From the link in the article above

Every sport became a highly organized year-round enterprise: indoor soccer in winter, hockey in summer, baseball all year round. Suddenly kids had to choose before they turned 10 or so, or risk falling behind the pack. The logic seems straightforward: if you want to be good at a sport, you should play intensively year-round. It makes perfect sense.

It was also, in retrospect, a perfectly bad idea. While early specialization works for a lucky few, an increasingly large wave of research has provided proof that early specialization doesn’t work so well for the rest of us. Let us count the ways:
1) early specialization increases the chance of injuries.
2) early specialization creates worse overall athletes (more evidence here).
3) early specialization makes kids less likely to participate in sports as adults.
4) early specialization creates a falsely high barrier to participation, eliminating kids who might otherwise succeed in a more open system.

I think the bigger point is this: when it comes to athletic skills, we are natural omnivores. Our bodies and brains are built to grow through variety of activities, not just one.

Think about what happens when you play multiple sports. You develop whole-body skills like balance, quickness, core strength. You cross-train skills from one sport to another.

It is not a coincidence that many top performers were multiple-sport kids growing up. Roger Federer played soccer until 12; Steve Nash and Kobe Bryant did the same. The reason they possess such brilliant footwork and vision is because they built those skills, over time, by being omnivorous.

Youth sports now are the classic example of not seeing the forest for the trees. Very few ask why are they doing what they are doing and even fewer even know where they are going and yet all the while the meter is running for the organizations that sponsor our kids sports teams.

Early specialization is not that bad. In a lot of countries around the world, boys start playing soccer at age 4. And some of them only play soccer. Most of soccer stars grew up this way. If you think about it, soccer is actually very complicated and balanced sport in terms of the movement patterns. As long as you control the play time and recover time in a reasonable way, the kids will be fine.

However, I hate the youth soccer tournaments. 4 games in 2 days? Sometimes in the bad weather. That is one easy way to injury.

Disagree.
" most of the soccer stars grew up this way " Maybe but...
Small numbers from the total number of participants.
What about the rest ?

Why the need to control the child ? You only clip their wings when you do. The problem today is TOO MUCH parental control, and not enough freedom. Creativity and imagination needs to brew from within, not from external meddling.

Are you out of your mind? no need to control the child? Your kid must be playing iphone 14 hours a day. Tons of creativity with drugs too. You are going to another extreme.

Bet he's one of those hippies that seem to gravitate to the western part of the state. We've had one selling the idea of "free ranging" here for years. Just smile when you read their posts and imagine their daughter Moonbeam asking a goalkeeper if they felt like being shot on. That will set up the context properly.

Sports specialization is just one piece of the warped way many kids are growing up these days. To the author's point:

"But there is a big difference between wanting what's best for your kids, and wanting them to be the best.

Wanting what's best for your kids is all about the child. It's about helping them find something they are passionate about so they are intrinsically driven to reveal the strengths that God gave them, whether in art, music, sports, writing, academics, or community service.

Wanting them to be the best is all about me. My expectations. My fears. So I yell at them from the stands, correct them after lessons, and coax them into activities that suck the fun out of childhood. And in the process, I teach them that their worth is wrapped up in how they perform. I teach them that second place is losing. I teach them that judgment is more important than love and acceptance.

And it is so wrong."

I teach music and see the problem all the time. If a child doesn't have a passion for something parents are just pouring their money down the drain. I've had to have many a painful conversation with parents about wether or not it makes sense to continue. More than one has said thank you for being honest about what they already knew deep down. But when you find those kids who do have that drive, it can be magical. They may never play at Carnegie but that is ok. They'll have a love of music for the rest of their lives

Specialization

Some amount of specialization is good. When a child develops very deeply in one sport when they transfer to a another sport the transfer is very easy because they have become great athletes.

On the downside, if the sport doesn't utilize an activity then they can be way behind. Case in point, when I play tennis against someone that played soccer growing up and never played baseball, they just can't develop a real serve.

The part I don't like about specialization is the intensity to win. Just look at the U12 thread. Those parents have to bring the intensity into their house. That is not just here on TS. The kids love to play but very very few love to be under pressure to win.

The linked support sites anecdotal evidence that if you overdue certain motions in certain sports (eg throwing too many pitches) you increase your risk of injury. Not really applicable to soccer. Playing a lot of soccer does increase your risk of injuries compared to being inactive, but playing multiple sports such as soccer, basketball, and lacrosse isn't going to reduce your risk of injury compared to just playing only soccer.The linked study found that Belgian kids who played multiple sports were more fit and coordinated than kids who only played one sport. No indication what sports the kids played or whether the hours played were comparable. The article also speculates that better athletes may be more inclined to play multiple sports because they succeed at multiple sports without a lot of work. So, contrary to the author's statement, not necessarily evidence that specialization creates worse athletes.Might be something to this one. If you are used to trying multiple sports, you're prepared to dabble in sports as an adult and don't mind not being among the best in that sport. Athletes who are very good at one sport often are reluctant to pick up a new one that they will initially be very bad at and will probably never be as good at as they were their one big sport.Yes and no. Yes, for sure, early specialization does create a barrier to participation, since kids who start late are at a disadvantage and might not want to try to participate in a sport where they are starting so far behind. On the other hand, it is a very real barrier, not a falsely high one, at least in high skill sports.

You know the solution is really in encouraging more fit and athletically minded kids. That is what gym USED to do.