The thought process while writing this editorial to be entitled, "Do we have a soccer culture? The emphatic answer is NO!" was interrupted by a phone call from the other side of the country. My friend Alan Maher excitedly insisted that I stop the presses and take the time to read/study a past issue of Newsweek, Special Edition, "Your Child" Spring/Summer 1997. His enthusiasm was well warranted.
Here is a sample:
Little Artists and Athletes
Fine and gross motor skills may not forecast the future
Cradling a newborn, said playwright Sebastian Barry in "The Steward of Christendom," is like "holding a three-pound bag of loose corn": the baby has about as much motor control as the sack of kernels and is equally incapable of any intentional movement. Yet to many parents it seems like only an instant between this period of almost comical un-coordination and the moment their teenage violinist masters the precise fingering required for rapid arpeggios, or their adolescent jock musters all the coordination in her quadriceps to nail the triple jump. How much do these later feats owe to early- childhood practice and precocity?
The development of fine and gross motor skills proceeds independently. Although they require the same physical foundations --formation of brain synapses, myelination of nerves (main story) -- the two skills proceed in fits and starts. If a baby is putting lots of effort into gross motor skills one week, he won't be working much on fine motor skills. And every new move has to be repeated over and over to strengthen neural circuits that wind from the brain's thinking areas into the motor cortex and out to nerves that move muscles. But how quickly a child acquires motor skills is hardly a harbinger of achievement. "How early a baby walks has little to do with future athletic ability," says Laurie Nathanson.
Yet stories abound of how athletic greatness was fore-shadowed by childhood flair. Olympic soccer gold medallist Mia Hamm says she "began kicking a ball at the age of 2." She lived in Italy and copied the older kids in the park. And the story of how Tiger Woods swung his first golf club at 10 months has taken on the status of legend. Whether such precocious moments set Hamm and Woods on the road to stardom is debatable, but there is no question that down the road there is a "too late." No world champion skater or golfer took up the sport after 12. And in his 1996 book "Why Michael Couldn't Hit," neurologist Harolds Klawans of Rush Medical College in Chicago described how, at 31, basketball megastar Jordan couldn't retool his visual-motor synapses enough to whack a curve ball. "The brain has to learn how to recognize the spin and speed and direction of the (pitched) ball, explains Klawans, "and then to swing the bat at just the right speed and in precisely the proper location." If the brain's visual and motor neurons are not trained between the ages of 2 and 11 to do that, by adult- hood the neurons are simply not "plastic" enough for the job.
If parents want to raise a prodigy, the best they can do is make experiences available to the child. Kids who get to handle paintbrushes and Prince racquets early on figure out that art and tennis are considered cool in the household, for instance. But sometimes it is not the obvious experiences that sculpt excellence: Walter Payton, one of the NFL's greatest running backs, took ballet as a child. Still, physical skill is only one ingredient in artistic or athletic achievement; the rest is mental. Olympic swimmer Amy van Dyken says, "You can't teach mental toughness. You can teach concentration, but the child won't be happy if that's not what the kid wants to do."
Ambitious parents might heed the case of Yeou-Cheng Ma. She started the violin at 2 1/2 and tutored by her father, won youth competitions galore. Then younger brother Yo-Yo, who took up the cello at 4 1/2 eclipsed her. Yeou-Cheng suffered a breakdown at 15 over the loss of a solo career. Now a pediatrician, she doesn't hate music -- she also runs New York's Children's Orchestra. But Ma has little patience with parents who push their children. "The job of a child is to play," she says, "I traded my childhood for my left hand." By Anne Underwood and Peter Plagen.
Was Alan Maher correct that this issue of Newsweek is MUST READING for those of us involved in youth development? If this sample intrigued you then I urge you to get your own copy of this timely issue!
Your FUNdmental
Koach Karl
Readers, your comments and suggestions on these editorials are always welcome!!!
