Parents should try not to push children too soon.

When the Garritsons show up at a cross country meet, they leave with most of the medals.

For the last several years, the Southern California family has dominated, and often swept, all the youth age group divisions at the National Cross Country Championships. With seven out of nine Garritson children competing, the first-place hardware is a heavy haul.

The Garritsons are a speedy lot. James, the oldest at 14, ran 32:59 for 10 kilometers at age 11. Carrie, 13, clocked a 2:49:18 at the Los Angeles Marathon two years ago. It was her debut marathon, and it qualified her for the Olympic Trials. Race organizers wouldn't let her compete in the trials marathon because of her age.

James and Carrie started running at ages 7 and 6 with their father, Mike. The others took their first fast steps with their dad at age 4. Jeremy, 3, runs 20 minutes three days a week. When Robert, 1, and the Garritson baby expected in a few weeks are ready for it, they'll run, too.

Although their running prowess has earned medals, national acclaim and even an interview on the Donohue show, some experts warn that the Garritsons have accomplished too much, too fast.

"We're against competition for kids," says Dr. Lyle Michaeli, director of the division of sports medicine at Children's Hospital in Boston. "The joints and growth plates (growth centers near the ends of bones) are susceptible to injury." Besides the injuries related to overtraining, Michaeli also sees children who come to his clinic complaining of sleeplessness, lethargy and sometimes, depression. "

Some kids are actually stressed too much," Michaeli says. "It's a psychological stress. They can be depressed, overfatigued, show a change in the level of their schoolwork and get injured or sick." Kids can run into performance anxiety in other sports besides running.

And the angst young athletes feel when they put a personal performance on the line at a footrace is often benign compared to what children feel when they're part of a team that stresses winning instead of the joys of movement and learning new skills. Some coaches say children under 12 aren't psychologically ready to compete.

"Ask most coaches and the response you'll get is that the child should not get into competition before 11 or 12," says John Leonard, executive director of the American Swimming Coaches Association. "The problem isn't so much with the kids' adjustment, it's the parents' adjustment." Leonard cites parents who hang around swim practices like groupies at a rock concert, timing laps and offering advice at every turn. "There are over-involved parents in Little League, soccer, and hockey, too," says Leonard, who teaches people how to coach. "When you get adults involved, they say this is the start line and this the end. There is some standard to measure up to -- or not.

Some parent might blow out of proportion that their 7 year old is blowing the other 7 year olds out of the water. Instead of learning better stroke technique, that kid relies on his superior strength. The problem comes in when he's 15 or 16 and all the kids have caught up to him in size and strength."

Dr. Gabe Mirkin, who in the late '60's, launched one of the first national age group running programs, coached his son, Jean, to 13 age group world records. At 11, Jean told his father that he'd never run another step. And Jean, 28, hasn't. Mirkin admits he pushed his son too hard. "In my opinion it's a mistake for kids to be highly competitive unless it's their own idea," says Mirkin, who writes a syndicated column on sports medicine and hosts a regular radio talk show on the subject. "It's too much, too soon. Kids want to be kids."

But Mirkin sees nothing wrong with hard workouts. "I don't agree with Michaeli that you can injure bone plates," he says. "It's the competition I disagree with. I pushed Jean hard. He had tremendous success and acclaim. When father is the coach, it's a dangerous situation.

Parents should be supportive and encourage the kids, take them to practice and not stay in the stands until the kid are done working out. The kids need to be motivated from within, not by their parents."

Mike Garritson isn't one to sit in the stands at workouts. He coaches his children and often runs workouts with them. And he has taken a lot of flak for that hands-on approach to his children's training.

"I think he's an extremist," says Dr. Ron Axtell, a general practitioner and chairman of the Southern California Association of Youth Athletics for The Athletics Congress. "I don't know whether he wants his kids to succeed for themselves or whether he wants them to succeed for him."

In defense, Garritson cites his kids' healthy appetite for competition, their undeniable success in running and their scholastic accomplishments.

"Their grades all went up when they started running," he says. "We do our workouts on trails and the kids love that and the wildlife they see. They like going to meets. It was Carrie's idea to run the L.A. Marathon. I didn't want her to. I wanted her to stop after 10K, but she kept going."

Here are some tips from national experts on the subject of children and competition:

• Dr. Lyle Michaeli: "Organized sports is probably going to be the only way kids get exercise in the future," he says. "So, I'm all for that. I'd advise keeping the competition out of it until they're 14 or so."
• James Ross, vice president of Macro Systems in Silver Springs, Md., and director of child and adolescent health programs: "There's no indication that participation in high school or college sports carries over into adulthood," he says. "We should be teaching kids skills and introducing them to activities they'll do all their lives."
• John Leonard, executive director of the American Swimming Coaches Association: "For kids, I recommend lots of activities, not just swimming," He says. "Help them get a sense of physicality through sports like soccer, baseball, or basketball."
• Dr. Gabe Mirkin: "Let them be kids," he says. "They can work out three days a week, but let them play and be kids the other four days."