The ability to have fun, be physically active, improve athletic skills, and advance in sports are important factors guiding children and parents in the decision whether to participate in sports (1). However, as the volume of participants and competition level continue to grow in youth sports, the choice of whether to specialize in a single sport remains a widely debated topic. Sport specialization is a complex and increasingly prevalent trend in youth sports. Experts define sport specialization as “intentional and focused participation in a single sport for a majority of the year that restricts opportunities for engagement in other sports and activities” (2). However, there is a gap in knowledge behind the decision-making undergirding why a youth athlete would choose to specialize in a single sport.

There are multiple factors that impact the decision to specialize in sport, ranging from the child's intentions to play at an advanced level, recommendations from coaches and personal trainers, as well as resource availability of the family and community. Surveying active youth has revealed specific motivations behind sport specialization, such as college scholarship opportunities or personal interest of a single sport more than others (3, 4). Similarly, collegiate athletes have indicated that personal interest was the most important factor for sport specialization while higher skill level in the chosen sport was second (5). Children are often influenced by parents and coaches as they navigate the sport environment, especially at younger ages (6, 7).

One reason that parents may allow their child to specialize in sports early is to provide more opportunities for sport success in the future. A survey involving parents of early adolescent athletes from a variety of sports reported a moderate belief that focusing on one sport year-round would increase the chance of the child playing in high school (89%) and college (87%) to some extent. Nearly all parents responded that it would increase the chance of improving the player's skills in their primary sport (98%) (8). Parents of highly specialized youth hockey players were also more likely than others to believe that specialization improved their child's chances of making a high school team and earning a college hockey scholarship (9). When parents of early adolescent athletes competing in team sports (e.g., soccer, basketball, baseball/softball) were asked about their level of influence on their child to focus on one sport, nearly 40% indicated that they had little to some influence and over 15% reported having considerable influence on their child to focus on one sport (10). Yet, work investigating the motivations and beliefs of the parents who encourage specialization remains limited.

While skill growth is valuable, specializing in a single sport may not always result in sport success or advancement (11). Notably, DiFiori et al. found that Division 1 collegiate athletes specialized in a single sport significantly later than their aged matched peers whose athletic involvement did not reach the collegiate level (12). Evidence also shows that youth who specialize in a single sport may be at risk of burnout, isolation, and injury (13–18). One prospective study found that youth who were classified as moderately or highly specialized experienced a significantly higher incidence of lower extremity injuries than children classified as low specialization status (19). Future risk of injury increases with increased specialization, such that youth with high specialization had the greatest risk for injury, including overuse injuries (16). A meta-analysis from Post et al. found that highly specialized athletes were significantly more likely to suffer an overuse injury as compared to moderately and low specialization athletes (20).

A consensus definition of specialization has been created using three questions tackling a child's involvement in sports and other activities (16). However, sport specialization is a complex decision that involves a myriad of factors involving both the child and parent (21). Understanding what drives the decision to specialize in a single sport is crucial given the known implications of sport specialization which may have a negative impact on an athlete's physical and mental well-being. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which various factors motivated parents in their decision-making regarding their child's sport specialization status and to determine whether these motivators varied based on the child's level of specialization. It was hypothesized that a variety of parental motivators would be strongly associated with their child's specialization status and that these motivators would be modulated by specialization level (low, moderate, high).

An anonymous online survey was created to explore the extent to which various factors motivated parents in their decision making regarding their child's sport participation. The custom survey was developed via collaboration between sports medicine practitioners (physical therapists, athletic trainers, and sports medicine physicians) and researchers, all considered sport specialization experts, and study procedures were approved by a regional institutional review board prior to recruitment. Face validity was determined by an expert panel of multidisciplinary sports medicine providers. The survey was shared publicly with the community and snowball recruitment encouraged participating parents to share the survey with other qualifying individuals that they knew personally. Data was collected using Qualtrics survey management software (Seattle, WA, USA).

