Kids Play Fewer ‘Pick-Up Games,’ and it’s Hurting Youth Sports

Pick-up games

They used to be a staple in the lives of American children. Get a group of kids together, grab a ball, and go play. It was a sanctuary of sport where meddling parents or coaches had no say. But as organized youth sports have become more time-intensive, and digital devices like iPads and Xboxes have made the indoors more appealing, pick-up games have largely disappeared.

Youth sports

Culture has changed dramatically over the past 40 years. It is less common today to see a group of young children congregate in a neighborhood to play a ‘pick-up’ game without any adult influence. The norm has become for children and adolescents to participate in organized sports driven by coaches and parents, often with different goals for the game than its young participants,” reads a 2016 report on youth athletes in the journal Pediatrics.

The demise of pick-up games is a real shame, as it’s difficult to overstate how many benefits these type of contests offer for young people. No matter the sport, the nature of pick-up games allow for the natural development of athleticism, fitness, competitiveness, teamwork skills, communication skills and more.

RELATED:Why Fun Should Be The Number One Focus of Youth Sports

The competition will take care of itself. Most kids want to win no matter what or where they play. They want to beat their friends, classmates, siblings, etc. It’s not mean-spirited, it’s just good, healthy, fun competition.

“(My childhood pick-up football games) were really competitive—probably more competitive then half the stuff you see on the field,” says Arizona Cardinals offensive lineman Mason Cole. A childhood filled with competitive pick-up games is a commonality we notice in many of the professional athletes we interview, from Drew Brees to LeBron James.

As a competitive outlet, pick-up games lack the added pressure coaches, parents and institutions often bring to organized sports. A loss or poor performance doesn’t result in the child being yelled at or shamed by authority figures. This translates to an experience that’s more free and more fun for children. And “more fun” matters. It’s no exaggeration to say a lack of fun may be the biggest problem in the modern youth sports ecosystem. A poll from the National Alliance of Youth Sports found that 70 percent of U.S. kids stop playing organized sports by the age of 13, citing “not having fun anymore” as the most common reason.

Pick-up games

Give kids a chance to just be kids without having to worry about failure or disappointing others, and stay active while doing so. The simple fact that pick-up sports keep children active is a huge benefit, as CDC data shows 1 in 5 children and young people now qualify as obese. Most pick-up games consist of nothing but play—there’s no sitting on the bench, there’s no standing around waiting for others to go through a drill, there’s no listening to coaches try to explain strategy or fundamentals. There’s just play. That’s exactly the type of activity our young people need more of, as organized youth sports offer less exercise than you might expect. In fact, a 2017 study published in the Journal of Sports Sciences found that children only spend about 30 percent of their organized sport practice time engaged in moderate-to-vigorous exercise. So even if a kid has an hour-long practice, they’re still likely 40 minutes short of the 60 minutes of daily moderate to vigorous exercise most experts recommend.