We know from the research that over 70% of kids are dropping out of youth sport by age 13. That’s more than two-thirds of kids. Why is that happening? The number one reason is they’re not having fun.
This past August, The Denver Post ran a four-part series on what youth sports now cost Colorado families. Reporter Kyle Newman talked to more than four dozen parents, club directors, and coaches. The numbers are hard to read as a parent: $2,500 to $5,000 in club fees before tournaments and travel, families spending $10,000 to $20,000 a year for one kid in one sport, AAA hockey running past $35,000. The series also cites a 2024 Harris Poll finding that 75% of sports parents have strongly considered pulling their kids out, and 18% of parents new to sports have gone into debt to keep them in.
A few weeks before that series ran, I sat down with Megan Ranville on The Middle podcast about the same system from the other side: what it does inside a kid’s head.
Why Do Kids Quit Sports by 13? Because It Stopped Being Fun
Why are they not having fun? It’s not because their friends aren’t there. It’s not because they’re not getting to play sports. It’s because there’s too much pressure. They’re being burnt out. The emphasis is on winning, not on growth, development, playing more, having fun. That’s a trend we’ve now seen over the last couple decades, too. It’s worrying because it’s going against what I think are the roots and the origin of why youth sports was created, why it matters, and why it can be such a great thing for a lot of kids.
The Post’s reporting backs that up from the kids’ side. In Part II, Newman cites a Project Play athlete survey in which players who quit reported higher rates of negative parental behavior: 21% said they were pressured to play when they didn’t want to, and 18% said they were compared to other players. One Arapahoe High School senior, Reed McCubbin, told the paper that most of the kids he played basketball with as a freshman are out of the sport, and put it plainly: “At some point, you’re just playing games to play games.”
The Professionalization of Youth Sports Is the Biggest Threat to a Young Athlete’s Mental Health
Megan asked me what the single biggest threat to a young athlete’s mental health is right now.
In my opinion, the single biggest threat is dealing with the professionalization of youth sports that’s happened over the last decade or two. Youth sports originally was just a fun way to get together with other kids your age and play sports. The “sandlot,” as Megan put it. The backyard games. The street games. Through the years it has gotten more and more professionalized. We have way more leagues. We have year-round sports. We can practice, train, and play any sport at any time of year. We’re keeping score at younger ages.
With that comes a lot of negative outcomes. Increased anxiety. Too much focus on winning. Burnout numbers have increased because kids aren’t getting breaks. They’re playing sports year-round, and not just one sport. They may have multiple sports that they’re now expected to be playing in the offseason, in seasons that you typically wouldn’t play that sport. We’re having them put on these jerseys and play games and keep score and do travel leagues and elite teams and selection teams, and it’s just gotten completely out of hand, in my opinion.
What Youth Sports Mental Health Problems Actually Look Like
When a young athlete comes to me, two things show up more than anything else, and most parents misread both.
Performance Anxiety in Young Athletes
That’s one of the main conversations I tend to have right off the bat: what is anxiety, and how does it manifest itself in your body and in your head? Because it really is both of them. Anxiety can be super visible. You see a kid shaking, having trouble breathing, can’t perform the actions they know how to perform because they’re too tight. But a lot of the time it’s well hidden. This happens in adults, too. We don’t want to show people we’re having anxiety. What’s going on in the mind is racing thoughts, self-criticism, doubts, worrying, fantasies about what might happen that could go wrong and thoughts such as: “how am I going to ruin the game this time?”
Burnout That Gets Mistaken for Laziness
Burnout’s an interesting one because it can look different depending on the athlete. For some athletes it’s just being really fatigued. It can be irritability. It can be disinterest, or pulling away. Some coaches or parents might say, “Oh, they’re just lazy, they’re not committed.” Really, they’re probably just mentally and physically exhausted. I don’t know that we do a great job of identifying that. Once burnout hits, you’re already at your limit. You need to take a break. That’s literally the solution. It’s more about how do we prevent getting to that point, so we don’t have kids who are 12 or 13 that don’t want to play sports anymore because it’s not fun.
The Benefits of Playing Multiple Sports
Even though it’s easier in some ways to specialize now, because any sport can be played year-round, I don’t see a lot of kids that truly specialize in just one sport. There is always the primary sport (e.g., “I’m a baseball player”) but then they might also run track or play volleyball in the winter. I think it’s really great to play multiple sports, because you now have multiple different environments, some that might be a better fit for you than others, and different coaching styles you get to learn from. Research shows that specializing is not necessarily going to help you get to the pros or make it in college any more than someone who doesn’t specialize. There are also things you’re going to gain, both physically and mentally, from different sports that you can’t get from just specializing.
What Parents Can Do Tonight: Ask Different Questions and Follow the 24-Hour Rule
Try to focus less on outcomes. How often, when you’re picking them up or driving home, is it “Did you win?” and “How many hits did you get? How many points did you score?” Those are very much outcome things that a lot of factors affect, and it’s not always in their control. Instead: “Did you have fun today?” “How are you feeling about the game or the practice?” “What did you learn today?” To me, those are much more important questions, focused on growth and development, than whether you won a game of 10-year-old baseball or 8-year-old soccer.
I have what I call a 24-hour rule. I really recommend, don’t talk to your kids about the game until 24 hours afterwards. Make that a rule. And here’s why. Directly after the game, if the team won, you’re emotional, you’re excited, and maybe you’re not able to see all the areas of improvement. If you lost, you feel terrible, especially if you didn’t play well. Emotions are high. All you’re thinking about is how you lost. You maybe didn’t realize how many great things you did. Twenty-four hours later, emotions have died down a little bit. That more rational part of us can come out, and now we can actually discuss the game. I just don’t see any real benefit of breaking down the game right after it happens and truthfully, most kids just want to move on.
When It’s Time to Bring in Someone Trained for the Mental Side
I always try to remind myself that my kids and your kids and almost every other kid, at least as far as statistics go, are probably not going to be professional athletes and are probably not going to be playing the World Series. So we don’t need to treat it like that. If your kid happens to be that special, rare-air athlete, then that will come out itself over time. Generally speaking, it’s pretty much guaranteed that won’t be your kid! Kids just need to be having fun and enjoying playing sports. It’s just sports, and they’re supposed to be a good time.
The vast majority of coaches are not trained to deal with a lot of this stuff. Thankfully there are trained people like me out there. If it’s possible to connect your kid with somebody trained to work with the mental side of performance, whether they’re struggling or doing pretty good and you just want them to keep a good mindset, I think that’s important. It’s one of the reasons I got into it. I wish I would have had someone like myself when I was younger. I was a pretty good player, but I just could not keep my emotions in check, and I had a lot of anxiety.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do so many kids quit sports by age 13?
Because it stopped being fun, and it stopped being fun because of pressure, burnout, and an emphasis on winning over development. It isn’t that their friends left or that they lost access to the sport.
How do I know if my child is burnt out or just doesn’t want to play anymore?
Ask them, and mean it. Burnout usually shows up as fatigue, irritability, or pulling away, and it lifts with a real break. If the desire doesn’t come back after rest, or your kid has been trying to tell you they’re done, that’s a different conversation. Sometimes, a switch of teams or not playing entirely is the right answer.
What is the 24-hour rule for sports parents?
Don’t talk about the game until 24 hours after it ends. Right after a win or a loss, emotions are high and neither of you can see the whole picture. A day later, the rational part of the brain is back and the conversation can actually be productive and less intense.
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