Unison Parenting Blog: The Upside of Youth Sports

Fall means a return to school and to many youth and child activities. Over the next three weeks, I want to discuss a topic close to my heart: youth sports. What is the upside of your child participating? What is the downside? What is the way forward? The last post will also emphasize the Unison Parenting angle.

Statistically speaking, youth sports are incredibly beneficial for children and teens:

• Participants are more likely to improve in the classroom, with lower dropout risk, higher grades, and higher likelihood of attending college.

• They are less likely to take part in risky behaviors, such as drug use. Females exhibit lower teen pregnancy rates and higher self-esteem.

• They receive physical, mental, and emotional benefits: lower rates of obesity and anxiety, improved time management and cognition.

Beyond the statistics, your child will learn a lot from youth sports that will help in life.

• They will learn from mistakes and failure. Sports will provide plenty of opportunities for failure. But your child can learn how to address and overcome failure.

• They will learn teamwork - how important is that in so many ways? And being a good teammate means sacrificing yourself for others' benefit.

• They will make friends. In my many years of participating in and coaching youth sports, I would say it's almost impossible to avoid making friends when you're in a team sport. Even in individual sports, they may experience friendship opportunities, surprisingly, even with rivals.

Then there are the simple benefits of exercise and enjoyment. Plus, many young athletes find they can forget life's stresses when they are focused on their sport.

As a Little League baseball coach, I witnessed such benefits.

• Watching a child master a technique that had troubled them.

• Standing back to see them celebrate after-game snacks and camaraderie, win or lose.

• I found a child could adopt a different persona when they were playing sports. Maybe they behaved or were treated one way at school, but they exhibited or found other traits in sports.

I also witnessed the downside of youth sports, which I'll discuss next time.