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USA Today
2 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
'Work of the devil'? Authors, dads test limits of travel sports
BERKELEY, CA - 'You want to see what Americans care about?' Michael Lewis asks. You probably know Lewis. He takes sports and societal narratives – the sabermetric undercurrent, a homeless kid seemingly born to be a left tackle, the careful yet tough influence of a high school coach – and turns them into influential books. The really good subjects, he has found, are right under your nose and no one is saying anything about them. That eventually becomes impossible. Take travel sports. 'Go to a 10 year old softball game and watch the parents,' Lewis said in March at the Project Play Summit. 'They care about that more than anything.' Across campus at the University of California, another author, Richard Reeves, raised within a British youth sports system much more infatuated with playing than the material things you can get from sports, offered this reading of the landscape: 'Travel sports, the work of the devil.' Reeves' three sons were around middle school age when he and his wife brought them over from the United Kingdom to America, and into the so-called youth sports industrial complex. 'You've got these kids being hauled around the country and think they got to do this, parents shouting in their ears and they had scouts there and individual coaches,' he tells USA TODAY Sports. 'I was horrified by the culture around it.' Lewis had two softball-playing daughters and, like so many of us, gave himself to their careers. 'The most pathetic character inside it is the one who's paying for it all,' Lewis writes in 'Playing to Win,' his 2020 audiobook that details life in the complex. 'The sports parent funds the entire operation but is regarded by everyone else as expendable. The central truth of this elaborate mechanism we've built so that our children might compete against each other might be this: How little a parent can do to help the child. As a result, the overwhelming emotion of the sport parent is anxiety.' But would he do it again? It's a question he thought about as he wrote, and as he spoke to the crowd at Project Play five years later about what has become a $40 billion industry. The two authors (and dads) offer perspective on their zany escapades within travel ball and advice on how we can negotiate it – or perhaps avoid it entirely. Travel and youth sports can give parents a 'moral education' Lewis has raised two daughters and a son with his wife, Tabitha Soren. Soren thought softball would be a nice way for dad and his young daughters, Quinn and Dixie, to bond. What could go wrong? Ther local softball league was founded by Cal religion professor Harlan Stelmach under the premise it existed for the 'moral education of parents.' It was against the rules to talk about the score, or even to use verbs from the stands to instruct or criticize your daughter while she was playing. 'Left to their own devices, children playing sports make it fun,' Stelmach said. 'It's when adults get involved that the problems arise.' The goal was a .500 record, and an evaluation was held to select teams balanced equally by skill. But dad coaches whose daughters were good players told their children to 'tank' their formal evaluations so they would be undervalued. The rules were about adult behavior. 'You're not just teaching the kids, you're teaching the parents,' he says. 'Most of the competitive landscape was Daddy ball,' Lewis says. 'It was dads who cared too much, who were frustrated by their own lack of success as baseball players, whose wives had seen this is the one way to interest their husband in their daughter was to get them into competitive sports and have them run their sporting lives.' Haley Woods, an All-American catcher and power hitter at Cal who coached Dixie Lewis when she became a competitive travel player, had a poignant message for parents. It's what we need to understand when our kids are young: Don't see them as who you wish them to be, but for who they are. Growing up in England, Reeves played sports all the time, with no infatuation with what he might become. Rugby didn't help you get into Oxford, anyway. 'I wasn't very good at anything, but my dad coached rugby,' Reeves says. 'He'd played. We'd cut a hole in the fence so we could get into the school tennis courts, and they looked the other way, and summers were spent on the tennis courts. I never had an hour of tennis coaching in my life, but I'm an OK tennis player as a result. … 'I was fortunate enough to grow up with a very clear sense from my parents of the joy and the value of sport, but always on the play side. … I lived in fear of one of my kids getting good enough to play travel sports.' Reeves wrote the 2022 book, 'Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters, and What to Do About it.' His session at Project Play addressed youth coaches and administrators looking for ways to engage more boys in sports as their participation numbers are plummeting. Problems with boys and girls sports can arise when we get out of our comfortable communities and into the industrial complex. 