If you’ve noticed your kid dragging their feet toward practice, going quiet in the backseat, or asking to quit a sport they used to love, you’re not imagining it — and you’re definitely not alone. On a recent episode of Kids These Days, I talked with clinical sport psychologist Dr. Kate Bennett about a trend she’s watched unfold over two decades working with young athletes: kids are burning out of sports earlier than ever, often by the time they hit middle school. As a child therapist in Denver, I hear versions of this story constantly from families who did everything “right” and still ended up with an exhausted, disengaged kid. So I wanted to break down what’s actually going on, and what a healthier approach looks like.
Why Are So Many Kids Burning Out of Sports by Age Thirteen?
Youth sports has quietly become a massive industry, and somewhere along the way, we started treating middle schoolers like professional athletes in training instead of kids. Dr. Bennett pointed out that the vast majority of families investing serious time and money into club sports will never see their child play in college, let alone professionally — yet the schedules, the specialization, and the expectations often mirror an elite athletic career. The result is predictable: kids who’ve been on a single, intense sports track since age eight or nine are simply worn out by the time they’re teenagers. Their days have been scheduled and predictable for years, and the joy has slowly leaked out of something that used to be fun.
Is Your Child Playing for Themselves — Or for You?
One of the most useful distinctions Dr. Bennett offered is learning to tell the difference between a kid who loves their sport and a kid who’s playing to keep a parent happy. A child who’s genuinely engaged looks forward to practice, plays the sport for fun in the yard, and asks when the next game is. A child who’s playing out of obligation goes quiet in the car, stops asking about upcoming games, and may start visibly holding back during competition — passing instead of shooting, or avoiding risk to avoid the possibility of failing in front of you. That pulling back isn’t laziness. It’s often a self-protective response to pressure the child can feel but can’t yet name.
Are You a Thermostat or a Thermometer on the Sideline?
This was, for me, the most memorable idea in the whole conversation. Dr. Bennett described the difference between a thermometer, which reacts to whatever temperature it’s exposed to, and a thermostat, which holds a room steady regardless of what’s happening around it. Kids need their parents to be thermostats on the sideline — a steady, loving presence they can glance at after a mistake or a great play and know that nothing about how much they’re loved has changed. When we visibly spike with excitement or frustration depending on the score, we unintentionally teach our kids that our love is conditional on their performance, even when that’s the last thing we mean to communicate.
What Should You Actually Say After the Game?
Parents often assume silence is neglectful and feedback is helpful, but Dr. Bennett suggests the opposite is usually true right after competition. Two simple questions do the job well: “Did you have fun?” and “What are you proud of?” That’s it — no coaching, no breakdown of what went wrong, no matter how much expertise you’re sitting on. If your child wants that feedback later, let them ask for it. Immediate post-game analysis, however well-intentioned, tends to communicate that their performance is being evaluated rather than celebrated, and it can quietly erode both their confidence and their willingness to be honest with you about how they’re really doing.
When Is It Okay to Let Your Kid Quit a Sport?
Rather than treating a request to quit as a yes-or-no decision, Dr. Bennett recommends getting curious about the specifics first. Is the coach unkind? Is the team environment exclusionary? Or is your child simply frustrated by limited playing time while still enjoying their teammates? Those are very different problems with very different solutions. For younger kids especially, a simple pros-and-cons exercise — done independently, not with a parent hovering — can help a child think through the decision clearly rather than making it under pressure. The goal isn’t to keep kids in every commitment no matter what; it’s to help them learn to make informed decisions about their own time and energy.
Multi-Sport, Not Multi-Tasking: What the Research Actually Recommends
If there’s one piece of guidance most parents haven’t heard, it’s this: current research supports being a multi-sport athlete across different seasons of the year, not specializing early — and definitely not stacking multiple sports within the same season. One sport per season protects growing bodies from overuse injury and gives kids a broader, more resilient sense of identity that isn’t tied entirely to a single game or performance. Dr. Bennett suggests holding off on real specialization until around eighth or ninth grade, when a child is developmentally able to weigh the tradeoffs and advocate for what they actually want.
Resources
If any of this feels familiar — the packed schedule, the tension in the car, the quiet dread before practice — you’re not doing it wrong, and you’re not alone. Dr. Kate Bennett’s full conversation with me goes even deeper on repair, sideline behavior, and how to check your own sports-related anxiety before it lands on your kid. And if your family could use support working through any of this, our team at Integrated Behavioral Health is always here to help.
- Dr. Kate Bennett’s book, Treating Athletes with Eating Disorders
- Dr. Kate’s practice: Athlete Insight
- Dr. Kate’s consulting practice: Full Send Consulting
- Way of Champions coaching philosophy
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