Category: Role models
Posted by Larry Herren on Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 9:58 AMTeaching good sportsmanship starts at home
One of my favorite things about autumn is football. I love the game with a passion that might be more than it should be at my age, but then again I suppose that depends on who's setting the bar.
A few friends got together this past Saturday to cheer on our favorite college teams (Go Blue!), but when a commercial about sportsmanship aired I was left with some reservations about the traditional trash talking that had begun. The commercial starts out with a group of kids coming together to play a game, but before they take the field each of them give commentary of their dad's comments during a recent football game. Each child exclaims how their dad, for example, says the refs are "stupid" and "blind." One notes his dad believes they must be getting paid off to make such bonehead calls.
There have been games that have left me with similar conclusions but as the commercial then asks, if you're making such statements what are you teaching your children? The answer is driven home when the kids agree they want to grow up to be just like their dads, then start their game with comments like "OK, let's go losers, let's play chumps."
I'm careful about the words I use around my son but I thought this commercial was an important and powerful illustration of how teaching our children good sportsmanship starts with us modeling it when we are in the heat of battle, even if it is only from the stands or watching on a big screen TV.
Some other thoughts in teaching good sportsmanship:
- Don't always let your child win. It's tempting, particularly when they're young, but it has to be balanced. Otherwise, we teach our children to expect positive outcomes in every competition they engage in which is unrealistic and fails to teach them how to manage adversity.
- Don't place too much emphasis on wining or losing. Particularly when you are teaching your child about the mechanics of a particular sport, prioritize having fun. If he or she has fun, they are more likely to want to continue and learn more about the game and their desire to compete in it will take care of itself.
- In any game your child plays, teach him to respect officials, teammates and opponents and save his complaints for private conversations after the game. Obviously, this sort of teaching can only occur if we demonstrate the same sort of behavior.
- Remember this is your child's experience. Remind your children, and yourself, too, if necessary, that they're playing a sport for their enjoyment and growth, not so we can try and recapture our own.
- Teach your children to lose and win with equal levels of class. Teach them, for example, not to retaliate for foul play or trash talk; just play as they've been taught and give it all they have so they're not left questioning their efforts. And at the end of the competition, to shake their opponent's hand because after all, it's only a game.
Comments
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Sportsmanship.
Larry,
MSU is as fine a school as you will find in East Lansing and charitable too! Take for example how well they treated their recent guests from CMU! UM isn't nearly as gracious, at least until they play the Spartans! Sparty On!
Sportsmanship.
Larry,
MSU is as fine a school as you will find in East Lansing and charitable too! Take for example how well they treated their recent guests from CMU! UM isn't nearly as gracious, at least until they play the Spartans! Sparty On!
Sportsmanship.
Larry,
Great subject. As you may have noted the NCAA asked colleges and university teams last weekend to demonstrate good sportsmanship by a pre-game handshake or other appropriate gesture. Of the games I watched it was quite impressive. In fact, as a UM fan, I have to admit that the "Other school", OSU actually ran out of the tunnel with the opposition. Something that had never happened in Columbus before. It was avery fine gesture. I do believe that we as parents and coaches need to teach good sportsmanship by both word AND deed and you outlined some of the guiding principles for the development of sportsmanship. I also believe that good sportsmanship can allow for some age appropriate good natured "trash talk". Some times among friends this is more enjoyable than the actual game itself! (as you and I have been known to engage in occasionally) To be able to do this, however, one has to be respectful of each other to know where certain lines are that should not be crossed least someone gets offended and a friendly relationship suffers. Unfortunately, this skill has been a somewhat dying art, as we have seen exhibited in recent months among our elected officials.
I also think that in some ways we do our children a disservice in this area by "over supervising" them. I am old enough now to recall the many summer days, as well as fall and winter, playing various game, baseball, football, etc. for hours on end with not an adult in sight. Somehow everyone learned quickly how to resolve conflicts, decide on rules, avoid making the kid with the ball and/or bat too mad so that everyone could enjoy playing together. When we as adults are too involved in the structuring of every interaction that our children have we rob them of an opportunity to learn these very valuable skills. And after all, learning how to play nice together is at the very heart of good sportsmanship.
I take my hat off to the NCAA for encouraging Universities to model a difference and as well, to those schools that have stepped up to do so. But with all due respect, I can't see U. of M. and OSU running through a tunnel together, I have to believe Wolverine Nation draws a line on something like that!
You bring up some excellent points though. One is with regard to "good natured trash talk;" I agree that good sportsmanship allows for it but as you've also pointed out, it needs to occur in the framework of fun and respect to where lines are drawn before someone experiences it as offensive. That's why good modeling to our children is so important; learning where to draw lines in social interactions as well as so many other aspects of life is what they're still in the process of learning how to do and what we as parents have been in trusted to teach them.
I also agree that like most anything else, learning how to effectively interact with others comes through experience but we do, in fact, take opportunities for experience away, or at least significantly dilute it, when we over supervise or structure our children's time and interactions. You've done a great job in describing how. What do others think?
And P.S. to my good friend Robert in New Orleans, how did such a great Dad and intelligent individual as yourself slip up to have their otherwise beautiful and intelligent daughter end up attending college at MSU?!
Larry
Sportsmanship.
Larry,
Great subject. As you may have noted the NCAA asked colleges and university teams last weekend to demonstrate good sportsmanship by a pre-game handshake or other appropriate gesture. Of the games I watched it was quite impressive. In fact, as a UM fan, I have to admit that the "Other school", OSU actually ran out of the tunnel with the opposition. Something that had never happened in Columbus before. It was avery fine gesture. I do believe that we as parents and coaches need to teach good sportsmanship by both word AND deed and you outlined some of the guiding principles for the development of sportsmanship. I also believe that good sportsmanship can allow for some age appropriate good natured "trash talk". Some times among friends this is more enjoyable than the actual game itself! (as you and I have been known to engage in occasionally) To be able to do this, however, one has to be respectful of each other to know where certain lines are that should not be crossed least someone gets offended and a friendly relationship suffers. Unfortunately, this skill has been a somewhat dying art, as we have seen exhibited in recent months among our elected officials.
I also think that in some ways we do our children a disservice in this area by "over supervising" them. I am old enough now to recall the many summer days, as well as fall and winter, playing various game, baseball, football, etc. for hours on end with not an adult in sight. Somehow everyone learned quickly how to resolve conflicts, decide on rules, avoid making the kid with the ball and/or bat too mad so that everyone could enjoy playing together. When we as adults are too involved in the structuring of every interaction that our children have we rob them of an opportunity to learn these very valuable skills. And after all, learning how to play nice together is at the very heart of good sportsmanship.
Sportsmanship.
I really like this article. I recently have my girls in their first baseball games this past summer. The sports club the we belong to, feel that "it is just a game, and the children are there to have fun and learn". This is my feeling of there first time as well. I really would not have enjoyed the game, nor would my children if the coaches were in it just to win. The league was for children 6 - 12 years old and most of the coaching teams did not keep score, everyone was a winner. A good time was had by all. However, in the major leagues, of the same club, kids that were 13 - 16 where an umpier was used, that was a whole different ball game. Pareent were acting as if money was placed on the game. My children saw this behavior and were shock by what the hear and saw. We had to leave quickly. Over all, they had a really good time for there first experience at baseball, now we are off to soccer.
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