The survey took approximately 10 min to complete, and a brief outline of topics can be viewed in Supplementary Appendix A. A total of 291 parents consented and began the survey and 161 parents with a mean age of 44.31 ± 5.78 years (87.0% white) completed the survey (55% completion rate), resulting in responses for 279 children with a mean age of 13.94 ± 2.66 years. The most common sport of participation was basketball (44.4%). However, the respondents' children were involved in a wide variety of sports (Table 1). A summary of relevant demographic information for parent participants and children are included in Table 1. Based on a consensus definition (2), 35% of parents indicated that they considered their child to be specialized. Soccer and basketball were the most common sports in which parents reported that their children were specialized. Parental responses according the specialization definition (16) are as follows: 155 (55.6%) of survey responses answered “Yes” to whether the child plays a specific sport for more than 8 months of the year that includes regular organized practices, competitions, and/or other structured training. 85 (30.5%) of survey responses answered “Yes” the child quit other sports to focus on a specific sport. 135 (48.4%) of survey responses answered “Yes” that their child's focused participation in a specific sport limits opportunities or time available for other activities such as participation in other sports, academics, extra-curricular activities, time with friends, and community engagement. Additional analysis was done on the 35% of respondents who considered their child to be specialized based on the consensus definition. 89 (90.8%) of survey responses answered “Yes” to whether the child plays a specific sport for more than 8 months of the year that includes regular organized practices, competitions, and/or other structured training. 55 (56.1%) of survey responses answered “Yes” the child quit other sports to focus on a specific sport. 73 (74.5%) of survey responses answered “Yes” that their child's focused participation in a specific sport limits opportunities or time available for other activities such as participation in other sports, academics, extra-curricular activities, time with friends, and community engagement. Interestingly, only a little more than half of parents who self-classified their child as being specialized indicated that their kid has quit a sport for another. These findings highlight that parents may most align the meaning of specialization with the amount of time spend participating in the sport annually. Based on the specialization definition (16), the majority of children were classified as specialized (70.7%), with 26.2% classified as low specialization, 25.1% as moderate specialization, and 19.4% as high specialization, representing a significant under classification of specialization by parents. Thus, a difference was observed between parental responses to child specialization and researcher classification of specialization. Eleven of 23 (48%) motivators showed differences by specialization status (specialized vs. non-specialized) and 26% of motivators varied by level of specialization (low, moderate, or high). All motivator responses and distributions are presented in Table 2. Differences in motivators between the non-specialized group and specialized group are presented in Table 3.

Family Support/Involvement was the motivator with the highest total percentage of strongly agree responses (45.5%). In contrast, Community Lacking Accessibility (64.2%), Team/League Rules (56.3%), and Child Lacking Athletic Ability (48.4%) garnered the strongest disagreement. Parent Desire for College Scholarship (42.7%) and Parent Desire for Sport Advancement (40.1%) both elicited the most neutral responses, indicating that they neither agreed nor disagreed. Lastly, parent-specific social factors, including Parent Enjoys Social Opportunity, Parent Enjoys Sport Connection, Parent Made New Friends, Parent Enjoys Parent Interaction, and Parent Would Miss Parent Interaction all leaned heavily toward agreement (45.9–71.7%) and received little disagreement (5.4–25.4%). A visual highlighting the agreement of each motivator can be found in Figure 1. “Lack of time” variables represent having less time available for allowing of participation in multiple sports.

Parents of a child without specialization (non-specialized) were more likely to disagree that Parent Lacks Time and Child Lacks Time were motivators for participation as compared to parents of a specialized child. Notable differences were observed in non-parent attributes, with the non-specialized group more likely to agree that Conflicts with Child Socialization, Child Desire for Sport Advancement and Child Lost Interest in Other Sports were motivators as compared to the specialized group. Additionally, the non-specialized group was more likely to disagree that Financial Constraints, Team/League Rules, Coach Recommendations, and Parent Fear of Injury were motivators as compared to the specialized group.

Differences in motivators among specialization groups are presented in Table 4. Across specialization levels, the low specialization group was more likely to disagree that Parent Lacks Time, Parent Fear of Injury, and Team/League Rules, were motivators as compared to the high specialization group. The low specialization group was more likely to disagree that Child Lacks Time was a motivator as compared to both the moderate and high specialization groups.

The purpose of the current study was to determine the influence of motivators for youth sport specialization, as rated by parents, and how motivators differed by specialization status of the youth athlete. It was hypothesized that a variety of parental motivators would differ by child's specialization status, which was supported by the findings of the current study. Most parental motivators showed differences between specialization statuses. It was also hypothesized that parental motivators would vary by the child's specialization level, which was partially supported as nearly a third of motivators differed across specialization levels.

There was strong disagreement that lack of time for both the child and parent, financial constraints, and lack of community accessibility were motivators for parents. This was an unexpected finding as resource availability, or a lack thereof, has often been associated with specialization (23, 24). However, the non-specialized group was more likely to disagree that time and money were motivators for their child's specialization. Parents whose children were classified as highly specialized were more likely to agree that lack of time for both the child and parent were motivators as compared to parents whose child was classified in the low specialization group, suggesting that specialization may occur as a result of limited time. External pursuits, like jobs or volunteering in addition to concurrently demanding sport schedules, may limit multi-sport participation time, resulting in a single-sport focus. The fundamental role of money and time has been observed in previous work; however, prior findings suggest that resource demands were a barrier to participation and specialization (25). Over 75% of baseball parents indicated that the time demands of non-sport activities limited the child's ability to play baseball and a majority stated that the time and cost demands of baseball itself were barriers to baseball participation (23). Whether one sport or many, previous work alongside the present study further reiterate the valuable role of time in youth sport participation.

