填空题

For years, youth sports pushers tried to get us hooked: organized sports, they said, offered a natural high and would build character in our children. (71) But there are high-functioning cokeheads, too. Like every American, I have close friends whose families struggle with a youth sports addiction. So let’s talk about the dark side of the youth sports epidemic.
First off, when they’re spending every spare second at soccer practice, children lose that crucial downtime they need for exercising their imaginations, as well as their limbs. And Dr. Lenny Wiersma, co-director of tile Center for the Advancement of Responsible Youth Sport, warns that when kids miss out on "the old sandbox and informal games," they also lose opportunities to develop peer interactions that are "organized and regulated by themselves."
(72) The Michigan study cited above also found a sixfold increase in the time children spent on "passive, spectator leisure," as more and more kids found themselves dragged off to watch their siblings’ sports events.
Organized youth sports also cut into relaxed family time. (73) That’s not to speak of all the exhausted parents who put their own interests--and relationships--on hold for a decade, devoting every free minute to hauling their kids from game to game. Of course, organized sports isn’t the only culprit. (74)
The pressure can leave even high-achieving kids exhausted, demoralized and at risk of "self-destructive behaviors," Harvard’s admissions office warns. Harvard now urges that applicants "take some sort of timeout before burnout becomes the hallmark of their generation." Parents: Just say no. Rip up that T-ball signup sheet; throw out the expensive soccer cleats. If you want an activity that develops character and physical skills, encourage the kids to help build houses with Habitat for Humanity.
But the rest of the time, let them do what generations of American children did before them: climb trees, build backyard forts, play hopscotch and endless games of tag. (75)

• A. Some children possess genuine athletic talent, and in the youth sports programs they really stands out and become more confident.
• B. It’s time to give childhood back to our children.
• C. Like secondhand smoke, a child’s involvement in youth sports can have detrimental side effects on others.
• D. And it’s true that organized youth sports work out fine for some families.
• E. It’s just one reflection of the middle-class American insistence on over-scheduling our children, rushing them between soccer practices, piano lessons, French lessons and SAT prep classes.
• F. The same study found that families today spend a third less time eating dinners together, and 28% less time taking family vacations.