'It's like, you have these small furry creatures who have been raised on an island without predators,' Lewis says. We toss them into the jungle, and our education continues. Observing travel sports can be a pill for improving a child's character At some point, with players' and parents' inner ambition brimming beneath the surface, the Berkeley softball league formed a travel team. Lewis' older daughter, Quinn, was 9. Now they were driving an hour away to play. At first they got pummeled, which tested the adults' limits' of frustration. 'At a kid's ballgame, you're never quite sure who's going to go mad - only that someone will,' Lewis writes in 'Playing to Win.' No trait - education level, income, race or gender – was predictive of it, he observed. The explosion happened to the Berkeley parents the first time the team was close to winning. Near the end of the game, one of their runners slid into home. The umpire called her safe. Lewis recalled four opposing coaches running out of the dugout and screaming at her, profanities flying. The umpire started to cry. 'The Berkeley parents were always very good at not being the first one to throw a punch,' Lewis said, 'but (they) are always on a hair trigger for other parents' bad behavior. So their coaches get their fans riled up, they're all screaming at the ump. The Berkeley parents are then outraged. 'On the field, they're like 20 little girls looking back and forth, with 70 parents screaming at the top of their lungs, veins popping, faces red. Through the noise - and the din was incredible - you heard this Berkeley mom shriek, What horrible modeling for our children.' The umpire tossed the opposing head coach. He then told her he was director of facilities and said she was fired. Lewis followed her as she moped toward the parking lot. He had to give her a pep talk to stay. 'I remember having this feeling like, yeah, on the surface, it is horrible,' he said. 'On the other hand, softball became one way to show my children - and then basketball with my son - how not to behave as a grown-up. 'Mostly what they got from grown-ups was a lot of artificial behavior, like polite grown-up behavior. When they saw the mask come off, then we can have a serious talk about how you behave and shouldn't behave.' It's a tactic Jeff Nelligan, another sports dad and commentator on American parenting I've interviewed, used with his three sons. Daily life, he writes, offers advice moms and dads can't concoct on their own: good, bad, and inspirational. Our job, Nelligan says, is to judge what we see. 'Every single one of us makes judgments about people and situations throughout our day,' he writes. 'It's the only way to successful navigate through life.' We learn about the length people go for our kids, and when we go too far. Perhaps for Lewis, it was when he went to Cal's women's softball team and, in his words, 'threw a sack of money' at its players to coach the Berkeley team and reverse their losing. Or when he was interviewing then-President Barack Obama for a story aboard Air Force One. When they arrived in Washington, the president asked Lewis to ride back to the White House to continue their discussion. Lewis said he had to rush home for a girls softball tournament. COACH STEVE: Ranking the 6 worst youth sports parents Don't look at travel sports as something that will play for college, but as a learning experience The next time you're at your child's game and want to say something out loud, pretend you are on a national stage. With social media documenting everything, you essentially are. Best mound visit ever. Listen to this. This should go viral. Amazing and what it's all about. Baseball is fun and this coach absolutely gets it Before you speak, think about what you are about to say, whether it be an in-game instruction to your kid, who might just glare at you, or a jab at another parent, which will make you a spectacle. Sports parenting is a lot like driving, Lewis writes. He says you want to go over and scream at the coach who benched your child like you want to give the finger to the person who cheated at the four-way stop sign. But 24 hours later, you have trouble even remembering why you got so upset. Your exercise can start when your kids are young, when the stakes are much lower, nonexistent really. What you stop yourself from saying might teach you something about the industrial complex you are about to enter. Reeves, the British author, says he came into it blindly. 'I think this whole college thing, the selection thing, the scholarship thing, it's putting this downward pressure on youth sports that is very distorting, and I don't know what to do about it, but I do know that we survived it,' he says. 'We were never parents trying to get the kids into these highly selective colleges who would like do oboe on Tuesday and lacrosse on Wednesday and their nonprofit on Thursday and the Mandarin class on Friday. 'God, it was exhausting. I was like my kids are just gonna go to a state college and they'll be fine.' One of his sons, Bryce, wound up on a travel soccer team and got injured. At that point, the family decided they didn't want the scene to infiltrate their life any further. 'Saturdays are for the sofa,' he says. 'They're not for getting up at 6 to drive to New Jersey.' Lewis spent five years of nearly 30 hours per week running his childrens' sports and 10 as commissioner of the travel softball league, mostly to the objections of his wife. 