Youth Sports
Youth Team Sports Help Build Character
For many youngsters youth team sports can play a crucial role in a child’s social development, and one key facet of social maturation is character-building. Lessons learned from playing youth sports, baseball being a prime example, are life-long lessons. Read on to learn some of the long-lasting ways that youth sports help build character.
Baseball is such a good example of a character-building, team-oriented youth sport because each role on a team is clearly defined by where a player is positioned on the field of play. The first baseman does not pitch, for example, and a shortstop cannot run deep into right field to make a catch. Youngsters who play youth sports baseball, then, quickly learn that their teammates depend on them at critical moments, just as they depend on their teammates. There is pressure to succeed and, as in all youth sports, there are moments of failure and disappointment that result from this interdependent youth team sports dynamic.
With a good coach who understands the social development implications of youth and sports failures and successes, both wins and losses become teachable moments that build character. From youth sports failures youngsters learn good sportsmanship and determination to try harder. From youth sports successes young athletes learn pride, confidence and an appreciation for cooperation.
We see this, of course, not just with baseball, but with nearly any youth team sport, although team dynamics may differ from sport to sport. Both soccer and basketball, for example, allow players to traverse the field of play and therefore create more competition not just between youth sports teams, but also between athletes on the same team. Youngsters on a soccer or basketball team, then, must learn to balance competition with cooperation, which is to say they learn to weigh their own personal achievements against the achievements of the team.
Some youth sports build character by presenting a unique opportunity to achieve both independently and as part of a group. Swimming is one sport that presents youths with competition opportunities as an individual and as a teammate. Individual events teach confidence and self-reliance; relay events teach collaboration.
Youngsters in most areas have the opportunity to participate in school-affiliated, regional and national youth sports programs. Parents who want their children to reap the character-building benefits of youth team sports will want to consider their children’s abilities, social needs and interests when deciding which youth sports will best suit each individual child.
 |  |  |
