”Children Need to Play, Not Compete,” an Evaluation
In the Essay “Children Need to Play, Not Compete,” Jessica Statsky appeals to the worries and fears of parent in order to convince them that competitive sports may harm their children physically and mentally. Statsky states her thesis clearly and specifically at the end of paragraph one. She states that overzealous parents and coaches who impose adult standards on children’s sports result in unsatisfying and unbeneficial to children. She goes on to explain that she is also concerned about “…all organized sports activities for children between the ages of six and twelve.”(500) She defines sports to be any organized activity whether is be contact, no contact, locally organized, or nationally organized. In this essay I will evaluate the purpose of Statsky’s argument, considering whether her support and logic for her thesis is appropriate, believable, consistent and complete. Although her arguments for her thesis are appropriate, believable and consistent they also have their flaws.
While she uses many credible sources to back up her data she fails to truly link that data with her thesis that all sports are bad for children. Most of the data she supplies implies there were outside forces acting on the participants in these sports such as friends, parents or other relatives. For instance, in paragraph 6 she lists the most common reason children quit sports is because of “…lack of playing time, failure and fear of failure, disapproval by significant others and psychological stress. ”(502) all of these reasons given imply some sort of outside influence like coaches or parents putting pressure on their kids not the sports themselves as the causes. She also claims that according to Dr. Glyn C. Roberts “… 80 to 90 percent of children who play competitive sports drop out by sixteen.”(502) This quote is nice eye candy for her argument but the source is not appropriate, Dr. Roberts is a professor of kinesiology, which is the study of muscles and their relations to movement. Th
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Approximate Word count = 680
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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