See Jimmy pitch the ball. See Dick hit the ball. See Dick run to first base. See Dick get called out. See Dick’s parents yell at the umpire. See other parents join in. See Dick walk back to the bench and hide his head in his hands. See Dick’s dad yell to Dick telling him to “be a man and suck it up.”
For those of you who have been to see youth sports, you may know that these occurrences are not uncommon. According to a survey of parents, 84 percent of them have seen violence in sports and 45 percent of kids report that they have experienced comments and abuse of some sort. Parents want to see their children succeed and sometimes don’t know the limits to their enthusiasm. As parents, we have to keep in mind that every child on the playing field in any sport has dreams, hopes, and emotions. Also, children’s greatest teachers are not only their parents, but other adults around them. The question that we want ask ourselves is, “What do we want our children to learn from sports?” Skills acquisition? Confidence? Cooperation? Social skills? How to win and lose with class and dignity? Integrity? Honor? Or do we want them to learn poor sportsmanship, aggression, complaining, cheating?
The Game of Life
I think that we all can agree that, in life, we are going to have many more experiences of loss in life than we will have “wins.” Being human and having the opportunity to experience emotion presents us with many opportunities. We have choices with every interaction. In my humble opinion, the greatest learning in life comes from the losses. As I teach many people, the purpose of failure is that it tells you when it is time to learn. When you find yourself feeling emotions that are unpleasant to you, ask yourself what the emotions may be trying to tell you … ask your children the same thing. Let sport be more than an opportunity to play. Let it be an opportunity to learn about life.
So, just what is your underlying goal in helping your child? Many parents want to keep their child from experiencing pain, and for so many of us, we see failure and loss as painful. So, if our kids win, they don’t feel pain … right? Not so fast, my friend. What if they won but did not play. Another question is who else’s pain do we want to avoid? Our own. Our kids often become extensions of ourselves, so when they fail, we fail … when they lose, we lose. In our own aversion to pain, we can take those feelings out on any number of people (other players, refs, coaches, and our own kids) without seeing its impact. The impact on our children is often that they believe if they win, people will love them more. After all, look at the way we idolize professional athletes. So they learn to win at all costs—and that is one of the most destructive messages that has permeated our society.
