Lauren and Josh are playing their first season of in-house league soccer this summer. For those of you well out of the children's sports world, this means they don't travel to other towns, they play other teams from Northfield. I received an email from the head of the Northfield Soccer Association which addressed sportsmanship and having fun in the league. The email also included what to do if your team is winning by a lot during any given game and included this message, verbatim:
So, here are a few tips for slowing down your team if they're bowling the other team over.
1. Make them come all the way back and touch their own goal until the ball is released onto the field.
2. Release the ball so the other team has the advantage.
3. Re strict who can score on your team (only Jamie can score).
4. Everyone on your team must touch the ball before you can score.
5. Can only pass and/or shoot with the non-dominant foot.
6. Parents - stop telling your kids (if they're on the dominant team) to "go get the ball". Let the other team get a feel for the game. Clap when they score, but don't egg them on.
I'm not saying "throw the game" .....just slow your kids down
As a parent, I am extremely unhappy with the message this is sending to my kids. Aren't kids supposed to try and be the best? Aren't they supposed to strive to win? Isn't the point of youth sports to teach competition along with good sportsmanship - winning and losing? Aren't these items good for practices? Why should they be implemented in games?
One of the reasons I choose to enroll my kids in sports because I know they need exercise, but they don't need organized sports to do this. They spend plenty of time playing tag (everywhere we go!), running to get whatever, and kickball is the staple game in our cul-de-sac. I'm not really worried that my kids aren't getting enough exercise.
However, teaching kids about comptetition is an important part of life that gets circumvented because people in general want to make sure everyone feels included and no one feels bad. I disagree with this. Competition is important. When these kids grow up and compete for jobs, the employer is not going to give the job to all the applicants because that way no one feels bad. What is also important for kids to learn is how to win and how to lose. Kids need to actually learn this - it doesn't come naturally. It's important for kids to understand that not everything is fair, not everything makes you feel good, and if you want something, you need to work hard to get it.
We set this "everyone is a winner" standard and wonder why kids aren't ambitious and have no drive. When the label of "winner" is automatically handed over without any effort, when would kids ever learn that this is not the case in adulthood? As teenagers and adults, these kids are emotionally paralyzed because they fear failure. And why wouldn't they, they've never experienced it and learned to deal with the emotions to go along with it. Or they just simply expect everything to be handed to them.
There is something to be said for learning to win and lose graciously. Again, this does not come naturally. A kid's first reaction when they win is to point out that the other person lost. Kids must learn to celebrate their accomplishments without belittling the other person/team. Kids must learn to learn from their shortcomings when they lose. It's a part of life that cannot be sugar-coated or skipped over because it's everywhere. Yes, it hurts us as parents to see our children disappointed or sad because they lost the game. Acknowledging their feelings and helping them work through these emotions is much more helpful longterm to children than brushing them under a rug or blaming the other team because we don't like to see our kids hurting.
I sincerely hope that my kids always play their best, no matter what and that they learn how to win just as graciously as they lose. But mostly, I hope they learn that the majority of situations there are winners and losers. Sometimes they'll be on the winning side and sometimes the losing side. But what's important is that when they win, they learn what they did to get there and when they lose, they learn what they did to get there. Life is all about learning.....about themselves and about others.
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