Parenting in Sports:

Parenting is the hardest job on earth and it seems to get just a little bit harder when our children are athletes whose team has made it to the playoff or all star game. As parents we are responsible for ensuring our children arrive on time to practice and games, eats healthy and manages to get their homework done. Somehow during all of that, we are supposed to use sports to teach them life lessons. While you are juggling homework, game schedules and nutrition, we suggest teaching these two valuable life lessons during the playoff season at little to no effort from you.

Responsibility in Game Preparation

One of the best ways to ensure our children learn the life lesson of responsibility is through game preparation. This can relate to practicing, punctuality and ensuring they have their equipment leading up to games. This is especially important for playoff games so we recommend asking your player to pack their equipment the night before the big game. In the rush of morning packing, items can be left behind which as we know can mean the difference between our children playing or being benched for forgetting their cleats. This also teaches our children responsibility and takes the stress off of us as parents from worrying if we have everything. Although after you player packs their bag, you may want to double check that everything is there.

The Value of Parental Sportsmanship

While teaching responsibility is important, we think that nothing is more vital during playoff season than teaching our children good sportsmanship. How many times have we read news stories of or seen parents fighting at playoff games? What type of example does this set for our children? The value of parental sportsmanship moves beyond friendly play and sets an example that our children will take with them for the rest of their lives. This example should be of positive attitudes, coaching support and a fun outlook. Our children can feel more stressed if we don’t display these attitudes and sportsmanship is a great trait to teach our children at this important time in their lives.

Parenting in Sports

Parenting an athletic child has its own hurdles and stressors but while you are juggling all your parental responsibilities, remember that what our children take away from this time, is the life lessons they’ve learned. Be sure to teach them responsibility for their equipment as well as good sportsmanship by your example and those lessons will be applied to other areas of their lives as well as passed on to grandchildren from your teaching efforts.

About the Author

Heather Henderson is an Associate Director of Internet Marketing at RIP-IT Sports who enjoys reading, the batting cages and spending time outdoors.