The Opening of Spring Sports Season

Spring youth sports season is upon us, and I thought it would make sense to discuss some goals for our young athletes to ensure that they are having fun and learning through playing youth sports. As I stated in an earlier blog, youth sports can teach children many things, among them:

·      Teamwork

·      Leadership

·      Success and how to be disappointed; and much more

But too many times as the adults in the room, we get caught up in the winning/losing/getting the college scholarship aspect of youth sports and all the other lessons go right out the window and in many cases we lose the children forever as nearly 70% of children drop out of youth sports by the time they are 13 years old the age, in my opinion, that they should be reaching their peak and striving to move to the next level.

In looking for some advice I came across the following from Rocky Top Sports World in Tennessee and the advice for the parents is as follows:

·      Let them know having fun is most important 

·      Don’t live your dreams through your children 

·      Make sure your children are eating and drinking right 

·      Always be supportive 

·      Be a positive role model 

·      Let the coach do the coaching 

·      Volunteer to help the team; and

·      Encourage positive life lessons 

Now while these 8 suggestions seem pretty straight forward and easy to accomplish too many times, I have seen parents violate them on a regular basis.

I don’t plan on discussing these one by one but rather to look at the ones that I feel are the most important:

·      Don’t live your dreams through your children – To me this one is the most important. The way I look at it is that as parents we have had our time in the sun and while I’ll agree that things have changed greatly since I played youth sports over 50 years ago (ouch…LOL) we should let our children experience youth sports I their own way and accept what they want to do when playing.  Neither of my children were the best players on any of the teams that they played on, but they always had fun, made friends, and learned  new skills and ways to deal with others and adversity while I stayed in the background and watched.

·      Be Supportive – I can remember being at a youth baseball game many years ago where a father was berating his young child over his performance during a game and this poor little child was on the field crying and trying to cover his face so no one would see him crying and one of the last things dad shouted was “that’s it, I’m NEVER taking him to the park again to work with him again.”  Finally, a league official came over and told the parent to “back off and leave the child alone.”  I could only imagine what that car ride home was like, and I later found out the child, who loved baseball, quit after that season, and never played again. I say all this to advise that you support your child during the game and if you want to comment on their performance during the game it should wait until you are in the safety of your home, well after the game where cooler heads can prevail and calm, proactive discussions can be held.

·      Be a Positive Role Model – If you, as a parent are yelling and screaming at the coaches and game officials there is no way that you can expect your child not to do the same as children learn from their parents/other adults actions so please, be positive and make the game easier for the coach, game officials and other players.

·      Let the Coach do the Coaching – For me this is a big one. Recreation coaches are volunteering their time to coach your children…the key word being VOLUNTEER. They are giving their time to ensure that children have a safe place to learn a sport so if you are coaching over that coach you are defeating the purpose of the “volunteer” coach and my opinion is that if you want to coach your, or other children, from the stands, then sign up and be a coach.

·      Encourage Positive Life Lessons – You can encourage positive life lessons by teaching them the importance of commitment to the team, the importance of perseverance and that it takes hard work and dedication to be good at something, whether it be sports, school or later on in a career.

Like I’ve stated in earlier posts I’m not against competition and I feel that competition is important for everyone including children for the reasons stated above, it teaches them teamwork, leadership, how to succeed and be disappointed, perseverance and commitment, and much more but when the adults start to pressure the children the fun goes out of the game and leads to children giving up the game(s) that they love.  I profess to be a golfer…LOL and I’ll admit that the days that I play and don’t keep score the game is 100 times more fun than the days that I do keep score because I play better the days that I don’t keep score so if I, as an adult, can realize that the game is more fun when I put less pressure on myself, maybe other adults need to do the same and not pressure youngsters who are learning a game. 

So, in conclusion I’d like to ask the parents who are reading this and still have children playing a youth sport, please take a minute to think about the eight tips listed above and think about how much more fun your children may have if you try live by them and just let the children have some fun.