The sport drop-out in adolescence

Edited by Dr. Stefano Casali

"Sports activity in adolescence, especially if practiced at a competitive level, is grafted onto a terrain rich in interpersonal reversals and existential problems, affecting intrapsychic dynamisms and acting on the ability to control the" ego and on the unconscious dynamics that in during this period they undergo massive readjustments "(Zimbardi F., 2003).

The context

Various studies and conferences have dealt with the growing "unease" that affects our youth, especially in urban realities. There are various signs of "intolerance" of young people and very young people, towards the social system, towards the school system and for various aspects also towards the sports system, built on "adult models", no longer understood and indeed rejected with an accentuation of generational differences. The rapid transformation of our country, the fall of a series of values ​​and reference cultural models, obviously affects all this.

Sports news deals more and more often with episodes of intolerance involving athletes, managers and parents, engaged in amateur sports, in minor and youth championships, sometimes even in school activities. Sport seems to no longer be able to educate the young people and the figures that revolve around them, indeed often ends up constituting a real moment of verbal or even physical "clash", where the tensions accumulated for other aspects of social life are discharged. Sports figures in contact with young people they seem to suffer from the same problems, linked to the personal need to emerge at any cost and to the detriment of anyone who can hinder "the" ascent "to prestigious levels. Success, victory, glory, money, are well worth any conflict, to the detriment of the training and education of one's young person.
From numerous investigations carried out in various Italian cities, it emerges that today's young people no longer seem to tolerate the "armor" imposed by an exasperated competitive spirit, which dwells more in the thoughts of the adult figures who revolve around the sports system. There is a sense of "regained freedom" and maturation, for a "sport with a more human face". But a second key to interpreting the phenomenon, allows others to affirm instead that there is less willingness to sacrifice, commitment and rules, which it pushes young people towards a more fun, less competitive and stressful practice, as well as towards different choices from the sporting context. The phenomenon, however, can also be explained by the "inability of the sports system to renew itself, to offer new and more exciting models and which also takes into account the many" offers "of a profoundly changed society. of "sporting abandonment" (drop out) in youth sports. From the same studies it can be deduced that there are about 33% of ex-practitioners among the students of lower secondary schools, who have already had experiences related to the world of sport, but have also already lost interest in this world. Among the factors that may have influenced such a large number of young people in the decision to abandon sports, it emerges that 77.9% of young people abandoned after practicing for one, two or three years, without interruption. discipline, while the remaining 22.1% declared an occasional ex-practice. The answers highlight two general aspects among the main reasons for abandonment:

• one referred to the school world, due to the excessive commitment required by the study (56.5%);
• the other to the methods of carrying out the activity and to the relationship with coaches and teammates - since playing sports "got bored" (65.4%).

If you add to the latter the percentages relating to the following reasons for abandonment: instructors who are too demanding (19.4%), instructors who do not follow (14.2%), "too much effort" (24.4%), difficulty in socializing (28.7%), it follows that the difficulties linked to the relationship with the "organization" of the activity practiced are evident, hence the need to review the organizational model on which the Sports Clubs intervene.

Second part "