Time is immutable as a scientific fact. However it does move slower for kids than it does for adults; that’s a sociological fact. For most young people, it’s what’s coming up that’s important; the next celebration – a birthday, social gathering with friends, the upcoming sporting event or that date with your special someone and so forth and so on. So it’s logical that students ache for summer while still in school in early spring.
And then summer comes; at first it’s wonderful but by now the novelty has worn off. Kids, especially kids who don’t drive, pine away for the friends that they saw every day when they were in school. They won’t admit it, but most children eventually long for the start of school again so they can socialize with each other and participate in their favorite activities.
Covid and lockdown were hard on our nation’s youth. In South Dakota we largely ignored the dangers of Covid and soldiered on pretending that a worldwide pandemic wasn’t really happening. Social isolation took its toll during the time when kids couldn’t be face-to-face in the classroom. Once back in school, in addition to all the usual angst and tribulations of the normal growing up process, children were experiencing the stress of bullying and the fear of violence – gun and otherwise – either directly or, after seeing the news of the latest school shootings around the country, they felt the insidious fear of “could it happen here, could we be next?”
According to a recently released survey of students, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control, nearly 20% of teens reportedly considered suicide during the last school year. Girls were twice as likely as boys to report suicidal thoughts and depression as boys. The teens reported that the cultural divides in this country exacerbated their feelings of depression and the hate filled talk on television shows passing themselves off as “news” deepened their sense of hopelessness. Social media is no help either. Teens who use social media daily are more prone to feelings of inadequacy, insecurity and depression than those who use it infrequently or not at all. Almost 6 million children have been diagnosed with anxiety, from one cause or another, between 2016-2019 according to the CDC.
So what to do about it? School was back in session mask less and in person face-to-face so that’s a good first step. Second, get your kid off the phone, social media, video games etc. and outside for some good old fashioned “amuse yourself, commune with nature time”. Study after study has shown that all humans, of any age, benefit from sunshine and the great outdoors. It improves mental health, reduces stress as well as tends to encourage exercise, which is good for the body and just makes us feel better.
Next, get your child involved in some sort of regular summer endeavor. Structure is good for young people, as is activity. A study, published in the open access scientific journal Plos One, found that children who participated in team sports were less likely to experience anxiety, suffer from depression, experience social isolation or have attention issues compared with young people who didn’t play team sports. However, remember that the activity is about your kids having fun; so don’t try to live your life or relive the glory days of your youth through them.
I was the Teener Baseball coach for three years in the mid 1980’s. I coached three teams, the 13-year-old team, the JV and the Varsity Teeners. The teams always played double headers. My philosophy was, “everybody starts and everybody plays”. Now obviously not everyone started and played in every game but if you didn’t start the first game, you did the second game and everyone got significant playing time. Most parents thought this was wonderful but a few believed winning every single game was more important than each kid learning the fundamentals, being a part of the team and having fun. Scripture says (to truncate and paraphrase) that the race is not always to the swift and the battle not always to the strong; however, the attitude of some youth sports parents seems to be that since state titles usually do go to the swift and the strong and since winning is the only important thing, just play the studs.
There is a sign that hangs in many parks and recreation departments around the country that is an excellent mantra for youth sports and I wish Mitchell parents would take it to heart. It reads:
Remember I’m just a kid.
It’s only a game.
The coach is a volunteer.
The officials are only human.
There are no college scholarships being given out today.
I hope your children have a fun summer as you maintain your perspective, preserve your decorum and keep your tongue in check while attending their youth sporting events.