Making Sports More Fun for Kids

If your kid plays sports, chances are that he or she is in baseball, softball or soccer as the weather heats up and the school year winds down. While we all want our kids to have fun, build confidence and learn new skills while they play a sport, there are some specific things that you can do to help to make it a winning season for them.

Get involved

It's easy to say "participate more," but two parents working full-time or single parenthood make it hard. Let's just say that where your schedule permits and resourcefulness can fill the gap, do what you can to be a part of your child's team experience.

For baseball/softball, depending on how your league works, that means actively volunteering for a team parent spot, dug-out duty, score-keeping and concessions or becoming a coach or assistant coach if your experience level makes you an asset. If it doesn't, see what you can do to help players warm up for practice and games.

For soccer, help with drills during practice or with warm-ups before games. Or you can make a difference by organizing the coach's gift and end-of-season party for your team. As with all youth athletics, if you are knowledgeable about your child's sport and are good at working with kids, consider taking on the responsibility of coach or assistant coach.

Practice and more practice

One of the best ways you can help your child improve and feel confident about her sport is to do build skills outside of team practice. Here, again, it's hard to find the extra time when making it to regular practices and games is enough of a struggle, but even providing equipment and inspiration (a backyard soccer goal or a baseball/softball catch net) can make it easier for your kid to get in some extra training. There is little substitute, however, for an extended game of catch or soccer ball keep-away with your kid, and the time you get to spend together has all those great fringe benefits.

Be the best booster

After our sons' baseball team finally won a game this season, another mom and I were talking about how telling a child that "winning isn't the important thing" rings hollow after while. Our kids had been getting demoralized before that first taste of victory. Sure, we'd like to pretend that winning doesn't matter in youth sports, but really, any kind of sport involves two teams or individuals trying to outscore/outperform the other, so who's kidding whom?

The fact is that every team needs to win once in a while, and when even a single win feels elusive for your kids' team, parents need to fill in the gap. When your team is down—and up, for that matter—take the time to focus on each player, not just your own, and point out something good that he or she did in the game. Kids of a certain age don’t naturally cheer each other on, since they usually have so much fun on or off the bench. Take a moment to encourage young athletes to focus on the game when they're not actively in it and yell for their teammates. Win or lose, all the players will feel cared about and more involved in the game, and that surge in team spirit might just be what your team has been missing.