'In the beginning (it) was, 'How sweet, Michael's getting very involved in the daughter's lives,' Lewis says, 'and then it's like, 'Wait, we're spending 52 nights a year at the Hampton Inn in Manteca?' … 'Her view is there was a price that was paid, and the price was that our life was less diversified. It was more specialized, even if it wasn't specialized in a single sport. It was severed but it was all or nothing, and the kids all approached it that way. They were all really into it.' Dixie had a drive that was different, her dad thought. As a young teenager, she had sought out Haley Woods' Cal Nuggets softball team on her own and made the team. She threw herself into the journey and experience. She played in front of college coaches, and she found a role model. 'Everything she says to me, I take seriously, and there's so few grown-ups I feel that way about,' she told her father about Woods. 'She has a lot to say that's really useful to me.' COACH STEVE: 'Is it worth it?' Red flags to watch with youth sports programs Always play sports for the love of them, not matter how old you are Lewis admits the tens of thousands spent on travel ball fees, private lessons and travel costs and the pursuit of athletic scholarships is much better invested in a 529 college fund. Still, he also adds, 'My view of all this was that there's so many things you can learn through this experience that what sacrifice was involved was totally worth it.' Lewis and his daughter observed that top softball schools barely acknowledged ones that couldn't offer athletic scholarships. Dixie found top academic schools that also had softball teams were surprising accessible. As they walked around the campus of Division III Pomona College after she had committed there, she told her dad the travel ordeal had been worthwhile. 'Look where it got me,' she said. 'I feel so good about myself and where I am. I wouldn't change anything.' Dixie died in a 2021 car accident during her freshman year of college. Lewis almost gave up writing. He didn't because it was something that made him feel better. He draws deep satisfaction in knowing, amid his sorrow, his daughter chose her own path through youth sports, and she wound up at her dream school. Lewis, though, fully acknowledges that about half the young athletes in America have been priced out of the industrial complex. Youth sports participation as a whole, Aspen Institute research has found, falls off sharply by age 11. Reeves' son, Bryce, is now a Baltimore city public schools teacher and girls soccer coach. He plays on the Baltimore City FC amateur soccer squad. 'That makes me so happy,' his father says. 'I think there's something beautiful to just watching kids running around and having a great time. I'm here to make the case for mediocrity. And the trouble is, that doesn't sound very inspiring.' Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons' baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for two high schoolers. His column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here. Got a question for Coach Steve you want answered in a column? Email him at sborelli@
Vox
4 days ago
- Sport
- Vox
The hidden forces ruining youth sports
is a senior correspondent for Vox, where she covers American family life, work, and education. Previously, she was an editor and writer at the New York Times. She is also the author of four novels, including the forthcoming Bog Queen, which you can preorder here Youth sports have become more adult-driven than child-driven, some say. Alistair Berg via Getty Images This story originally appeared in Kids Today, Vox's newsletter about kids, for everyone. Sign up here for future editions. When Aly was a little kid, 'sports' consisted of playing on a playground or maybe standing in a hockey goal in the driveway while her big brother shot pucks at her face. The latter might have served as 'organic training,' she told me. Aly became a multi-sport athlete — running, swimming, and, ultimately, playing Division I college lacrosse in the early 2000s. But her early sports experience 'was all play-based,' she said. Maybe it wasn't always fun (I, for one, would prefer hockey pucks stay out of my face), but it definitely wasn't serious. Today, Aly, who asked that I use only her first name to protect her family's privacy, has three kids who are starting to play sports themselves. What they're experiencing is a world away from the casual driveway games of her youth, she told me. Over the last few decades, youth sports in America have become big business. Free park- and community-based teams have increasingly been replaced by private pay-to-play options, which can be expensive. A survey by the Aspen Institute's Project Play initiative found that the average family spent $1,016 on their child's primary sport in 2024, up 46 percent since 2019. Some families spent nearly $25,000. The stakes have changed, too, with more families viewing sports as a child's ticket to college and a comfortable life, rather than just a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon. And as pay-to-play programs crowd out other options, families can find themselves priced out — or sucked in — even if they'd prefer a more relaxed approach. The result is bad for kids, both those excluded by the expense of the pay-to-play system and those whose families succumb to its pressures, putting them at risk of depression, anxiety, and overuse injuries. It's bad for parents, whose lives increasingly revolve around shuttling kids to sporting events. And it's bad for all of us if youth sports becomes a culture-war obsession and a decidedly imperfect substitute for a working safety net. 