Sports is the only thing that comes to parents' minds when their child has nothing productive to do and is just hanging out. As we get older, sports can become relatively stressful for us as we constantly worry about homework, school and sometimes work, but this is not always the case with young children. When we are younger, we have countless amounts of energy stored in our bodies and we rarely run out. This is why sports can really benefit us, especially when we start participating in them from a young age. Although some people think that parents try to coach their children on the field, parents should still push children to participate in sports from a young age, but to a certain extent. This is because sports will make them tough, know how to handle a win and a loss, and make them less likely to get into trouble. “More than 30 million children and adolescents in the United States participate in team or individual sports (Engle).” However, the messages conveyed in the media are often contradictory: sport is healthy; sport is stressful, even dangerous – sport promotes cooperation, sport breeds unhealthy competition and burnout (Engle). According to the United Nations Report on Sport, Recreation and Play, physical inactivity was estimated to cause 1.9 million deaths per year worldwide in 2000. Research shows that in addition to being a source of simple pleasure, sport promotes healthy development in many areas, including positive effects that last into adulthood (Engle). Sports contribute to physical, cognitive, academic, psychological and character development. The definition of pushed or push simply means to exert force (on someone or something), usually with the hand, in order to move...... middle of paper ...... We can do this by constantly being in competition from time to time. the field all the time. Until we have no more breath, no more energy, and no more live left in us, we must continue to perform at a high level. Sport is like a book. If we read it and read it all the time, we will have extreme knowledge of everything the sport has to offer. We need sports content to live and that's a fact. Just Play It. Works Cited Engle, Marianne. "Kids and Sports: Creating a Healthy Experience for Every Child | AboutOurKids.org." Children and sports. Np, and Google. March 18, 2014. Heffernan, Lisa. “Why parents should encourage their children to play team sports.” Empty nest parenting: Grown up and gone. Np, November 20, 2013. Google. March 18, 2014. McCormick, John. "Children and team sports: should parents push their children to play?" » TheHuffingtonPost.com, February 19, 2013. Google. March 18. 2014.