Organized sports activities for children are neither inherently good nor bad. They can have both positive and negative effects on children and their development. The quality and effects of our children’s sports experiences depends heavily on those who organize the activities for them: the parents, adult leaders, and coaches supervising the young athletes. While parents can be instrumental in making sports experiences fun and rewarding, it is unfortunate that organized sports often bring out the worst in parents. In this article, I would like to discuss ways that parents can help to make their children’s sports activities a positive and healthy experience.

As with most things in life, it is probably wise for us, as parents, to have a clear understanding of our personal goals for our children’s participation in sports. Why do we encourage their sports activities? What do we want for them? A few reasons might be to help them learn:

	To work and to strive for personal goals, without quitting;
	How to apply sustained effort toward the goal of improving one’s skills and abilities;
	Self-control and self-discipline;
	To persist in the face of adversity and discouragement;
	The value of working with others, of cooperative effort and being part of a team;
	To lose and to accept defeat graciously and positively;
	The values and behaviors of sportsmanship.

You’ll notice that winning is not listed as one of the primary objectives of sports participation. When a national sample of children, aged 10 to 18 years, was asked why they participated in sports, “to win” was not among the top ten reasons for girls and was only seventh on the list for boys. Further, when these same children were asked what they would change about sports, “less emphasis on winning” made the top ten lists for both boys and girls. However, if coaches and parents were asked how important winning is to their child’s success in sports, many of them would clearly respond: “very!” Adults who focus on winning are viewing the value of youth sports in a very narrow way. This thinking often results in mistaking the winning or losing of a contest with the success or failure of the activity. This focus is damaging to young athletes. The benefit that children derive from a sports experience comes from the effort, not the outcome.

As parents, what can we do to ensure that our children truly do benefit from their sports activities?

First, we should always set a good example. If we want our children to have healthy and positive attitudes about sports and athletic activities, it is extremely important for us, as parents, to show them how. As parents, we should treat other fans and spectators, officials, coaches, and (certainly) the participants with courtesy and respect. We should always set a good example of winning with humility and losing with grace. We should always practice control of our emotions.

Everything we say from the sidelines should be positive. There should never be any displays of anger or temper from the sidelines. We should keep our criticisms to ourselves (criticism of players, officials or coaches), we should avoid teasing of any kind, and there should be no room for baiting or trash-talk. While these behaviors might be prevalent in professional sports arenas they have no place in youth sports. Everyone on the sidelines should be wearing a smile; if we’re not, we should probably be somewhere else. Also, it is probably best to avoid coaching from the sidelines. Typically, our advice is distracting, not terribly helpful, and can’t be heard anyway. Hopefully, our children are receiving all the coaching they need from the coach’s box. A parent’s job is to be the child’s fan, a positive supporter.

We should encourage our athletes to measure success in terms of personal effort and improvement, not simply in terms of the outcome of a contest. Remember, the most important benefits of youth sports have very little to do with winning and losing. We should help our children set and work toward meaningful, achievable and specific individual goals. We should not ask questions such as “Did you win?” or “How many points did you score?” but, rather, “Did you give your best effort?” “What did you learn?” and “Did you do something before that you previously could not do?” Most athletes are able to answer these latter questions affirmatively even when their team came up short on the scoreboard.

We should emphasize fun. Isn’t that why we play games?

We should always emphasize and display respect for the rules of the game.

We should never encourage our athletes to blame others. We want them to accept responsibility for their own successes and failures. It is important that we not blame the officials, bad luck, other teammates, faulty equipment, or the weather for our children’s lack of success in any particular contest. Mistakes, miscalls and bad luck are all a part of the game.

We should expect good behavior on the part of our children. We should let our child’s coach know that we expect our child to be well behaved, we should support coaches who bench bad sports, and we as parents should apply appropriate consequences for inappropriate behavior.

Finally, remember that it’s only a game and there is a lot more to life than sports.

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