One myth about every sport every parent should know

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Image of a football on a field

Text appears: “There’s a myth that playing a single sport as a child is the only path to greatness.”

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Image of a football on a field

Text appears: “It’s called early specialisation.” – “We spoke to the experts about what it’s doing to our kids.”

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Natalie Hardaker in an office room setting

Text appears: “Natalie Hardaker” – “Senior Injury Prevention Specialist, ACC”

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Natalie Hardaker – “Make no mistake, we absolutely want Kiwi kids to be active. It's such a massive part of New Zealand's way of life.”

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Blurred view of a field

Text box appears: “Since 2008, there’s been a 60% increase in sports injuries in kids under 14.”

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Footage of a football match

Text box appears: “Early sports specialisation may be contributing.”

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Dr Dan Exeter sitting in a gym setting

Text appears: “Sport and Exercise Physician”

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Dr Dan Exeter – “So early sports specialisation in kids, there's really two parts to that. So, we talk about sports specialisation, and that's where we see kids doing one sport most of the year, most of the time, often to the exclusion of any other sport.”

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Clips of kids playing various sports 

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Dr Dan Exeter sitting in the gym

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Dr Dan Exeter – “And we call it early sports specialisation when it's happening in kids roughly under the age of 12.”

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Alex Chiet sitting in an outdoor setting

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Alex Chiet – “You've just gotta talk to our young people about what they want to do today, and actually they're not wanting to train for 20 hours a week and do these sorts of things, they're wanting to have fun with their mates.”

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Clips of kids getting interviewed and interacting

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Nehe Milner-Skudder sitting in a studio setting

Text appears: “Rugby player in NZ”

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Nehe Milner-Skudder – “In terms of specialising, yeah, nah I was probably one that drifted in and out of different sports and yeah, hasn't been a detriment to my journey or my progress, or teams and higher honours that I've made.”

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Footage of Nehe Milner-Skudder playing rugby

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Dr Dan Exeter sitting in the gym

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Dr Dan Exeter – “Kids that specialise too early in a sport or specialise in one sport may be more at risk of burning out and dropping out of that given sport; they can go on to form a negative relationship with sport and exercise through adulthood.”

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Kids training and playing rugby 

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Nehe Milner-Skudder sitting in a studio

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Nehe Milner-Skudder – “I guess what I'm sort of starting to understand
and realise is that you get a lot of benefit and different skills from all these different sports.”

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Clips of kids playing various sports

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Nehe Milner-Skudder – “A lot skill-sets you can cross over and actually, they help develop your game a lot better. When I think of rugby for instance, the movement or the motion they use for a layup in a basketball game is the same as going up for a high ball or, I've heard about the All Blacks coaches”

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Footage of the All Black’s playing rugby against Argentina

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Women performing the ballet

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Nehe Milner-Skudder – “working with the royal ballet just to see
how they move in terms of like line-out lifting”

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Nehe Milner-Skudder sitting in a studio

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Nehe Milner-Skudder – “and there's a lot of different skill-sets that cross over into your chosen sport, and I think by being open to that and developing that from a young age, I think that yeah, it will hold you in good stead.”

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Kids playing various sports

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Dr Natalie Hogg sitting in a studio setting

Text appears: “Dr Natalie Hogg” – “Sport Psychologist, Hurricanes” 

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Dr Natalie Hogg – “It's not just necessarily that someone has specialised in one sport to the exclusion of other sports; it's that they've also excluded other things like spending time with their peers, being at school, so sometimes by the time they get to this high-performance sports”

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Kids playing various sports and interacting with each other

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Dr Natalie Hogg sitting in the studio

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Dr Natalie Hogg – “setting, they've actually not got a lot of balance in their life. Sometimes sport is everything to them.”

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Dr Dan Exeter sitting in a gym

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Dr Dan Exeter – “I'm sure there's understandable concerns that this is more nanny-state politics and we're wrapping our kids up in cotton wool. And look, by and large that really isn't the case.”

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Clips of kids playing various sports

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Dr Dan Exeter sitting in the gym

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Dr Dan Exeter – “We have to recognise that there is a sweet spot, so we've gotta get kids into that sweet spot but not push them out the other side.”

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Nehe Milner-Skudder sitting in a studio

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Nehe Milner-Skudder – “You don't really need to be specialising in”

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Kids training for sports in a field setting

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Nehe Milner-Skudder – “a sport at such a young age, like when I think of even my time at high school, like you've got enough time to be able to try all these different sports.”

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Dr Dan Exeter sitting in a gym

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Dr Dan Exeter – “So get your kids doing enough, encourage them to try a wide range of sports, have an understanding of how much is too much, and rest assured that if your kid is one of those kids who's exceptionally talented at a given sport, then choosing lots of sports at an early age may actually enhance their chance of going on to have a successful future in sport, however you want to define that success.”

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ACC logo appears with website address under it

www.acc.co.nz