02/20/08 High Cost of Youth Sports

Raising three boys&. (Four you have to count my husband) , means we are regulars at the orthopedic clinic , like a fancy restaurant, we Allen's have our own table.. one which our good doc has served up at least 5 A..C.L.'s . Gagging by the sizes of crutches in the barn some of the surgeries were preformed when the boys were young. Youth sports are no longer seasonal. Like many kids, my sons played at extremely competitive levels at an age when their bones were still growing, add to that mix the high impact jumps snow and wake boarding and it is easy to see why the number of A.C.L.'s on young adults has risen dramatically. It's not just boys, doctors are reporting that girls are eight times more likely to have ligament tears. While there are new techniques to repair the damage the jury is still out on the long term results, whether that A.C.L. my son had at age 15 will be a precursor for arthritis 20 years down the road . Speaking from experiencing, it might be time to revisit whether pushing young kids to play year round sports on multiple teams is really worth the cost.