Team of Experts

There is a strong tendency in our society to view participation in sports in the most favorable light. Children are encouraged to participate in organized youth sports programs because they are thought to promote such fundamental values as character, teamwork, determination and commitment...

It seems that everyone is
ready to blame "out-of-control parents" for all the ills of youth
sports. We are the crazy ones screaming on the sidelines, abusing the
kids, yelling at the officials, and displaying poor sportsmanship.
What's a parent to do?
One piece of advice that is
handed out regularly to parents is to "set a good example" for our
children. Here are five things sports psychologist Shane Murphy says you can do
that will really show your children (and other parents) what being "a
good sport" is really all about.

The teams will share one sideline; their parents stand on the opposite sideline. Instead of practicing good sportsmanship by exchanging friendly greetings, each group of parents stakes out "their" own turf on the sideline and eyes the other with suspicion and distrust. After all, they are "the enemy"...

To create the best possible environment for youth sports requires cooperation and coordination between parents, coaches, and game officials that can only be achieved through education.

Years ago, a youth league baseball coach called to let me know that my 11-year old son was being invited to join a major league team - a year ahead of most boys his age. After an initial rush of pride, I wondered how this "honor? might impact our family. We had three children - the baseball player was the oldest - and up until that point, sports had been a pretty low-intensity activity that fit easily into our vision of balanced family life.

It is very disappointing not to be chosen for the team for which your child has tried out. Whether your child has been cut from a school, club or league team, it is just plain painful not to be selected.

Every sport has its rituals and culture. Wrestling is no different. The focus is, and always has been, on the weight of the athlete. Because athletes are grouped by weight, each team and coach decides which athlete fits best in a weight class. This should be no problem, except that the weight of young wrestlers fluctuates considerably, which may make it difficult to maintain a weight class throughout the season.

Parents face the danger of being caught in the intensity web even in individual sports such as golf and tennis. The problem is not so much being on the sidelines during competition but the way they interact with their child leading up to the beginning of a major tournament.

According to a 1999 National Institute of Drug Abuse survey, steroid use among students is now at its highest point in a decade, with an estimated 479,000 students nationwide, or 2.9 percent, having used the drug by their senior year of high school.

Ever see a picture in your local paper of a summer "all-star" baseball team of 10 and 11 year olds and find it odd that nearly every kid in the picture is either the son or daughter of one of the coaches or of one of the coaches of a team during the regular season or the best friend of the coaches kid?