More than 35% of parents in the present study considered their child to be specialized in sport(s) based on the consensus definition that they were provided. However, 70.7% of children met specialization status per that same consensus definition when assessed by the researchers (16). This discrepancy highlights a consistent and significant disconnect in the understanding of sport specialization between parents and experts, as well as a gap in how we attempt to measure it. Even when provided with a consensus definition, parents may be inclined or influenced to answer in a certain way based on their own knowledge of their child, the additional environmental factors not captured by most specialization questionnaires, and/or the motivators behind the decision to specialize or not. Considering parents were only presented with the figure and not fully educated on the definition, parents may also interpret words or descriptions differently. 44.5% of children were classified as having either moderate or high specialization, a closer representation to the 30% specialization value as determined by parents, highlighting a disparity in the potential overclassification of a three-item scale and the difficulty in identifying low specialization. 84.7% of those who self-classified as being specialized were also grouped as having either moderate or high specialization according to the previously published definition. Future parental education should more clearly define what it means to be a specialized athlete and express the benefits and drawbacks of early sport specialization. While there is some debate in the academic community about what constitutes specialization, more robust scales have recently been published and should be further investigated in future research (26).

Parents of children in the specialized group were more likely to agree that their child's desire for sport advancement and their child's loss of interest in other sports were motivators for specialization, and this was most strongly reported in parents of children with higher specialization levels. The decision to specialize may be attributed to the child's desires rather than the parent's. It is possible that parental influence is lessened as the adolescent enters into their later teens; however, this was not evaluated. A child who is determined to progress in competition, and certainly if they no longer enjoy other sports, may end up quitting activities at the expense of their favorite or best sport (27). Understanding these dynamics will likely require qualitative or mixed-methods studies designed to understand child and parent motivators more clearly.

Parents of children in the specialized group were more likely to agree that fear of injury is related to an increase in the child's current sport participation/training volume or participation in certain sports motivated sports participation choices compared to parents of children in the non-specialized group. Within the specialized group, parents of children classified as highly specialization were also more likely to agree with this sentiment than parents of children in the low specialization group. Parents may purposefully, or unintentionally, drive sport specialization to avoid injury, potentially due to participating in multiple sports, and thus, ultimately reducing the child's total exposures. However, it is also notable that most parents disagreed that their child's injury history motivated which sports a parent allowed a child to participate in. Previous research has reported that over 90% of youth sport parents voiced that specialization would increase chances of getting hurt (23, 24). However, research consistently demonstrates that specialized athletes are at a greater risk for injury (15, 16, 19). Despite the evidence for increased injury risk with specialization, many children continue to specialize. A lack of parental understanding of the known injury risks of specialization may explain this disconnect. Knowledgeable researchers, clinicians, and coaches need to better communicate with and educate parents on the risks of sport specialization so that they can make informed decisions.

Parental desire for sport advancement and college scholarships did not show notable differences between specialized and non-specialized groups. This disagrees with previous literature reporting that 93% of youth baseball parents and over 95% of youth basketball parents believed year-round focus on one sport increased the chances of playing in high school and college, with 99% of baseball parents believing it would improve skill development (23, 24). An investigation of over 1,500 NCAA athletes found that more than 80% of participants were classified as “late specializers” meaning that they did not specialize in a single sport until after the age of 15 (28). Furthermore, the majority of Division 1 athletes played more than one sport during their senior year of high school (29). Alternatively, there was a difference in child desire for sport advancement. While the difference of child desire compared to parental desire for sport advancement is not substantial, children may be more motivated to improve their skills than is shown by parents. Further surveying of youth athletes may demonstrate even greater discrepancies between child and parent desires.

Notably, among the potential motivators that were assessed, “Family Support/Involvement” received the greatest percentage of agreement, highlighting the central role that families and parents have in navigating sport specialization. However, no notable differences were observed between degrees of specialization, indicating that regardless of a child's participation level, family members provide influential assistance. Coach Recommendations showed slight differences between specialized and non-specialized groups. There appears to be an effect of age and sport level (school vs. club) on broad multi-activity exposure and dedicated sport success singularity (30, 31). For children of a younger age, sport leaders appear to be less influential on the decision to focus on a single sport or participate in multiple. Track and field coaches indicated that they believed specialization should occur at a later age than was reported by parents of track and field youth athletes (31). Another study reported that club sport coaches were more likely to view specialization positively, as compared to high school coaches (30). Leaders in a child's athletic life, like parents and coaches, may have an impact on sport decisions and the push for success. The inclusion of parents of older children in the present study may have resulted in more pronounced outcomes related to Coach and Personal Trainer Recommendations. As athletes grow older and experience increases in competition level, the idea of specialization and whether the child is playing the sport for fun or for their future becomes ever more pertinent to the individual and their stakeholders alike.