Instilling the spirit of sportsmanship

HAPPY new year, readers! I hope you’re as excited as I am to welcome 2021 with a bang. 

To start off the year, I personally feel that it’s our responsibility to educate the upcoming generation on good sportsmanship. Education on its own is incomplete without sports, and sports is incomplete without education on sportsmanship.

Good sportsmanship is one of the life lessons that can be learned through sports. Inculcating good sportsmanship in our children is more than just encouraging polite behaviour during and after a game. 

Sportsmanship impacts how a child interacts on and off the field; good sportsmanship builds character and teaches us respect, honour, discipline, kindness, collaboration, resilience, perseverance and more.

Often, we get caught up in the game and become super focused on winning, forgetting that there is more to benefit from the experience than just winning medals and breaking records.

Personally, I believe that it is our duty as senior players, parents and adults to educate our children on the importance of sportsmanship. 

Their participation in sporting activities will help them to better understand what they are taught by providing them with the opportunity to put these values into practice.

This experience of having fun and playing sports in a safe, conducive and respectable manner will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

What exactly does sportsmanship look like with athletes on the ground? 

An athlete with great sportsmanship possesses qualities such as winning without gloating, shaking hands, apologising, respecting one's opponent, using positive language, losing gracefully, playing by the rules, accepting defeat without any untoward emotion or outbursts and not giving up before the game has ended.

Apart from the above, it is important to instil the following principles in your child:
● If they lose a game or a match, teach them to own up and not makeup excuses. Avoid arguing. 
● If they win, don't rub it in because not every day is a sunny day for a winning team.
● If they’ve made a mistake, get them to learn from it and bounce back before the game ends; to constantly strive and learn makes them a much more experienced athlete.
● If someone makes a mistake, stay positive and avoid criticism; it’s important for them to understand that human beings are not perfect.
● Always have them give their best even if they are not feeling their best.  
● Teach them to respect themselves,  their team, the opponents and the officials of the game on and off the field

Sportsmanship is everybody’s business ─ from the coaches and players to the parents and the fans ─ so we all should learn, or re-learn, the principles of sportsmanship. 

Adults are important role models, so lead by example and let the younger generation know that you uphold these principles, whether you play the sport or cheer from the sidelines. 

With that, love Tana ─ The Vibes, 6 January, 2021