Winning Isn't Everything

Organized sports provide teens with a great opportunity for learning important skills and values. As a parent, the first step is finding the right sport and the right team or coach for your teen. Consider some reasons teens want to be involved in organized sports:

 Does the sport offer all players a chance to succeed, participate, and develop skills?

 Does it offer my teen a chance to have fun and be with friends?

When coaches and parents emphasize playing their best, never giving up, learning new skills, and having fun over scoring more points, youth begin to develop positive values about winning and losing. By seeing adult role models encourage team members to do their best and support each other and accepting each player’s abilities and limitations, teens learn respect for others.

Here are some tips for how your family can make the most out of opportunities to participate in sports activities:

 Discuss how family members can set realistic goals.

 Help your child develop a lifelong commitment to an active lifestyle.

 Encourage your child to play because he or she enjoys it.

 Allow your child to be involved in the decision making around sports. Support your child’s decisions.

 Encourage your child to try various physical activities.

 Consider the age and personality of each child. Families may need to increase efforts to manage competition and its impact on a youth’s development.

A healthy balance of competition, cooperation, and having fun is important whether the child is competing with himself or against others. Parents and caring adults need to work at creating an environment in which teens can compete in a healthy way.

Teens and Extra Curricular Activities

Ask any “Soccer Mom” where she spends her time, and she’ll tell you – in the car! Extra curricular activities can take up every evening and most of the weekend, and parents may find themselves asking why make such an effort? As a “Volleyball and Softball Mom,” I’ve spent plenty of hours driving an athlete to and from practice and tournaments. I’ve spent even more hours sitting in the bleachers! Was it worth it? Definitely! YES.

While a great deal of research has pointed to the benefit of youth activities – including sports, cultural activities and community organizations, a recent study asked teens to describe their own growth experience in extra curricular activities. The teens participating in the study reported that their extra curricular activities helped them in many ways. As they tried new things, teens learned more about themselves.

They developed personal initiative by learning to set goals they could achieve, working hard and persevering, managing their time and taking responsibility for themselves. The teens also reported that they learned to manage their feelings, especially anger, anxiety and stress.

They developed feelings of loyalty and friendship with peers, even those outside of their existing social network. Additionally they learned not only to work as a team, but also to develop leadership skills. Finally, they also developed an understanding of how their communities operate and enjoyed support from coaches, leaders and community members.

So, as you attempt to navigate what can be challenging teen years, you might want to consider what opportunities your teens have to experience personal growth through participating in organized activities. What activities are your children involved in and how do you think they benefit from them?