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Do you know children or preteenagers who are on sports teams so competitive that they spend several days a week nearly every week of the year playing? Whose families have organized their whole lives around getting these students to and from games and practices?
Do you think youth sports has gotten too intense, or do you feel that this level of play is right for some children? What are the benefits and drawbacks of focusing so deeply on one sport at an early age?

In "The Crazy, Intense Schedule of Competitive Youth Soccer? Bring It On," Lisa Catherine Harper argues that being on a highly competitive soccer team has been good for her daughter:

...our daughter is 11, her sport is soccer, and that she has been playing competitively since age 7. If I revealed anything more - her position, her team or club, what she does with her downtime, or anything specific about her play - she would kill me...

Some friends wonder: Why do we spend thousands of dollars a year on team fees? Why do we shuttle her to the field three to five days a week, 50 weeks a year? Why do we organize weekends around game schedules? And why are we allowing her younger brother to follow in her footsteps?

We live out the arguments against: early focus on one sport, diminished traditional family time, financial cost, lost weekends, less after-school time, fund-raising and volunteer duties, car pools and periodic exhaustion.

Still, the benefits outweigh the costs. There are the platitudes about "teamwork" and "lessons about winning and losing," and then there are the real rewards of team sports, which have become visible to me only over many seasons.

The first thing to know: no young athlete succeeds unless he or she wants to. Few survive - and fewer thrive - simply because of parental will. It's too hard. There's no off-season. Our daughter spends 4 to 10 hours a week on the field, depending on games. Home fields are close, but away games can involve an hour of travel each way. On tournament weekends there's nothing else.

But this requirement to lean in is central to why we let her play. It's always good to work hard and learn a skill well. Sustained, intense, focused training teaches her that hard work pays off. Every season she is stronger, faster, more skilled - and she knows it. It's no secret that this kind of physical confidence in what her body can do is especially valuable for a girl. As is the relationship with her father that's a result of her sport, which he also played.

Students: Tell us ...

Have you, or has anyone you know, played youth sports at the level described here? If so, what was the experience like?

Would you want your own child to be on a highly competitive sports team as an 11-year-old? Why or why not?

Do you think playing sports teaches valuable life lessons and skills? If so, what?

The author of this post writes that her message to her daughter is, "Work as hard as you can at whatever you love. Find people who are better than you, learn from them." But many of the commenters on the post seem to feel that pushing a child to spend so much time on one sport or interest too early is dangerous. What do you think?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

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Do you think youth sports has gotten too intense, or do you feel that the level of play described in this article is right for some children? What are the benefits and drawbacks of focusing so deeply on one sport at an early age?

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For the 45 million children ages 6 through 16 currently participating in youth sports, many parents are having to reach deep into their pockets to cover the rising costs of equipment and sports-related activities.

In the United States, parents spend $671 on average per year to cover the costs of uniforms and the hefty fees charged for registration, lessons and coaching, and at least 1 in 5 ends up spending over $1,000 per child, every year. The result, according to TurboTax's most recent infographic, is that youth sports are no longer an excellent opportunity for social involvement determined by passion and skill, but by the family's financial resources, sustaining a $5 billion-a-year industry.

The graphic, titled The High Cost of Youth Sports, lists the most and least expensive organized sports, based on a survey of more than 1,000 parents with student athletes in grades 6 through 12, and offers several tips on how to keep youth sports expenses under control.

Here's the complete look at the costs of playing organized sports:

Parents sports youth sports family budget

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parents sports youth sports family budget

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For the 45 million children ages 6 through 16 currently participating in youth sports, many parents are having to reach deep into their pockets to cover the rising costs of equipment and sports-related activities.

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positive and negative effects of playing a sport in high school

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Why Playing Sport Gets You Better Grades

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Teenagers can significantly lower their likelihood of being overweight or obese by walking or biking to school and playing on at least one high school sports team, but preferably two or more, a new study suggests.

Though the spread of childhood obesity in the last decade has spurred health authorities to ramp up their efforts to promote youth activity, the new findings are among the first to demonstrate that walking or riding a bike to school actually has an impact on weight gain among high school students. The study also found that while school-based exercise can reduce or stem weight gain, it is sports participation in particular that makes a difference. Physical education classes, the researchers found, did not reduce or prevent weight gain, likely because they do not offer students the same level of regular, challenging exercise as competitive sports.

"I think being a part of some kind of team or organization gives kids the opportunity to have moderate to vigorous activity consistently," said Keith M. Drake, an author of the study and a postdoctoral research fellow at the Hood Center for Children and Families at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. "I think a lot of time physical education requirements are not that strict. Kids are not in P.E. that often, and when they are, the physical activity is not that strenuous."

In their study, which was published in the journal Pediatrics, Dr. Drake and his colleagues tried to quantify the impact that greater sports participation and less reliance on mass transit might have on childhood obesity. They calculated that if all adolescents played on at least two sports teams per year - in other words, one team per season - obesity rates would plunge 26 percent and the prevalence of overweight adolescents would fall by 11 percent. And if all adolescents walked or biked to school at least four days a week, they found, the number who were obese would drop by 22 percent.

Nationwide, about a third of high school students are overweight or obese, a figure that has prompted federal efforts to boost physical activity of any kind among teenagers. Health officials recommend that children get an average of about one hour a day of moderate to vigorous activity, but most fall far short of that.

