FUN AND GAMES

Kate ponders what’s wrong with kids and sport

Isee that Sport NZ is upset so many kids are quitting club sport. They think the main problem is that sport at grass-roots level has gotten too competitive, that kids feel too much pressure, that if they don’t make the A team, they don’t want to play. So Sport NZ is looking to put the fun back into sport.

It’s looking to focus more on participation than winning, on enjoying the game rather than having to win at all costs. But I wonder if the decline is to do with a variety of other factors – like cost, accessibility and training times?

Having had five kids go through school and club sport, I can tell you it’s timeconsuming. The older they get, there’s more pressure at school with exams and other commitments. Also, getting there is tough. Often there are big gear bags and long drives through rush-hour traffic. Sometimes the painstaking crawl to get there takes longer than the training session itself.

My daughter is currently doing after-school sport twice a week, which is a 40-minute drive in rush hour away from where we live. I spend an hour and a half minimum in the car getting her there and back, twice a week. I often question how many working parents have time for this.

And then there’s sports gear. It costs a fortune. When our boys played soccer, it was boots, uniforms and subs, and netball was the same but with trainers instead of boots. Hockey was sticks, uniforms, mouth guards … you see how the list goes on and don’t start me on aerobics or rowing.

I just wonder these days with how busy families are, and how tight budgets can be, how much room there is to indulge a house full of kids and their sports?

My husband has always had a zero-tolerance approach to this. He used to say, “Unless you’re going to the Olympics, forget it.”

Those “encouraging” words deterred none of them. They continued playing – but eventually, as they get older, they do stop. They work out they no longer have the time – and you look back on all those years, dollars, kilometres and hours spent going to and from sport and wonder whether it was all worth it. Well, it is if they learn how to be a team player, how to think outside of themselves, how to get fit, how to lose gracefully and how to understand their bodies’ strengths and weaknesses.

I reminded my husband of this the other day when he did the 40-minute drive to my daughter’s sport. They were just about there after a long haul in jammed traffic when she suddenly felt sick.

“I don’t think I can go,” she said. He turned the car around and began the long trip home. “What was the point in that?” he asked me, exasperated, when they finally got home.

“She learned to trust her body and to signal when she’s not up for it?” I suggested.

He rolled his eyes.