'Sports are not that important,' said Linda Flanagan, author of Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids' Sports—and Why It Matters. 'The idea that athletics should be the organizing principle of family life is crazy.' Why grown-ups started panicking about youth sports The professionalization of youth sports, as many observers call it, began in the 1970s, as inflation led municipal recreation departments to cut their budgets and get rid of free sports programs, Flanagan said. Private companies and nonprofit organizations filled the void, often charging fees. At the same time, the cost of college was going up, and admissions were becoming more competitive. Parents were increasingly desperate for an edge. Sports offered that edge in two ways, said Jessica Calarco, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of Negotiating Opportunities: How the Middle Class Secures Advantages in School. Talented athletes whose families couldn't afford college could aim for athletic scholarships, and middle-class kids who couldn't get in to the college of their choice could lean on sports as what Calarco calls 'an underdiscussed form of affirmative action.' Related Applying to college today is incredibly public and incredibly isolating What parents are buying when they shell out thousands of dollars for kids sports is 'a chance to help their child get into a school that they couldn't get into on their academics alone,' Calarco said. As it turns out, sports are different when they're a means to an end, rather than just a fun activity. Today, kids are encouraged to specialize in a single sport, and to play it year-round, rather than in a single season, Aly said. The pressure can start as young as 4 or 5 years old. Youth sports are also more focused on winning and skill development instead of recreation and enjoyment, Flanagan said. In some cases, rest, unstructured play, and even practice time give way to constant competition. 'There's literally just play, play, play as much as you can,' said Luka Ojemaye, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford who has studied athletes' mental health. Essentially, kids' sports have gone from 'child-driven to adult-driven,' Flanagan said. How youth sports today are failing kids Perhaps unsurprisingly, the shift to an adult-driven model of youth sports has not been good for kids. Injuries are on the rise — the result of 'playing too much in a structured setting,' Flanagan said. ACL tears, which are particularly concerning because they can lead to arthritis, increased 25.9 percent between 2007 and 2022, according to Project Play, with girls especially at risk. Young athletes' mental health has also suffered. Sports can be protective for kids' mental wellbeing, providing opportunities for physical activity and being with friends, Flanagan said. But those benefits are squandered when young people are under too much pressure. Anxiety in high school athletes has been increasing over the last decade, and one study found that more than half of such athletes reported stress, with 15 percent saying they were 'very' or 'extremely' stressed. Enjoying multiple sports helped Aly stay grounded as a student athlete, she told me. 'I played lacrosse in college, but I never put all my self-worth into that sport, because I played so many other sports that brought me joy,' she said. Aly worries for kids who are encouraged to choose one sport to play year round when they're in kindergarten. She wants her own kids to have the same relaxed, play-based experience she did, but her 7-year-old loves lacrosse. If year-round teams are where her peers are, it's going to be hard to say no. 'We're all getting sucked into it,' Aly said. The professionalization of youth sports is bad for young athletes, but it's also bad for kids who never get the chance to play at all. Pay-to-play teams have crowded out many of the remaining park- or community-based leagues, making it harder for families to find affordable options. 'It's a self-reinforcing cycle,' Calarco said. The result is a class divide in sports participation and physical activity that's been growing wider over the last 10 years. One study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 70 percent of kids from families making over $105,000 a year participated in sports in 2020, compared to just 31 percent of kids living at or below the poverty line. In short, lower-income kids are losing access to the physical and mental benefits that sports once provided, and they're missing out on the pathway to college that sports can (sometimes) provide today. Youth sports matter for everyone The transformation of youth sports into a serious, adult-driven concern is part of a larger shift in American life, experts say. 'We live in a society without a sturdy safety net,' Calarco said, which 'creates a lot of precarity and a lot of inequality.' Parents, fearful their kids will fall down a rung on an increasingly rickety class ladder, are ever more obsessively seeking ways to maintain a sense of security. That's getting even harder now that the Trump administration is chipping away at funding for higher education, Calarco said, including attempting to reduce the size of Pell grants for low-income students (something Congress has blocked so far). With education increasingly uncertain and unequal at every level, excelling in sports may seem like a more reliable ticket to a good life. The focus on youth sports as a way to get ahead may be part of why Republicans have had so much success stoking fear around young trans athletes, some say. 