Youth and Sports

Raising children in today’s society is not for the faint of heart.   Raising children has never been easy, but it is especially difficult in youth sports today. Coaches and parents are putting a lot of pressure on our young sons and daughters. The pressure to succeed in sports at
such a young age is taking the fun out of the sport by making it all about winning.
                                        A Personal Perspective
  My own interaction in youth sports has been many: As a parent, participant and an observer. My experiences as a child in youth sports were mostly positive. In my early days of sports in school, all children were encouraged to play for their school, skill level did not matter.   There were no tryouts and no one got cut. We all were equal no matter what our overall ability.   Sports were an enjoyable competition between schools and were simply for fun.
I remember playing on my elementary schools basketball team.   My coach was the school science teacher and my teammates were my friends and classmates.   Our practices would be right after school and we would only practice for one hour.   I remember the practices as an extended gym class. We would just run around, laugh, have fun and learn a few plays.
I do not ever recall a coach yelling at me when I made a mistake or made a bad play.   I remember the coach saying, “that’s ok, shake it off, you’ll get it next time.” I never worried about being pulled from a game if I made a mistake.   We all played our fair share. We played the game as a game, with an opportunity to learn skills, compete, increase confidence, and have fun, we were able to go with the flow, relax and play for the sake of playing.
Even our parents back then would just sit and enjoy the game.   They didn’t yell at us to run faster or play harder.   They didn’t even yell at the referee for making a bad call.   I remember my parents telling me before every game, “Have fun and do the best you can” and after the game no matter how I... [continues]

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