Introduction
Sporting activities are of benefit to persons of every age group and more specifically to children. There exists a unanimous conclusion among researchers that sporting activities in children have tremendous positive effects on their rate of physical growth and development. Physical fitness in children is additionally linked to an improved immune system thus a sporting child is a healthier child. Sports also increase their mental development, strength, and endurance. Children who are actively involved in sports are objective, organized and disciplined (David, 2004 ). Other benefits of sporting in children include social interactions, intercultural awareness, and entertainment, sharpening of skills, and improved self-esteem. Also, children learn the aspect of obeying rules and laws in the outside world after frequently obeying officials in gaming activities. Despite the benefits, several ethical issues continue to affect children participating in sports. Immature athletes are prone to musculoskeletal disorders and frequent concussions which are a threat to their health. Exploitation, discrimination, age cheating, social segregation, psychological stress, and hormonal manipulation are among the vast list of unethical issues . Other discussed ethical issues are generalized under parental, coaching, spectators and participants' unethical conduct. It's incontrovertible that all stakeholders involved in children's games do contribute to these ethical issues should, therefore, participate in their elimination through the recommended ways.
Ethical Issues in Children Sports
Immaturity is directly linked to harm in young athletes. Musculoskeletal disorders have commonly been reported by physicians treating children who actively participate in sports. Since these athletes’ bone, muscle and tendons are partially developed, shock and train during sports results in conditions such as osteoarthritis, fractures and rheumatoid arthritis. Repeated concussions are also a sign of immaturity in the neck muscle ( Hudson & Spradley, 2016) . Researchers suggest that before attainment of age six or seven, children cannot comprehend the concept of competition (David, 2004).
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The exploitation of children athletes is common in unaudited associations. Organizers of such events reap big in registration fees and ticket collections but intentionally under reward the participating athletes.
Discrimination in age, gender, race, and sexuality continues to affect both adult and junior sports (Huston, 2017). This unethical challenge gets considerable actions in adult sports but is ignored in young athletes. Younger athletes continue to get lesser remuneration, access substandard facilities, and resources as compared to their elder counterparts. In gender discrimination, some sports such as soccer and basketball are more emphasized in boys than girls. Racism occurs in schools and clubs during team selection. In most cases, minority groups are less favored. In his book, "Human Rights in Youth Sports," David (2004) suggests a human rights model that can effectively curb racism in children's sport. He asserts that researchers need to collect data on the number of children joining clubs and those who end up being professional athletes as well as information on the majority who drop out of the system before reaching an elite level. Establishing reasons for the dropouts and observing its prevalence per race will help in the fight against racism (David, 2004). Disabilities and medical conditions also form a basis of discrimination in children's sports. Children with minor deformities, albinism, mild autism and seizure should not only be allowed to participate but also be facilitated with their special requirements while gaming.
Age-related ethics not only occur under age discrimination but also age bracketing and age cheating. Some competitions have rules and regulations whose age bracketing issues are unfair to the younger participants. An example is an under 18 tournament that legally permits a 12-year-old to compete against a 17-year-old. The younger opponent would be disadvantaged in both skill and physicality. Age cheating occurs when the date of birth is intentionally falsified by parents or coaches to enable an elder participant illegally participate in an event whose age bracket is lower. This amounts to unfairness and makes the younger athletes vulnerable to injury and psychological stress from intimidation.
Despite sports bringing together persons of different races and cultures as well as fostering social interaction, it’s been identified that young athletes tend to suffer from social isolation when participating in sports. Studies show that children tend to interact and identify themselves with only those who participate in their sports of interest. They, therefore, isolate themselves from other groups and segregate themselves into sport-related cohorts. Self-isolation is detrimental to their social growth.
Psychological stress has been observed but is often ignored in children who take part in monotonous and repetitive sporting activities. Sporting activities are meant to be fun and enjoyable. Even though most games successfully achieve this, some activities are monotonous and need not be done daily and for a prolonged time. This often changes from fun to boredom and eventually cumulates into what physician term as psychological stress. Children suffering from this stress are always depressed and show signs of uncontrolled aggression and anxiety’
Doping is arguably the most scrutinized of all ethical issues in sporting activities. However, minor children’s sporting events are often exempted from the imagination that participants may be victims of doping and dietary manipulations. This gives room to unethical coaches and parents to practice doping on children. This is unfair and also harmful to young athletes. The World Ant-Doping Agency Code prohibits any substance or method that is intentionally used to enhance performance, is harmful, and or whose use amounts to unsporting behavior ( Handelsman & Gooren, 2008). Performance in sports generally depends on the strength of athletes, their skills, ability to endure stress and strain, and recovery speed after injury and exhaustion. Dopers, therefore, use substances that enhance these performance-related factors thus giving them a higher chance of winning. Children in sports that demand rapid strength such as short races and rugby are secretly subjected to androgen doping which enhances their muscles and body strength. Those in Sports that demand endurance and mental strength such as long races are taken through hemoglobin doping. Hemoglobin doping, achieved via blood transfusion or dispensation of erythropoietin, increases the amount of oxygen delivered to muscle cells thus enhancing endurance. Growth hormones are used to enhance tissue recovery and are widely used on injured children who are taking part in tournaments, to hasten their recovery and enable them to participate in upcoming events. However, the Therapeutic Use Exemption is permitted by the World Anti-Doping Agency and should be allowed on children with sincere medical conditions (Handelsman & Gooren, 2008).