'If families can use these sports as a tool to help give their kids an edge in a highly competitive, highly unequal society, then it can feel like a threat if it seems as though someone is cutting in unfairly,' Calarco said, likening concerns over trans athletes to lawsuits by white students over affirmative action. Given the forces behind the rising professionalization of youth sports, it's hard to imagine turning back the clock. But some parents are getting tired of the expense of pay-to-play teams, Flanagan said. The reality is that these teams probably aren't a good investment. Only about 6 percent of high school athletes go on to play in college, and only some of those get scholarships. If what families care about is college, they might be better off investing the money they spend on sports in a 529 account, Calarco said. Ideally, changes in youth sports would come from a collective understanding that all kids deserve access to fun, low-pressure physical activity. But failing that, maybe sports can be fun again if more parents recognize that they are not, in fact, a particularly good way of safeguarding class position. As Flanagan put it, 'parents are going to have to vote with their feet.' What I'm reading Ohio and other states are working to give young children with disabilities better access to child care centers, but cuts to Medicaid could complicate those efforts. Medicaid cuts could also hamper K-12 schools' ability to offer services like counseling and speech therapy to kids. On a happier note, an 'Intergenerational Summer Camp' in Fullerton, California, brought 8- to 14-year-olds together with volunteer grandmas to help combat loneliness. My little kid has moved on from We Are in a Book! to There Is a Bird on Your Head, which is about exactly what it sounds like.
Atlantic
12-07-2025
- General
- Atlantic
Let Your Kid Climb That Tree
A bunny, small enough to nestle in a cereal bowl, has recently started hanging out in my backyard. Now and again, it nibbles a plant or lies in the sun. Mostly, it explores the limits of movement, zooming, darting, feinting, and trundling through bushes. Once, I saw it corner so hard that it sprayed mulch in a giant, messy arc. A human kid who did that would almost certainly be called inside to clean up. But I haven't seen the adults in this bunny's life in weeks; the baby has carte blanche. If only more of the kids I know could be so lucky. Wild animals are the best movers on the planet, and little ones spend much of their time frolicking, fighting, leaping, and climbing. From birth, human children share animals' potential for wild movement; left to their own devices, they would presumably tumble about like puppies. But more and more, they do nothing of the sort. This is due in part to the human trend toward self-domestication, and also to the structure of modern society. The World Health Organization says that 81 percent of adolescents worldwide do not get enough physical activity, noting that rates of sedentary behavior in young people tend to rise as their country develops economically. In some American cities, the Trust for Public Land says, as many as two-thirds of children lack access to the kinds of nearby parks that would encourage free play. And a report by the Aspen Institute's Project Play initiative, a national program aimed at increasing youth-sports participation, concluded that compared with other activities, such as organized sports, 'free play is all but a thing of the past.' Some kids lack access to woods, fields, and other open spaces where they might romp free. Some have parents who forbid that brand of tomfoolery. In the United States, many parents habitually tamp down on horseplay out of fear of injury to their children (or their furniture)—or because social norms dictate that they get their squiggly kids unsquiggled and into waiting rooms, subways, stores, airplanes, and restaurants, where children are expected to 'behave.' That impulse, however, risks reinforcing the notion that sedentariness is preferable at a time in a kid's life when they really do need to move. Turn over almost any rock in the stream of health research, and you'll find warnings about the dire consequences of idleness, as well as abundant reasons for children to explore free movement. Children who move have healthier bones, muscles, and joints, and lower their future risk of obesity and chronic disease. Research has found that active kids develop superior cognitive skills, get better grades, and are more likely to stay on task than kids who are less active. In a systematic review of studies, researchers found that active children are more likely to report feelings of well-being. And a study published in The Lancet that examined the prevalence of adolescent depression among English youth suggested that increased sedentary behavior in adolescence could affect a person's mental health into adulthood. Childhood might be a particularly costly time to not move, because this is when developing brains prune unused potential. 