Can children be taught the value of sportsmanship in an era of steroid abuse among professional athletes and ever more aggressive parents in the stands at little league games?

by Gene Poschman

Created on: July 12, 2009

Can children be taught the value of sportsmanship in an era of steroid abuse among professional athletes and ever more aggressive parents in the stands at little league games?

The simple answer is yes. More to the point is how do we teach sportsmanship, especially with children and young adults being barraged by professional sports figures defying the rules or blatantly ignoring them.

As a parent it is my job to set an expected standard of behavior and adhere to it. It isn't a matter of being an ignorant straight arrow without a clue as to what is going on but by being an observer and pointing out missteps and explaining the consequences.

In sports, when a scandal is reported to the public and it involves something your child is interested in, then it is important to discuss it with him or her. You must discuss it at a level your child can understand. It may not be necessary to cover all the information about a scandal in gory detail. Don't make it a lecture, but involve the child in a discussion and hear their view about what is going on. Ask them how they think it should be handled. Use the discussion to guide not to dictate.

When starting out teaching sports make sure your child knows and understands the rules. Emphasize the importance of playing by the rules and showing good sportsmanship. Explain that no one wins every time. Make sure your child is aware that it is okay to lose. Teach that when losing, one should take at least two things away with them. One is how or what they could do to be better the next time they play, and the other is admiration for those who won and what did they do that helped them win. As important as those two thing are make sure your child knows that they are loved just as much even in defeat.

When other parents are out of line at a game, discuss it with your child. It may have gone unnoticed, but most likely it didn't. Remember to make it a discussion and let your child have input. Don't make it a lecture. If you find that you may have been more enthusiastic at a game or event than you should have; apologize to those who were involved, with your child as witness. Later, when you are alone with your child apologize to him or her and explain why.

People play sports to win. When we play hard we get emotional. We want our children to play to win. It is necessary that we teach how to play a sport, what the rules of the sport are, and make sure everyone who plays understands the rules. We must also teach good sportsmanship. Not with a wink and a nod, but with all the sincerity we can muster.

We can set up special leagues, we can evict unruly parents, and we can punish those who break the law. We can make up rules, we can lecture, and we can jump up on our soapboxes and shout out about poor sportsmanship. For our children the best learning experience is when we practice good sportsmanship. They learn more from what we do than by what we say.

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