What can sports teach us?  The universal response from coaches, parents and athletes, is always ‘life lessons’. We oftentimes champion sports for our children in the hopes that they will learn these valuable life lessons through their experience. But what lessons exactly do we hope they will learn?  

The 2012 wrestling season is winding down and now is a great opportunity for you, as a Responsible Sport Parent, to help your youth athlete identify all they have achieved over the season.  The team at Responsible Sports, asked the experts at  Positive Coaching Alliance, for some ideas on what life lessons we can help reinforce this coming season.

Consider taking this opportunity to sit down with your athlete to talk about these life lesson examples. Discuss with your youth athlete the traits they already possessed or developed throughout the season.  Some life lessons to consider include:

Focusing on what they can control. Youth sports should help kids learn that all they can do is focus on their own effort, and not the outcome.  Focus on what they can control, not what is out of their control.  

Keep learning. We’re constantly learning from our successes but also from our mistakes. Youth sports should help kids recognize that even the best players are constantly learning and working to get better.  It’s an approach to life that will serve us all well.

Celebrate Success. Sports teach us to celebrate success – large and small. We all know how to celebrate winning the game, but sports can also help us learn to celebrate the smaller goals we set for ourselves, and see ‘winning’ differently.  

Let go of mistakes. Successful athletes brush off mistakes. They acknowledge them, they learn from them, and they then move past them.  They are in the past.  

Youth sports are designed to be fun and memorable. By acknowledging life lessons learned and not focusing only the sport skills training received during the season, we can help our youth athletes to recognize small victories that can make any season a successful one!  

To learn more about helping your youth athletes learn valuable life lessons, visit ResponsibleSports.com