These days, it can feel as though kids have to pick “their sport” by kindergarten. Travel teams, competition dance classes and specialized activity programs can be intense, exhausting and all-consuming.
What about the tween who starts middle school and wants to try something new? Is it worth encouraging a kid to branch out to a new sport … in high school? Or is it simply too late?
Atlanta mom Beth Rosenbleeth was surprised when her tween sons decided to try playing a sport this fall: her fifth grader joined his school’s football team and her 7th grader joined a rec baseball team.
“When you are a parent raising a child, I think there’s a lot of pressure to feel like you’re supposed to put your child in sports,” Rosenbleeth, best known for her popular Instagram account called Days With Grey, tells TODAY.com. “We definitely dabbled (in sports), but this was the first time that they both approached it on their own, saying, ‘I want to join this.’”
The desire seems to have been born from the boys watching their friends play. She jokes that her fifth grader “had never really thrown a football” while her older son is a kid who generally likes to “eat chips on the couch and chill out.”
In both cases, the kids have been enjoying themselves. They’ve had a steep learning curve but they’re spending time with their peers and they’re guided by encouraging coaches.
“I don’t think these sports are going to be their life. And that, to me, is the point,” Rosenbleeth says. “It’s really fun watching them show up and and just learn and grow.”
Rowdy Gaines: A swimming success story
Three-time Olympic gold medalist Rowdy Gaines didn’t start swimming competitively until his junior year in high school.
“I didn’t own a pair of goggles. I swam in cut-off jeans. I didn’t know how to do a flip turn. I swam with my head out of the water,” Gaines tells TODAY.com. “I mean, it was terrible.”
Before that point, Gaines had tried to play every sport he could think of but none of them stuck. “When I got to high school, I kind of just wanted to be good in something,” he recalls.
The same coach oversaw the football and swim team, so after Gaines didn’t make the football team, the coach “felt sorry for me” and let Gaines join the swim team.
“Once I didn’t get cut, all of a sudden, the light switch came on and I said, “Oh my gosh, I really want to be good at this.’”
Gaines read books about swimming, he wrote to 50 colleges to ask about swimming scholarship requirements, he practiced.
“Two and a half years later, I broke my first world record,” says Gaines. “I worked my butt off, but I also was very blessed, and I never take that for granted.”
The benefits of starting a sport at an older age
Kathy Feinstein, a licensed mental health counselor and certified sports performance consultant, says there are some sports — like gymnastics for example — when starting early is advantageous, both because of the cumulative nature of the necessary skills and the physical challenges of puberty.
But overall, research shows that early specialization in sports can be associated with overuse injuries and burnout.
“Kids coming into a sport at 11 or 12 may not be as skilled as the kids that have been playing that sport since they were 5 or 6, but they’re coming in at a different part of development and they’re going to have other strengths,” Feinstein says.
For example, older kids have more maturity and may be more “coachable.” And if they chose to sign up for a sport, they will likely have more intrinsic motivation to work hard.
She points to a 2023 study from the European Journal of Sports Sciences that included almost 3,000 athletes from 13 nations and 44 Olympic sports. The average age these world-class athletes started playing their sport was 10.6 years old. They didn’t focus on the sport until age 15.6.
The reward of trying something new
As Rosenbleeth notes, starting something new doesn’t necessarily mean a lifetime of commitment. But sometimes getting out of your comfort zone can reap unexpected rewards.
Nate Assa, now 19, decided to join his high school track team after moving from New Jersey to Massachusetts. A sophomore, Assa joined the team after his mom suggested it was a good way to meet new people.
“It definitely didn’t feel great getting beat by the freshmen,” Assa laughs.
He had tried little league and soccer when he was growing up but nothing “hooked” him the way track did. Even though Assa started late, his dedication to the sport earned him a spot on Purdue’s Division 1 track team.
“There’s really nothing to lose when trying sports, even if it feels like the barrier to entry is high. Just go for it,” says Assa. “Worst case, worst: It’s not for you. Best case, best: You end up finding something that you like really love.”
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
