Reply to At what age is it acceptable to play to win?

Forum Index » Sports General Discussion

Reply to "At what age is it acceptable to play to win? "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The goals for the kids on the field should be to have fun, play within the rules and strive to win.

The goals for the adults should be to work to make sure every kid is having a decent time (it’s not always pure fun), every kid is playing in various positions consistent with the kid’s abilities and safety, and every kid is - to the extent reasonably possible - learning something about the sport.

The adults do adult things and the kids work at learning and playing the game.

Now - reality - there are very few kid games in any sport that “matter”.  Playing/competing for an Olympic spot, a school championship ,etc - Sure.  To some extent, of course winning matters.  Mostly though - wins and losses do not matter at all.

And, with most travel/club youth sports the entire point is individual improvement by the players.  If your kid plays/competes in a youth sport ask yourself - do you know what persons or teams won last year?  Does anyone care?  In youth soccer the selling point for the top clubs is how many of their players are moving to pro or college ball - not whether the club team won anything.

[/quote]

Thanks, this is such a helpful and healthy perspective on it. I think equalizing playing time is important at this age due to this. People are signing their kids up so they can personally improve and learn new skills. The best way to improve is actual game play not just in practice. I hate that so many parents make a thing of winning. It does not matter if your first grader's team with a championship game in their little league. It just doesn't. At this age the teams that win typically have 1 kid that outshines everyone. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics