Why "They Love It, Let's Sign Them Up" Is How Kids Lose the Lead in Their Own Play (And How to Give It Back)

Play doesn't disappear. It changes shape. Our job is not to get in the way.

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Last week, I was sitting in a stuffy middle school office where the heat was blaring that dry, persistent air that makes your lips crack and your sweater feel itchy. Brown oval table, linoleum peeling at the edges, the smell of old coffee in the air. A few sixth-grade teachers, a school counselor, and me making small talk while we waited for a meeting to start.

The woman next to me shuffled her papers and yawned as she opened her laptop. I smiled in commiseration, and she said, “I was at the ice hockey rink with my ten-year-old until 11 pm last night. Then up to give him breakfast and back to the rink at 4:30 am for practice.”

Another teacher nodded. “Been there. It’s just exhausting.”

Another chimed in: “And the money! We spent all that money on hockey from the time my child was four. And they quit in middle school. I don’t know if I’m relieved or upset…”

I sat there, and I felt for them. These are good parents. Parents who saw their kid light up about something and did what good parents do — they went all in. They signed them up. They drove them there. They bought the gear and rearranged the weekends and sacrificed sleep and money and sanity because their child loved the thing.

And that’s the instinct I want to talk about: “They love it, so we sign them up.”

It sounds so right. It feels like love. And sometimes it is the right move.

But sometimes, more often than we think, it’s the move that takes the thing your kid loves and turns it into something else entirely.

Here’s what I mean

There’s a moment around eight or nine when play starts to shift. The dress-up bin stops being opened. The elaborate pretend worlds fade. Kids start gravitating toward things with real stakes — sports, art, building, games with rules they invented and will defend with their lives.

That IS play. It just doesn’t look the way it used to.

And the moment it starts looking more like a “real interest,” we do what loving parents do. We organize it. We sign them up. We optimize.

Say your nine-year-old loves baseball. Talks about it nonstop. Wants to throw the ball around every evening. Draws team logos in their notebook.

The instinct is to channel that. Competitive league. Travel team. Give them more of the thing they love.

But… what is it about baseball that lights them up?

Is it the hanging around with friends part? The competitive edge? The strategy? Or is it just being outside, being part of something, having a thing that feels like theirs?

Those are very different answers. And they lead to very different next steps.

A kid who loves the social, backyard-with-friends version of baseball might not thrive when that gets replaced by twice-a-week practices with a coach tracking stats. Not because competitive sports are bad, but because we took the thing that felt like play and turned it into another obligation on the calendar.

The play drained right out of it. And the kid can feel that, even if they can’t name it.

What makes something play isn’t the activity. It’s the sense of ownership over it. When kids choose what to do, how to do it, and when to stop- that’s play. The moment that autonomy disappears, it stops being play. Even if the activity looks the same from the outside.

And I know, especially around ten or eleven, your kid’s social life starts organizing around these teams and activities. “Protect the play” can feel like “isolate your child” when every friend is on a roster. I’m not saying never sign them up. I’m saying ask why before you do. And make sure the thing they love still belongs to them on the other side of it.

Norway figured this out

Norway is dominating the Winter Olympics. And here’s their youth sports program:

No keeping score until 13. No national travel competitions in youth sports. No posting youth results online. Motto: “Joy of Sport for All.”

They let kids be kids. And it works.

We don’t live in Norway. We live in a culture where travel teams start at six, and college feels like it’s breathing down your neck by middle school. I get that. Opting out isn’t simple. But the country dominating the Olympics built its entire youth sports philosophy around not doing what we’re doing. That’s worth sitting with.

Meanwhile, we’re driving ten-year-olds to the rink at 4:30 am and spending thousands on travel hockey starting at age four. And some of those kids quit in middle school. Because by then, the joy has been scheduled right out of it.

I Didn’t Sign My Kids Up:

I spent years wondering if I’d ruined everything. Here’s what really happened (they are 18, 16, and 13 now) and the five questions I wish someone had handed me before my kids were old enough for any of this to matter.

Here’s what happened:

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