Children-common sports activities

[shootingstar]

That's a pretty tiny sample.
Here, at least, people put their kids in activities they're likely to get scholarships for. A friend of mine played soccer for years, as did her sister. Their father pushed both of them to get soccer scholarships. She now has a badly screwed up knee and ankle.
I also don't know how many people consider their kid's riding around the neighborhood (for example) as a separate physical activity from playing outside. I don't think mine did...apart from their insistence that I wear a helmet.

Sure it's a tiny sample....out of 300 adult respondents by telephone survey. Must mean less people are having children. I'm certain a non-English speaking adult couldn't respond properly for the survey. (Sorry, to bring it up...but survey biases are there. One just has to read more closely and figure it out.)

Enrolling child for fee-based/organized sports...for increasing school scholarships: Sports scholarships are nearly unheard of in Canada universities. (But any Canadian TE is free to add their opinion.) I personally know of only 1 Canadian teen who got a sports scholarship...for a Florida university. It was for tennis. No, kid was not a dummy and his parents were/are wealthy to help.

Gets more complicated/impossible when parent(s) can't afford to enroll child in a sport that requires fees. So my childhood/teenage sports choices reflect free physical activities. Only variation with siblings, is that some of my sisters did jogging for their school teams. Free of course. This is why cutting out physical education programs in schools is a crappy idea.

[shootingstar]

And interesting how biking by children on their own is just another 'play' tool. Probably because biking looks unstructured to adults when a bunch of kids hang out with one another on bikes.

[Owlie]

My high school instituted an "activity fee" of $50 per activity for sports teams the last year I was there, to make up for budget shortfalls. The year after, they extended it to all after-school activities. I know some of the music programs suffered. I wonder if the club sports did too.

Here's my question: Does it only count as a physical activity if it's organized?

[badger]

I think times are different now in that parents are more reluctant to let their children outside unsupervised. I remember going for bike rides with friends, but it was different back then. We actually went outside to play.

I think parents are more likely to enrol their kids into other sports, if nothing else than for supervision/coaching they'll get. There really isn't any organized cycling for kids, either, is there? (i.e. summer camps at a community centre). Truthfully, I don't think I'd want my kids to go out on their bikes in downtown Vancouver to "play", either.