Other ethical issues can be grouped into isolated cases where parents, coaches, officials, and spectators take part in actions that negatively affect children or defeats the purpose of sporting activities. Parents get involved in such cases through the falsification of athletes' biodata and medical conditions. Coaches have, in some instances, been found guilty of overtraining, sexually abusing minors and giving unethical instructions to athletes. The intensity in training is due to the competitive nature of sports but overtraining a six-year cold leads to serious health issues (David, 2004). Sexual abuse has little data since only a few cases are reported and investigated. Brackenridge, in, “Spoilsports: Understanding and preventing sexual exploitation in sport”, points out that we are living in part of the history of sports that has the least data on sexual abuse. He notes that the forms of abuse that go unrecorded may be intimate from involved parties, aggressive, or opportunistic from coaches and sports physicians (Brackenridge, 2001). The reasons for the lack of sufficient data are due to the absence of monitoring and accountability bodies in children's sport. The war on sexual abuse can only be won through monitoring and acquisition of reliable data (David, 2004).
Coaching strategies may also amount to unethical conduct. An example of unethical coaching instruction is instructing a participant to harm the best player in the opponent’s team to increase winning chances. Spectators take part in unethical behaviors when they use derogatory language aimed at children or their officials. Such language often tends to be racist. This defeats the sporting purpose of unifying races results in racial discrimination (Shields, Bredemeier, LaVoi, & Power, 2005).
Conclusion
Undoubtedly, sporting activities in children are marred with unethical activities that go unpunished. Sporting activities, regardless of age group or level of participation, ought to be carried out ethically by observing fairness, integrity, responsibility, and respect as principles of sportsmanship . The principle of fairness demands that rules and guidelines established are agreeable to all participants and are adhered to in all aspects. This will also eliminate forms of discrimination and poor officiating. The principle of integrity dictates that participants develop a habit of being truthful and honest. This puts an end to fake calls from officials, the pretense of injury from players and duping of officials into making wrong decisions. The principle of responsibility gives every stakeholder a sense of accountability on assigned duties. Lastly is the principle of respect that demands every stakeholder to treat another with high regard.
The stakeholders in children's games; parents, coaches, athletes, associations, and sports physicians, each have accountable responsibilities towards the attainment of ethics. It's recommended that parents should play a vital role in ensuring children's lives are balanced to avert the psychological stress of monotonous activities and social isolation. To reduce cases of concussions and musculoskeletal disorders, sports physicians should perform neck muscle training on children and advise associations on rules related to the age of participation and intensity of training. Coaches, officials, and associations must all set and abide by agreeable rules, regulations, and code of conduct. Cases of doping, overtraining, age falsification, poor officiating, and sexual abuse should all be elaborated in the governing regulations. An independent monitoring body of every association should then be mandated to observe violations. Breach of conduct should lead to legal actions as a form of serving justice and discouraging possible offenders.
References
David, P. (2004). Human rights in youth sport: A critical review of children’s rights in
competitive sport. Ethics and Sport . London: Routledge
Bouchard, C., & Rankinen, T. (2001). Individual differences in response to regular physical activity. Medical Science Sports Exercise .
Brackenridge, C. H. (2001). Spoilsports: Understanding and preventing sexual exploitation in sport . London: Routledge
Handelsman, D.J. & Gooren, L.J. (2008) Hormones and sport: physiology, pharmacology and forensic science. Asian Journal Andrology, 10 , 348-50.
Hudson, R., & Spradley, B. (2016). Concussions: A sport ethics commentary. Sports Journal.
Huston, J. L. (2017). Ethics of youth sports: Protecting our future. International Journal of Athletic Therapy and Training, 22(1), 33-37.
Shields, D., Bredemeier, L., LaVoi, N. M., & Power, F. C. (2005). The sport behavior of youth, parents and coaches. Journal of Research in Character Education, 3(1), 43-59.
