Sports provide your child with many benefits including physical exercise, fun, confidence, and a sense of community. And for many children, sports are the most natural and joyous way to express grace and excellence in their young lives.
With these benefits in mind and in hopes of providing the best opportunities for your child, you and other parents duly enroll your young children in the local youth program of your choice. Without a doubt, this is the best way for children to pursue their interest in sports, develop their skills and get the most out of the experience. But is it?
Benefits of Organized Sport
Organized sports, managed by adults, offer a way for a child to learn and appreciate sports. Ideally, traditional youth development leagues and skills clinics allow expert coaches to teach children specific sports skills and team play along with sportsmanship and life lessons. Proper instruction, balanced with the right competition for the age group and skill level, can give young program participants a great experience. In addition, the activities are supervised, which helps to ensure the safety of your child.
However, don’t make the mistake of believing that organized sports by themselves will give your child the best overall sports experience. Organized sports are only part of the equation.
rich beginnings
In my youth (and possibly yours), playing and learning sports was a multifaceted developmental experience. It started when my dad introduced me to sports by playing catch and giving me some basic instruction. Too young to play in a junior league back then, I can also remember my dad taking me from time to time to a local baseball field on a warm summer afternoon to watch a little league baseball game. Most of all, I remember the stop afterwards for an ice cream cone. In elementary school, a gym teacher began our basic instruction in a variety of modified games and sports. Kickball games during gym class and recesses provided a fun introduction to team sports. At seven or eight years old, I played in my first neighborhood pickup truck baseball and soccer game. Being one of the youngest, he just hoped he’d get an occasional chance to catch the ball and make a few changes at the plate. She was grateful for the opportunity to play with older children and be part of the neighborhood group. As I grew older and became a more accomplished athlete, my role increased, and this success only fueled my enjoyment and interest in sports.
learning to be self-sufficient
But it is essential to understand that these neighborhood games were much more than sports. They also tried to learn to interact with other children, without the help of parents or other adults. We learned how to recruit kids from the neighborhood, organize the game, deal with arguments, balance our individual competitive instincts with the needs of others in the group, and otherwise manage the game so that everyone wanted (or at least continued) to play. Often, it was a balancing act to keep everyone satisfied and the game going. Depending on who was playing and our mood, the games emphasized laid-back fun or more serious competition. But most importantly, we controlled our experience: we learned to be more self-sufficient.
A complementary role in years past
For us, the organized sports activities of our youth were separate and complementary experiences that helped fill our weekday afternoons and Saturday mornings. In a way, organized sports represented the formal test of our daily fun and games. We accept that these youth leagues were run by parents, more structured, and generally more competitive. It was still an exciting and satisfying experience, led by caring coaches who balanced competition, learning, and fun. That’s not to say there weren’t times of stress, fear and boredom, or the occasional poor workout. In my first year of football, I was the youngest (and the lightest). Trying to tackle bigger guys was a terrifying experience. While playing youth baseball, I also remember each year facing a pitcher who had an incredible fastball, but was also very wild. We were all afraid of that pitcher, but we knew that if we threw enough pitches there was a good chance he would walk us (but hopefully he wouldn’t hit us).
So what were the crucial elements that make up my youth sports experience? They were involved parents, gym teachers, informal neighborhood games that provided an opportunity for unstructured, self-organized play, and organized sports. The latter was only a part of the whole.
organized sports today
But it’s a new world, and some of the changes are clearly for the better. Title Nine, for example, has opened up the world of sports to millions of girls. Other changes include more two-earner families, more single parents, 24-hour news that makes us aware of the potential dangers our children face on their own, and an expanded universe of non-athletic activities available to a child. Unlike Title Nine, these changes are more mixed in their pros and cons. But one truth is certain, parents now lead lives full of personal and family activities.
In a generation of busy parents, it’s no surprise that organized sports have now taken on a much larger role. Scheduled, highly structured, safe and organized sports fit more easily into today’s lifestyle. Why not hope that organized sports can be the beginning and end of your child’s sports experience?
Unfortunately, placing these high expectations on an organized youth sports program results in failure of one kind or another. A limited number of volunteer coaches with varying degrees of experience, multiple age groups and skill levels grouped into individual leagues, and different attitudes about how to balance fun and competition make it difficult to produce a program that fully satisfies the everyone’s needs. participant. As a result, complaints are raised that traditional youth sports programs are too competitive, don’t provide equal playing time, and don’t give younger beginners and less-skilled kids the best opportunity to learn and have fun.
A better and more balanced approach
So how do we provide the best sports experience for our youth in today’s world? I would suggest that parents embrace a principle embodied in our past: balance participation in organized sports with other developmental opportunities that include direct parental involvement and separate, self-directed play by children themselves. Don’t just outsource your child’s sports education to an organized youth sports program.
Even in a more complex changing world, you still control your choices. Spend some time playing catch with your child, set limits on “electronic” time, let yourself go a little (take the opportunity like your parents did with you), and send your child outside to play with other kids in the neighborhood. Urban, suburban, and rural neighborhoods present different safety issues and potential risks. Only you can determine how much risk you are willing to take. But ask yourself, “Is your neighborhood really more unsafe than the one you grew up in, or has our ubiquitous 24-hour news cycle simply sensitized our society to the potential risks?”
If you don’t feel comfortable playing unsupervised, or if your work schedule keeps you and your child away from home during the day, try to find a place where your child can play with others in a self-directed environment. For example, it’s not unusual on an afternoon at the local YMCA to see younger kids take part in a fun two-on-two game of basketball or a more competitive full-court game. The YMCA provides a safe, semi-supervised environment that still gives children the opportunity to do their own thing.
And finally, take an active interest in your child’s organized youth sports experience. Find the local programs that offer the best combination of fun, learning and competition that suits your child. Be supportive. But also strive to strike a healthy balance between parental involvement and giving your child the freedom to explore sports on their own. Don’t think that organized youth sports programs are the complete answer or that you are a bad parent for not placing your child in all available programs. Everyone in the family may benefit from less emphasis on organized sports.