'One extreme view' of this neurological dwindling 'would be that you start out wired up for every possible contingency,' the Harvard neuroscientist Jeff Lichtman said in an article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences —but as you age, unused connections in the brain get permanently disconnected through a process known as synaptic pruning, leaving you with 'a narrower nervous system.' We're used to the idea that young, plastic brains have an easy time learning to speak Mandarin or play piano; this is also true of learning how to do backflips, balance on a slackline, or throw a fastball. Parents go to great lengths to keep kids safe; it's the core of the job. But restricting kids from encountering tricky movement problems, such as racing at full speed down a rocky slope or climbing high in a tree, can exact a toll. As Marcus Elliott, a physician and one of the world's most prominent injury-prevention experts, put it to me: 'Your fear that your kid will get hurt is depriving them of something they'll never get back.' Elliott runs the Peak Performance Project, known as P3, a movement lab in Santa Barbara, California, where many athletes—a huge percentage of NBA, NFL, and MLB players—have been found to be at risk of injury because of deficiencies in their movement quality. P3's researchers focus on 'kinematic movers,' whose bodies have a ready solution to almost any movement problem: They can land on either one foot or two, jump every which way, and change directions easily. They're not always the highest jumpers or the fastest sprinters, but, at least among a well-studied cohort, they are likely to play for a long time without injury. This is why Elliott recommends that children play like animals: He suspects that every adult kinematic mover grew up playing freely like that fuzzball in my backyard. The robustness necessary to repel injury has little to do with getting in cardio, running fast, or jumping high. Instead, he says, robustness has to do with 'movement quality,' which is to athleticism as fluency is to language. This tracks with an observation made by the journalist David Epstein, who writes in Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World that athletes from tiny towns have irrational levels of success. Epstein's theory is that with a shortage of players, small towns need the best athletes on the football, baseball, and basketball teams. Playing a variety of sports might foster a person's robust movement vocabularies. Thankfully, providing kids with more freedom doesn't require a lot of money. Mostly, it just requires a little creativity. Almost every kid who comes into my house feels a deep urge to romp on the huge yoga ball in our living room (which cost less than $20). They body slam it, Superman across its top, throw a sibling into it, and do other bonkers stuff. Many parents who witness such behavior grow anxious, shout bossy directives, or declare the ball off-limits entirely. Of course, I understand; no one wants to end up at urgent care. But I'm also aware that kids who start out falling down go on to quickly develop new skills. Some blossom into pro-grade yoga-ball surfers. When my son was young, he developed an uncanny ability to perch on all fours atop the ball even as someone (honestly: me) forcibly shoved him this way and that. He's now a 6-foot-1-inch engineering undergrad; we have not outgrown this game. Elliott told me that when work would keep him on the laptop during weekend afternoons, he'd give his kids small physical challenges: Can you hop on your left leg all the way across here, and then clear that hurdle? Can you step off that ledge, land, and leap right back up? One of his daughters remembers earning dessert by hopping a giant lap of the backyard on her left foot. Elliott and his children also wrestle one another like puppies do. In this way, he explained, his kids learn how to perform complex movements while keeping one another safe—by, say, avoiding the corner of the coffee table. All of this free play can help when kids start taking up play of a more serious kind. Many sports injuries come from iffy form when landing. Kinematic movers do well, Elliott's lab has found, because they land with active feet that greet the ground, as well as ankles, knees, and hips that flex nicely in time with one another—perhaps because these movers practiced so much free play as kids. P3's trainers spend long hours putting athletes through the grueling work of mastering landing technique as teenagers or adults, remedial lessons that appear to have a big impact. A 2022 study found that ACL-injury-prevention training, which generally includes landing and explosive movement, reduced ACL tears by an average of 64 percent among young female athletes. (This aligns with research on ballet dancers, among the few groups who train from a young age to land properly. They may sustain plenty of sprains and other overuse injuries, but they also have a striking shortage of ACL tears compared with other athletes who jump as much.) Eric Leidersdorf, a movement scientist and the president of P3, has more than a decade's worth of experience poring over the movement data of elite athletes. He also has an 18-month-old daughter. I asked him if he intends to apply the lessons of his day job to parenting. 'Absolutely,' he replied. He then used the word play 10 times in two minutes. 'My real hope is that she explores the world,' Leidersdorf told me. 'I want her to love moving and find joy in that.' I know a bunny that probably gets it.
