BellaOnline Forums Family Early Childhood Kids and Competition - Sports and Athletics

With the Olympics around the corner, I've been thinking a lot about kids and sports. I've been "lucky" in that my 5 year old has not been inclined towards team sports -- ours is a big soccer town -- so that's a bit of a miracle for me. I've made it totally available to her and masked my own lack of interest (and athleticism!), but it's just not her thing! But Ballet and Gymnastics (her "thing") can be just as competitive.

How do you handle competition in the form of sports and athletics for your kids? How was it handled in your life growing up? What do you feel are the costs and benefits of kids' competitive sports and athletics?

Here's some musings of mine on the subject to start us off --

Kids and Competition -- Sports and Athletics

Nicki

I coached gymnastics for many years and there comes a point where it is definately competitive. And for some children - worse than team sports....for this reason.

With gymnastics it is a solo sport. Her scores are totally on her. For some kids this is much preferred, for other personality types this can be extremely stressful and overwhelming.

On a baseball team your child is one of many. One child cannot lose or win the entire game on their own. For some children this wouldn't be good because they would find the lack of control so frustrating. For other personality types it is a relief and takes off a lot of pressure allowing them to just have fun with it.

The grown-ups in any sport play a huge role in the "success" a child feels regarding a sporting event. If they put the pressure on it can be very hurtful for a young child.

Interesting thoughts....great topic. I don't think there will ever be one right or wrong answer suitable for each child and situation.

Angela <><

Lastnight I was watching that american woman win the all around. And they mentioned her father, a past gold medalist, had said that the silver would be the worst thing in the world for that family...that only gold would do, or something like that. My husband had to keep me from jumping up off the couch and hitting him through the TV screen. I just looked at that little 19 year old girl and wanted to cry.

I don't care how much it was HER dream and not his as they are reporting. That kind of attitude, much less statement from a parent is just unacceptable to me!!! Shame on him. That's the kind of notion that inspired me to write the article.

Nicki

Of course we all want our kids to succeed at whatever they do, but to say that a silver medal is a failure is horrid!

Imagine how many children who didn't make the team must feel after reading statements like that.

My oldest son did kayaking for a while - and he trained here in Georgia where the Atlanta Olympics were held. He was such a natural at it to begin with - his coach did bring up the possibility of him training for racing in the Olympics. But then he went to live with his Dad for a year where there was no training facility. By the time he came back - he was too far behind everyone to catch up. He was horribly frustrated.

I was just trying to get him to see that he needed to be bettering his own times, and work his way up the "tippier" boats (because they are faster) rather than worrying about placing in races, because it was getting too intense for him. But he had heard that word "Olympics" before, and he was set on that.

It was terribly painful for him when he started having the seizures and was told he could no longer race on the water.

It took me a whole year, but I finally talked him into going out for the cross-country team at the high school. I just want him to be involved. I don't care if he wins, I just know it is easier for kids that are on a team of some sort to build friendships. Something that a child with Asperger's definitely needs.

I just found out that the father who was a gold medalist competed for the Soviet Union (before the dissolution).

So that would explain a lot of his attitude towards the medal.

Back when the USSR was still communist - winning was everything particularly in the sport of gymnastics. Those kids were not allowed to be kids (much the same way that China's athletes are not allowed to be kids still today.) Their lives centered around competition and winning was drilled into their heads. It is probably hard to overcome all of that conditioning.

So I won't be quite as hard on Luikin's dad for his comment as I was before. I still don't agree with it, but I can at least understand where that mentality came from now.

Yeah... they talked about that (note thought that HE didn't win a gold for the men's all-around -- he got the silver). But I think when we have that kind of pressure and pain as children we need to choose a direction. We can do the same thing to our children, or we can learn from that experience and be better -- we can show that them that a parent's love and approval is the one thing they can't lose, no matter what else they are competing for.

It's nice that she won this time, and maybe that will be enough for him. But somewhere in the back of her psyche, she has to be worried about when she'll mess up and lose daddy's approval.

I felt like an otherwise lovely event was marred by that dynamic hanging over it...

Nicki :-)

I think he was talking about Nastia's own goal for herself, not the family expectation. She had set a goal long ago to win a gold medal in the All-Around. The reporters sometimes left out all that in telling the story.