One of the government's most recent efforts to boost adolescent exercise was a $100 million-a-year program called Safe Routes to School, which targets the way students commute. In 2001, less than 16 percent of children between 5 and 15 walked, biked or "actively" commuted to school, compared with about 50 percent of youngsters in that age range 40 years ago. Created in 2005, Safe Routes aims to boost those numbers by helping communities build more sidewalks, bike paths and other "pedestrian friendly" routes.

Yet past studies have generally found that while walking and biking to school increases physical activity levels, it has little or no impact on body weight. Dr. Drake and his colleagues noted that the sample sizes in those studies were small - in many cases, just a few hundred students - so recruited over 1,700 high school students and their parents to examine the relationship between commutes to school, levels of sports participation and body weight.

Over all, only 10 percent of students in the study were "active" commuters, walking or biking to school more than three-and-a-half days a week; most, about 70 percent, said they never did either. Active commuting, the study found, lowered the risk of obesity by 33 percent, though it did not seem to protect against being overweight.

"We found that it's only affecting kids who are near the obesity cutoff," Dr. Drake said. "We think that's because walking and biking to school are fairly leisurely exercise and kids don't tend to do it unless they live close to school. So we think it's only affecting kids who are very overweight, whereas for most normal kids it wouldn't affect them."

As for more organized activities, about 17 percent of the students played on one sports team, 18 percent played on two, and 35 percent were on three or more. The study revealed a dose response relationship: the greater the participation level in organized sports, the lower the risk of being overweight or obese. The trend became most significant when students played on at least two teams, representative of year-round participation in sports.

"Playing on one sports team is definitely better than playing on zero, but I would say at least two or three is probably ideal," Dr. Drake said.

Dr. William Stratbucker, the medical director of the Helen DeVos Children's Hospital Healthy Weight Center in Grand Rapids, Mich., who was not involved in the research, said the findings were intriguing because they showed a sort of threshold for effective physical activity. But he said the idea that every child should join a sports team "is not achievable in real life." Some children may face economic barriers, like the costs associated with team sports, or health issues, like asthma, that limit their participation.

Another way to encourage vigorous exercise among teenagers, Dr. Stratbucker said, is for parents to make it a part of their lives. "If the parents are enjoying an active lifestyle themselves, that's modeling behavior that leads to children participating in activity to the levels that they need to be," he said.

Not every student can make the varsity baseball or basketball team, Dr. Drake said, but there are other ways - like playing intramural or club sports, or joining a dance or gymnastics team - for children to get strenuous exercise.

"I don't think it has to be a sports team," he said. "There are other athletic opportunities, even for the noncompetitive kids, that can achieve the same benefit."

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Sports Promote Healthy Weight in Teenagers

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Teenagers can significantly lower their likelihood of being overweight or obese by walking or biking to school and playing on at least one high school sports team, but preferably two or more, a new study suggests.

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Friday Night Tykes: Parents Divided Over Pee Wee Football Safety

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In Texas, where football is in the DNA - concerns grow over whether kids are being pushed too hard and too fast.

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"You should try sports, it's really fun." Sports help kids have fun and allow them to develop social skills. Let's keep them safe joining the Make the Commitment: Stop Abuse in Sport public awareness campaign. Help us stop abuse by watching and sharing this video with your friends.

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Softball season is generally in the spring, but that's not the case for the 'Diamond Divas,' a team made up of girls from the northwest metro who, if they so choose, can play the game year-round. "Yes we have a few girls on the team that play softball year round," said Coach KJ Johnson.

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Youth in Sport - Keeping Kids in The Game | Hugh McDonald | TEDxLangleyED

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Hugh's talk will exhibit both his love for coaching and that of sport. He will share his growth from a ""win-at-all-costs"" coach that took the experience away from the kids, to a parent and coach who values giving all children the opportunity to learn, grow, compete, and keep on playing.

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What Are the Benefits of Competitive Sports for Youth?

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Any parent knows that young children are filled with energy, eager to run, jump and play. Transferring that natural energy to competitive sports can help keep kids active and healthy as the grow, and other distractions increase that may lead to a more sedentary lifestyle.

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What Are Two Advantages & Disadvantages of Children's Participation in Sports?

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What Are Two Advantages & Disadvantages of Children's Participation in Sports?. Part of the series: LS - Soccer Tips & Tricks. A children's participation in sports is a great way to make sure they're getting enough physical activity. Find out about two advantages and disadvantages of children's participation in sports with help from a soccer professional in this free video clip.

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What Physical and Cognitive Rest Really Mean After a Concussion

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Dr. Robert Cantu talks about how after a concussion the brain is in a metabolic crisis and, without rest, that crisis is exacerbated.

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Retired Soccer Star Briana Scurry on What a Concussion Feels Like

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After she was hit in the April 2010 game, retired soccer star Briana Scurry felt off balance, sensitive to light and sound, nauseated, and felt intense pain in her head and neck.

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We would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to a new, cutting edge product designed to assist coaches and trainers in recognizing potential head injuries (Concussions) in their athletes. The Shockwave Impact Indicator™, which is applied to the back of the helmet, is designed to measure the amount of G-force received on the helmet during a collision and is calibrated based on the age of the athlete.