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Date published: 3/1/2007
BOSTON, Mass.--For But that would be missing some important lessons the incident teaches about the state of adult organized youth sports in this country. There are myriad reasons why parents act out at their children's sports events. The stresses of sports competition can overwhelm the coping skills of parents increasingly led by our winner-take-all society--to the point of believing that a child who fails at sports will fail as an adult. Given an environment Yet in this instance, the father, Ray Hoffman, wasn't acting out because he was over-involved. He was actually reacting as most parents do to seeing his or her child being injured. Seeing his son's arm being held behind his back in what he thought was an illegal hammer lock, Hoffman felt--rightly or wrongly--that he had no choice but to protect his child from injury by intervening on his son's behalf. Can many honestly say that your natural urge as a parent to protect your youngster wouldn't have brought you More importantly, that Hoffman found himself having to make such a split-second decision raises a much larger question about today's youth sports: Why was an 11-year-old even competing in as violent and dangerous a sport as wrestling at such an early age, an age when kids are losing natural flexibility because their bones are growing faster than their muscles, and when it is virtually impossible to know just how good a wrestler he will be after he reaches puberty and his body matures? America has become a The only thing youth sports have less of is kids having fun and just being allowed to be kids.
Great Letter. I watched that video and agree. The father DID NOT act in a violent way. he pushed the kid off of his son. Why did he do this? because th edarn coach probably let this situation get out of hand. This writer begs us to look deeper and she is right. Problems in youth sports run very deep
The premise of this piece is completely absurd. It suggests that parents are merely victims of our overly competitive society! Perhaps its time for some parents to grow up. The parent who attacked his son's wrestleing opponent was completely out of control. Even if his desire was to protect his son (and I'm not at all sure it was) he could have accomplished that by simply separating the boys. Instead, he violently attacked a child and should be held accountable.
The problem...this parent is trying to live through his child. There are plenty of parents out there that support their kids in competative sports and do not push them over the edge. A person, kid, adult , all the same, need to learn failure in order to appreciate success. These activities are necessary and teach important life lessons. It is the parent that must promote the ideals behind winning and losing. I would love for my kid to succeed at everything, but that would not be REAL life.
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