Soccer woes
I am learning firsthand that the single biggest negative factor in children's sports is the off-the-hook PARENTS.
Goodness.
They are 5-years old, people. For these tiny children, soccer is a big game of chase the ball down the field and take turns kicking at it in bewteen hugging your teammates and giggling. It's fun, not competition. Let it go.
If only we all took our words at face value when we tell our children, "the most important thing is to HAVE FUN."
posted by lachen at 5:36 PM
2 Comments:
AMEN! And good luck spreading the word. I have coached soccer and baseball when my kids were that age and it is really sad. The baseball league was organized through the YMCA and one of the rules for the little ones was that the score would not be kept except by inning so that when one team scored 9 runs the inning was over. Early in the season the kids did not care about the score but were more interested in a dog that happened by or a plane overhead. By the end, the parents had affected them enough that they were constantly asking "Did we win" or "What is the score". I do believe in competition and striving for excellence but mom and dad should wait about 10 more years before making that more important than kids playing and exercising.
I so agree. It can sometimes be a hard thing to fight, but I do fight it. Spirit has been in gymnastics and one of the teachers told me that she's really talented and if she sticks with it she can be pre-team by the time she's 6. Part of me is totally excited, but part of me is not. I don't want to push competition on her until she's old enough. And I don't want make gymnastics work and not fun. So she's going once a week and loving it and I'm fighting my own competitive urges and keeping my trap shut.
But the parents out there are brutal in soccer, baseball and other sports. My dad and step-mom have experienced it ten fold and my little brother quit baseball and later on basketball because of parents and coaches like that. My dad was never ever like that thank God. And little bro was really really good at both sports. It's sad he felt the need to quit.
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