Sports should not be
a compulsion. Sports should be a passion, recreation or just plain joy. Sports
should not drain energy, sports should revitalize it.
If your child is not
energized before going to the practice, or is showing signs of depression or
stress, or has to be literally dragged to her practice every day, you have a
problem. Either ask your child to give up sports completely, because perhaps
you are not seeing what the child is trying so hard to show you, she does not
want to play mainstream sports. Or, you give up on your hopes and expectations
from your child. just let her enjoy the game at her own pace.
The thing is, the day
parents enroll their child into youth sports program, their hope rise and
eventually expectations rise too. Then they want the child to perform well, win
games, outshine others, get successful, clear the way to college scholarship
and so on. Well this might work for some children who have in-born talent and can
take the pressure, children who grow up to be star athletes, who grow up to
play pro sports and have their career in it. But not every child is made to
that specification. Majority of the kids do not end up in pro sports. So why
force every child into it.
The dilemma most
parents face is, how would they know if the child has it in her, until they
push the child into it. Here are a few tips that will help parents ease off the
pressure and let their child enjoy playing.
·
Don’t make victory the benchmark for success when your child
is playing. Sometimes the fringe benefits are more important than winning. See
what your child is learning. See if she is enjoying the game or not? Is she
making new friends or building up on her emotional quotient.
·
If the child is struggling with the sport in the beginning,
support her but do not force her in to it. There’s a fine line between
motivation and emotional coercion.
·
If you think that only winning will motivate your child, you
are probably wrong. Victory and success is usually the motivation for adults.
Children can find motivation and joy in innocent things the adult mind may be
incapable of processing.
·
Please don’t live by the notion that if the child is not good
at a particular sport, the child is wasting her time playing it. The very fact
that she is loving the sport means that she should play it irrespective of her
level of skill
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