Why Sports Should be Fun for Young Kids

How Can Parents Help Athletes Have Fun?

A sport parent asks:

“My 5-yr-old niece is playing softball and right now she is experiencing issues of not wanting to bat with fear of getting out. It’s real bad and embarrassing, she keeps crying and having tantrums in the dugout. Also today after finally batting, she was on second and was forced out at third, she then had a tantrum right there on the on field. She ran away from the coaches and refused to move. Any help would be appreciated.”

Sports can benefit young kids (ages four to nine) for a variety of reasons, but pressuring them, especially when they’re very young, is a bad idea. It sounds like this child feels pressured.

According to Dr. Ross Flowers, sports give your children not only the opportunity to develop motor and coordination skills, but emotional awareness, analytical reasoning, decision-making skills and many more individual and team-based skill sets.

However, in this case, it’s unlikely she’ll realize these benefits until she starts having fun playing.

To help young athletes have fun, first look at their goals.

Ask them why they want to play, what do they want out of sports?

At such a young age, if they say something like “winning”, or “to be really good,” you’ve got a challenge on your hands.

At such a young age, the only goals for your child should be to have fun with friends.

If they do have expectations like, “I need to be the best,” or, “We need to win,” let them know that all you want from them is to have fun, and you don’t care at all how good they are or how many wins they get.

Treat losses just like you would treat wins, focusing on positive, teamwork-related aspects of the game such as how well your children shared the soccer ball with their teammates or how much fun it looked like they were having.

Michael VJ Stanley, retired college hockey coach and youth sports coach of 30 years, said in an interview with us, “We can’t stress enough how important it is that they be safe and they have fun… When you have a child that age how many times a day do they change their mind?”

If your kids want to try another sport or grow tired of one they are practicing, do not force them to stay in the sport.

This will ruin the fun of the sport for them, and that is all you should be focused on at such a young age.

Seventy percent of children drop out of sports by the age of 15, and many of these drop outs could be avoided if the parents simply remembered that when it comes to sports, fun comes first!

Once your children know that fun comes first, tell them that making mistakes is how they get better, and the sooner they are able to let go of a mistake, the more they are able to improve.

Remind your children once again that sports are supposed to be fun, and mistakes are just a part of the game.

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Related Articles on Kids’ Mental Game:

• Why Sports Must be Fun for Young Athletes
• Helping Young Athletes Have More Fun 
• Should Parents Only Focus on Fun in Youth Sports?

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