Although play and participation in organised sport and games comes naturally to children, they nevertheless need constant parental and teacher encouragement, and advice on specialisation and persistent participation. Competitive sports and games arenas — even at primary levels — can be cruel places and without morale boosting, children can easily become discouraged. Therefore on the road to sports education, parents need to walk a fine line. Offer too little encouragement and your kids will think you’re uncaring. Offer too much, and you run the risk of seeming too competitive, over ambitious and embarrassing. For most parents, the main purpose of sports education is to facilitate holistic development and boost their child’s self-confidence.
Here are some tips on ways and means to aid the sports education of children:
1. Prepare them for success. There’s a simple way to do this: encourage them to practice. The more your child practices, the greater her chances of success on big occasions. Confidence comes from constant practice. Before you can ride a bike or drive a car, you have to learn through repeated practice. The more the training, the better she’ll become in her chosen sport or game. Understanding this, and creating opportunities for your child to sign up for competitive events is the way to build capability and confidence.
2. Teach your child to behave ‘as if’. This means acting confident, even if she isn’t feeling confident. When children mimic self-assurance — in posture, actions, and thinking — they automatically feel that way. Similarly during practice and in sports arenas parents also need to adopt ‘as if’ behaviour. By doing so you show faith in your child. Your attitude can create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
3. Help children learn from their mistakes and move on. This is one of the hardest things for kids to learn. Most children either dwell on their mistakes to the point of obsession, or don’t want to talk or think about them and seldom want to analyse what went wrong to learn not to repeat their mistakes. You need to help them understand that it’s alright to do something wrong or not well. What’s important is to learn from mistakes and avoid repeating them. Parents and teachers must help children understand that mistakes are inevitable and indeed, stepping stones to success. It is crucial to help them accept their mistakes as part of the learning process and move on.
4. Create environments in which children feel free to take risks and make mistakes. Too many well-meaning parents try to protect their children from the pain of making mistakes. That’s like telling an infant, “Let me carry you everywhere so you don’t fall down and hurt yourself.” It’s indicative of your care and concern, but disastrous for the growth and development of your child.
Then there are parents who take the opposite tack. They try to ‘toughen’ their children by criticising every mistake. Such parents need to become aware that athletes and sportspersons usually get all the criticism they need from their coaches and don’t need more. Therefore parents need to encourage and bolster their children’s confidence rather than add to the criticism. The best way for parents to help is by giving positive feedback and highlighting children’s strengths, which can be built upon.
5. Look for ‘good reasons’ why your child repeats some mistakes. I remember a crucial game when I played shortstop for Stanford against our arch rival U Cal. It was the top of the ninth; Stanford was ahead by one. Cal had runners on first base and second with two outs. The batter hit a ball to my right. I managed to scoop it up, but instead of holding the ball and allowing the bases to be loaded, I made the mistake of going for the game-ending out. The ball went right over the first baseman’s head, allowing U Cal to score two runs and go ahead by one.
There will be such times when your child, like me, will do something which seems incredibly stupid. But before you jump all over her, have the patience to ask her the reasoning behind the play. You may find there was a method in the apparent madness. Helping children to replay a match or sporting event in their minds and analysing their reasoning while suggesting alternative plays, helps to improve on-field performance. Such cerebration in informal and friendly settings can improve sports outcomes while simultaneously strengthening parent-child bonding and relationships.
Finally, parents would do well to encourage not just the competitive, but also the fun aspect of games and sports. Remember, a person rarely succeeds at something unless they enjoy doing it, without being over-concerned about winning and losing. Therefore joining in with your children in their chosen sport or game is a key motivator in making sports education an enjoyable and fulfilling experience.
(Dr. George Selleck is a California-based sports psychologist, author and advisor to Sportz Village, Bangalore)