for this class of entertainment is not so pronounced to-day as it was, and the heavily bemedalled youngsters, and their parents, who so often exploit them, are a less conspicuous fearture of sports gatherings. Then again the amateur swimming authorities, while they do everything to encourage boys and girls to become good swimmers, they absolutely discourage the giving of swimming exhibitions by children of tender ages, and also the participation of youngsters in long-distance events. Most parents have sense enough to see to it that their children do not get exploited and overplayed. But, still, parents are queer folk, and the very mother who has always vowed that she will never let her son train for the sports, lest he develop that mysterious and purely mythical complaint “athlete’s heart,” is often the first to grumble if she finds her young hopeful among the “also rans” at the conclusion of the races.

branch of sport in which the good little player is apt to turn into the bad little prodigy is lawn tennis. The courts are never free of kiddies nowadays. One admits the wisdom of teaching youngsters early how to develop their strokes, but tournaments are no place for children. From the English illustrated papers it would appear that the tendency to encourage youthful tennis players to compete in public is unfortunately increasing. Let us by all means avoid this tendency here. We note that these young English tennis proteges are talked about and written up and their antics provide the press photographers with some pretty pictures. Such children, through over-strain of immature nerve forces, may finish their sporting careers at the time when more normal or less exploited youngsters are beginning to play in public with natural and everincreasing zest. Fortunately in New Zealand we have not yet come to exploiting youngsters on the tennis courts, but it is to be earnestly hoped the tennis authorities will set their faces resolutely against children taking part in public tournaments. The common sense of most parents, the inclination of the children themselves, the stern opposition of the scholastic authorities against publicity for children, and the wise legislation of governing bodies are factors upon which we can rely to keep matters well within bounds, so that our children to-day are not overplayed. The child that knows how to play and to manage its body is far less liable to strain than another which plays by the light of nature alone and achieves its results by sheer brute force and a quite disproportionate expenditure of nervous energy.