The Independent
04-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
France's reported new tactic to stop small boats
French police have reportedly begun slashing small boats with knives in shallow waters off the French coast to deter Channel crossings. Downing Street and the home secretary have welcomed these new tactics, stating they mark a "significant moment" and will have a "major impact" on smuggling gangs. The home secretary called for the prosecution of all individuals arriving in the UK on a small boat if a child has died during the crossing, suggesting that even boarding an overcrowded vessel could lead to charges. These developments follow a record number of Channel crossings in small boats during the first six months of this year. Charity Project Play warns that border securitisation policies are making conditions "more dangerous" for children, noting that French police interventions in shallow waters are not new and are increasing.
Glasgow Times
04-07-2025
- Politics
- Glasgow Times
PM's Europe ‘reset' has delivered change in French tactics on small boats: No 10
Number 10 said reports French police officers had used knives to puncture a boat in waters off the French coast for the first time were a 'significant moment' that could have 'a major impact' on smuggling gangs. A spokesman said: 'We welcome action from French law enforcement to take action in shallow waters, and what you have seen in recent weeks is a toughening of their approach.' The Government has repeatedly pushed for French authorities to do more to prevent boats leaving the shore, including changing existing rules to allow police officers to intervene when dinghies are in the water. Those changes have not yet come into effect, but reports on Friday suggested tougher action was already being taken. French rules have previously prevented police officers from intervening when people attempt to board small boats in the Channel (Gareth Fuller/PA) Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said she welcomed the reports, adding she had been 'working very closely with the French interior minister' to ensure the rules were changed 'as swiftly as possible'. Downing Street attributed the change in stance from French law enforcement was thanks to the Prime Minister's 'reset' in relations with Europe, as he has looked to heal the wounds caused by the Brexit years. The spokesman said: 'No government has been able to get this level of co-operation with the French. That is important. 'We are looking to see France change its maritime tactics, and that is down to the Prime Minister's efforts to reset our relationship across Europe.' But a charity operating in northern France told the PA news agency that French police had already been intervening in crossing attempts in shallow waters despite the new rules not yet being in place. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said she had been working closely with her French counterpart, Bruno Retailleau, to change French rules 'as swiftly as possible' (Henry Nicholls/PA) Kate O'Neill, advocacy coordinator at Project Play, said: 'This is not a new tactic … it's something that has been happening for a long time in Calais and surrounding areas.' She also warned it was a 'dangerous' tactic as children were 'often in the middle of the boats'. In its manifesto last year, Labour promised to 'smash the gangs' smuggling people across the Channel in small boats. But a year into Sir Keir's premiership, the number of people making the journey has increased to record levels. Some 20,600 people have made the journey so far this year, up 52% on the same period in 2024. Downing Street acknowledged that the numbers 'must come down', but could not guarantee that they would in the next year. On Friday, Ms Cooper said part of the reason for the increase in crossings was a rise in the number of people being crammed onto each boat. She suggested that all migrants who arrive on an overcrowded boat where a child has died should face prosecution. Ms Cooper told the BBC's Today programme it was 'totally appalling' that children were being 'crushed to death on these overcrowded boats, and yet the boat still continues to the UK'. Mr Macron is to visit the UK (Suzanne Plunkett/PA) The Government has already included a new offence of 'endangering life at sea' in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill currently making its way through Parliament. Ms Cooper has previously said this would allow the authorities to act against people 'involved in behaviour that puts others at risk of serious injury or death, such as physical aggression, intimidation, or rejecting rescue attempts'. But on Friday, she appeared to go further by suggesting even getting on an overcrowded boat could result in prosecution. She said: 'If you've got a boat where we've seen all of those people all climb on board that boat, they are putting everybody else's lives at risk.' Some 15 children are reported to have died while attempting the crossing in 2024, and Ms O'Neill told PA police tactics were making the situation more dangerous. During a series of broadcast interviews, Ms Cooper also declined to confirm reports the UK was looking at a 'one in, one out' policy that would see people who had crossed the Channel returned to Europe in exchange for asylum seekers with connections to Britain. Asked about the policy, she would only tell Sky News that ministers were 'looking at a range of different issues' and 'different ways of doing returns'. Sir Keir is expected to hold a summit with French President Emmanuel Macron, at which efforts to tackle small boat crossings are likely to be high on the agenda.
