All individuals have an innate need to create and explore. They explore creativity through free and spontaneous play. This free play is essential in cognitive development. In organized youth sports children no longer have this opportunity to freely play. Athletics are regimented and restricted in ways that do not allow children to personally experience the sport at an intrinsic level. Young athletes are taught at an early age the significance of extrinsic rewards and motivators. Because of these extrinsic rewards young athletes lose their desire to explore the sport on a more intimate level. They perform robotically the skills and tasks set before for them. All individuality is lost in a world commanding conformity. In this process there are three stages that young athletes go through in losing their desire to play: deprival of pleasure, denial of inquiry, and deprivation of self. These stages are detrimental to the childs ability to deeply connect with athletics. The Loss of Play in Organized Youth Sports is increasing in a world filled with meticulous coaching methods. If we do not change the way childrens athletics are conducted, future generations will lose the personal relationship with sports in the future. The solution is to stop making sports focused on adults, and change them to be child-centered. Allow the children to compete in a world where they are free to explore and learn.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MONTANA/oai:etd.lib.umt.edu:etd-06012009-132250 |
| Date | 16 July 2009 |
| Creators | Jensen, Audrey Lea |
| Contributors | Dr. Ann Wright, Karen Kaufmann, Dr. Randy Bolton |
| Publisher | The University of Montana |
| Source Sets | University of Montana Missoula |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.umt.edu/theses/available/etd-06012009-132250/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Montana or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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