Written by Participation in sports not only helps to develop coordination, physical agility, health, and flexibility, but also to develop friendships, comradery, and the traits necessary for observing fair-play and learning how to lose gracefully. Introducing children to sports is a healthy normal thing to do and we want our children physically healthy, well adjusted, and able to work with others collaboratively in a team environment.
Sporting culture has increasingly been developed as a by-product of financial enterprise. A stressful, ultra-competitive attitude of, “win at all costs” has become the prevailing theme and this has filtered through to juvenile sport as well. This unhealthy environment that our children are indoctrinated into will become an embedded aspect of their set of beliefs and stay with them; the attitudes and behaviors taught to them at this level will determine their attitudes and behaviors in adulthood.
How often do we hear of abuse, manipulation, and cruelty in sport; self-serving coaches concerned only with their reputation as ‘winning’ coaches and ‘peak-performance’ facilitators, riding vicariously on the coattails of their gifted proteges. Added to this adverse situation are the over-eager parents so concerned with their child’s success that they fail to recognize any pain they may be suffering in the process. And this is all before we even consider the evil abusers, gratifying their deviant needs and taking advantage of their positions of trust.
“Let’s nurture ‘self-aware’ and ‘empowered’ young athletes who are in control of their own development”. Let’s help sports parents practice behaviors that are a positive force for their young players. Let’s give coaches tools and best practices to help every kid love their sport, stay active and have fun.”
To change the culture of youth sports the focus needs to be firmly on the kids and not the adults and their agendas or motivations. The psychological and physical safety of the children needs to be addressed, ensuring that they are guided with integrity, maturity, and safety.
A child’s relationship with sport will reflect not only the coaching, but also input from their parents, if their attitudinal approach to sport and performance is healthy the child will more likely be imbued with similar attitude.
Celebrating wins and being proud of accomplishments is valid and important as is sharing in defeats constructively, not negatively, and certainly not admonishingly. In this way children develop skills and capabilities for success in life but are also able to keep losses in perspective and learn from them.
It is necessary to use demonstrations of poor sportsmanship witnessed by children as opportunities to explain better ways to process frustration and disappointment. These occasions present as ideal to assert that disrespectful behaviour; bullying, abuse, and tantrums, even in the heat of the moment is never acceptable.
“Success is not the same thing as winning, and failure is not the same thing as losing.”