As parents, we teach our children that they can be whatever they want to be. However, some overzealous parents are, or are about to view their child as a financial investment on which they should earn good returns.

In case you are considering enrolling your child in a sports activity, here is what to ask yourself first:

1. Are our family priorities in order?

2. Will my child have fun?

3. Does this game meet my child’s needs?

4. Is this sport more important to me or my son?

5. What is my child learning from this experience?

Is there a way to get a similar experience in a less expensive way?

Once all the answers are yes, you can continue. Here’s how your investment will pay off

1. Watch your child grow

Sports training demands a lot of money and adds a lot of chaos to their lives. However, Youth Sports is a great tool for educating children about sport and life.

Let your child go, give him that experience, and watch him grow into an independent human being, mentally and physically. Your child will thank you.

You don’t have to be in every practice and game! This doesn’t make you a bad parent, it just makes you a great parent who has thrown your child into the game.

2. Teamwork and discipline

Striving for a common goal teaches you how to build a collective team synergy and effectively communicate the best way to solve problems on the road to victory. Sports help your child realize that the values ​​and discipline required to be successful as a team in a game are the same as they are in life.

This instills in you a discipline to do the things you don’t want to do so you can do the things you really want to do. Once that idea has gotten into their heads, that they will have to pay the price for the little things in order to get more important things in life, you can see how they transform.

3. Eliminate the fear of failure

Short-term emphasis on results can make an individual more competitive today, but it also predisposes them to failure in the future. Sport is a place to win and lose, but more importantly to learn and develop. That’s not just as an athlete, but as a human being.

Children don’t mind winning and losing. We should not take away that opportunity to learn.

4. Teach them to win

Children need autonomy, enjoyment, and intrinsic motivation for any long-term achievement.

People today feel that a game can be fun or competitive. If you remove any of these, you set your child up for failure.

Think about it, if you enjoy something, you will do more. Make something as important as physical activity fun for your child, and he will never want to stop doing it.

In summary, there are five “Cs” that are critical components of positive youth development, competence, confidence, connections, character, and affection. A growing body of research literature has found that sports enrich all of the above in your child, in addition to improving a child’s physical health.

Coaching discipline, teamwork, following coaches’ leadership, and learning to lose are some of the lifelong skills your child would learn as an athlete. These would play a mainly positive role in their development as responsible adults with better academic performance, higher self-esteem and fewer behavior problems.