Can sports help kids develop grit?

As an Emory professor at Emory, James K. Rilling was hearing about the rising rates of depression and anxiety among college students. When he asked mental health providers why, they cited a lack of resilience in today’s young people.

So, he wondered how to cultivate resilience in children and thinks sports will be the answer for his own son.

Rilling writes on the AJC Get Schooled blog, “I marvel at the opportunities sports have provided my son for social and psychological growth. When he first started playing at age 3, the anthropologist in me was struck by the harshness of the ritual: small children, on stage, being implored by a crowd of screaming, excited adults to compete and succeed. It seemed almost cruel. I wondered if the kids were thinking, ‘Have the grown-ups gone crazy?’ Nevertheless, the first important lesson our kids learn from sports is that we live in a competitive society where you sometimes have to compete.”