The Effects of Parents on Young Children Playing Sports

Sport, when enjoyed responsibly, is one of the best things you can participate in to benefit the health of your body and mind. For this reason alone, an element of sporting and/or fitness activity ought to regularly complement your day-to-day lifestyle, ideally, in varying quantities, for the whole of your life. However, sport also being a global industrial economic machine means that competition in sports, in every aspect, is extremely strong. This can sometimes cause complications for young athletes who are pushed too hard.

  1. The "Never Fail" Principle

    • Run! Run! Run! Run! Run! Run! Run! Run!

      What happens when you involve a child in organized competitive sports too early in their development? On the one hand, a regimented sports environment is by no means the worst place for children to build the concepts of structure, rules and sportsmanship. But on the other hand, if the emphasis in the environment is on winning at all costs, perpetuating high pressure and stress, then this runs the risk of eventually destroying the child's affinity with a game or sport that they really love. If they are yelled at, they might also develop a strong fear of failing, so strong in some cases that everyday tasks are regularly not even attempted. Because failing, and failing without distress, is necessary to learn how to improve, if it is not carefully nurtured it could well make life very difficult for the child in the future.

    We All Want the Best

    • If you're not careful, you could spend more time than you ever wanted in one of these.

      When starting young kids out on youth sports training programs, you, as a parent, should be aware of just how much traveling will be involved. In itself, this may not initially seem like a bad thing, but it can take its toll on your young athlete in more ways than you might think. For one, just the hours added up over time will become noticeable as unattended social events and time not spent with friends, is instead spent passing by in a minibus on the interstate between competitions. Secondly, the toll a full sporting program and full scholastic program can take on a young person in terms of exhaustion can be extreme. Sometimes parents may forget that they are still more durable than their children, and push them through a schedule impossible to maintain.

    Sticks and Stones, and 4-Hour Training Sessions Before School, Will Break my Bones

    • "I'm 15, and I have played hockey for 10 years. I'm tired."

      Children are growing and developing all the time. Parents who do not recognize the detailed differences in their own child's growth with regard to the specific physical training they are undertaking, court risk at the expense of lifetime physical damage. Athletes must train below the level of what is required to injure oneself so competing always remains possible. When a child is growing, it is easy to put undue physical pressure on parts of the body that are temporarily weakened as they develop. If ignored, the body may sustain an injury that will change how the child grows. An early and severe injury can still affect the performance of an athlete many years later. It is vital that preventative measures are always made in sport to guard against big injuries.

    Success

    • Talk about the game.

      There is always enough time to let children grow up safely, naturally and be involved in sports in a way that doesn't include the feeling of fire breathing down your neck. As a parent, it is totally within your grasp to ensure a very positive experience in organized sports, affording your child all the values of discipline and interpersonal skills, respect, effort and teamwork in a nurturing and peaceful environment. Pure training without time to develop a mature and imaginative approach to utilizing that training could amount to many hours of wasted time and a very unhappy, unbalanced athlete. That simply hurts the chances of your child becoming a star, if that is what you are both set on achieving.