Linda Flanagan paints a vivid picture of the “Little League parent” in her book, “Take Back the Game.” It was herself. She writes about being so proud of her son’s basketball skills before realizing that she’d gotten too caught up in being a super-fan. 

Parents need to back off from their kids’ games, said Flanagan, a former track coach, herself. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with sports, she said. Athletics are training grounds for character, friendship, and connection; at their best, sports insulate kids from hardship and prepare them for adult life. 

But youth sports have changed over the last 25 years, said Flanagan. They no longer deliver the healthy outcomes everyone wants. Instead, unbeknownst to most parents, kids who play competitive organized sports are more likely to burn out or suffer from overuse injuries than develop their characters or build healthy habits. 

In “Take Back the Game,” Flanagan writes about the youth sports industry that’s grown up, capitalizing on parents’ worry about their kids’ futures while selling the idea that more competitive play is essential in the feeding frenzy over access to colleges and universities. Flanagan delves into a national obsession that has compelled kids to specialize year-round in one sport, increased the risk of both physical injury and mental health problems, encouraged egregious behavior by coaches and parents while reducing access to sports for low-income families. 

If you want a good example of how to handle sports, check out Norway, Flanagan told Steve Tarter. It's a country with "a culture geared toward children, their development and  enjoyment of sports versus our system which is based around adults, adult supervision, seriousness, and competition," she said.