JBo Knows: Acceptable Behaviour in Sports Part 2

Wow, yesterday ran kind of long eh? I had thought it best to adhere to the "write what you know" philosophy, but perhaps I should have picked something I'm not quite so passionate about; I had trouble keeping yesterday's post as "short" as it was! Anyway, I'll try to be a little briefer today and also try to wrap up this topic!

I'm going to touch briefly on coaches here, and then get to the real meat and potatoes I had intended to serve up all along; how we as adults impact our kids' in sport.

A lot of what I said about referees goes for coaches as well, with one exception; coaches generally aren't paid. A coach is a volunteer, a volunteer who in addition to running practices and games had to obtain certification in the sport, obtain a criminal record/child abuse registry check, take the Respect in Sport on-line course, and quite possibly find time to take off of work, all to enable kids to play sports. Again, I'm not saying that all coaches are great; there are coaches who are quite guilty of the offences I'm about to discuss, but in general coaches do have the best interest of the kids at heart.

I attended a conference last November and greatly enjoyed the keynote address by Dr. Colin Higgs on Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD). What struck me most about his address was the stressing of the importance of teaching kids while they're young the basics of sport movement; running, jumping, and throwing. Almost all sports hinge on some, if not all, of these skills. What was also interesting was the revelation that if a child does not learn these skills by the age of 10 or 11, it becomes increasingly difficult to learn them.

Dr. Higgs made clear the need for children to play different sports at an early age, not only so they can try out different activities to see what they like, but so they learn all these skills. The best athletes played more than one sport growing up; if you followed the World Juniors this year you may have caught mention of a few Team Canada players who play both soccer and hockey at a provincial/national level.

So what does this have to do with the behaviour of adult spectators? Allow me to pose this question; how best do children learn? The answer; when they have fun! When your child is struggling with their math problems, do they respond better to you coaxing and encouraging them, or to getting screamed at?

I am of the belief that the purpose of children's sports is the following:

1. To promote an active lifestyle

2. To have fun

3. To learn basic motor skills

4. To have fun!

5. To learn teamwork and problem-solving in a group setting

6. To have fun!!

As adults in the stands, we can play an important role in our kids sport development. I think if we concerned ourselves with our kids having fun and learning rather than winning a lot of problems would be solved.

A quick side note (and bear in mind this is my opinion and I have nothing on paper to back me up), please, please, please, do not reward your children for scoring goals or for winning! I cringe whenever a parent tells me their kid gets a dollar for every goal they score. By rewarding goal scoring, we are not encouraging teamwork. If your child is playing defence, why should they try to learn how to do that properly when they can get a reward for abandoning their post to go for the goal?

I could go on and on about this topic and I've barely scratched the surface here, but I hope it gives you something to think about. If this is something you struggle with or just want to discuss, please feel free to drop me a line at capped.crusader @ gmail.com (just remove those spaces around the "@"!). Or if you're looking for some literature on the subject, I recommend reading "Just Let The Kids Play; How to Stop Other Adults From Ruining Your Child's Fun and Success in Youth Sports" by Bob Bigelow.

In closing, please remember that I'm referring primarily to children aged 12 and under here. I could do multiple articles on how things change as kids grow older in sport, but if I do it definitely won't be this week!

The Power is Yours!

--JBo