Eimear Hutchinson: Sport can teach our children so much

PERHAPS it is the time of year, but there is a lot of talk across the media about children, sports and competition. September and October are busy months in the sporting calendar with the GAA still ongoing and lots of finals to be played as it begins to wind down, but the winter sports like soccer, basketball, athletics and all the rest are back up and running. Busy times for families.

There is no doubt about it that competition is a huge learning experience for children and adults alike, there is nothing like it to test our patience and our heart rate.

Our eldest is ten so this is the first year where I have really noticed the spirit of competitiveness around the house. There are lots of different children out there so I can only write about competition from my own experience with it. It has its highs and its low, I have seen elation and I have seen tears, but what I always like to do is try to ensure that we learn from competition and that it can make a more rounded experience, as opposed to one that focuses solely on winning and losing.

We all have different attitudes to sport and competition, it might be based on our own experiences in sport, our different competitive streaks or our children’s aptitude for it. I am a huge advocate for sport, the competitive element I could probably take or leave, I like it but it takes a back seat in my opinion.

Sport and competition teach children so much; the importance of taking turns, it teaches them to encourage others, they learn a lot about empathy, and with the right encouragement it can teach them about perseverance.

For me though, the most important thing about winning and losing is resilience, the world will throw a lot at our children so the ability to bounce back healthily from highs and lows is so incredibly important.

I believe that it is important to have a mix of sports that children can participate in. My children all compete in team sports locally, but also participate in athletics, and the balance of being part of a team and relying on yourself is hugely important.

I have noticed that in team sports my ten year old, who is prone to passing off responsibility, finds it easy to blame someone or something else for failure, something I am vehemently opposed to her doing. Athletics creates a nice balance for her, it’s not easy to see her upset at not getting from a heat to a final in the 60m sprint, but it is a huge learning experience for her to have to accept the responsibility and take motivation from the experience.

An emotion I feel is very important in sport is empathy and competition has both a lot to teach children about empathy but also a way to go in terms of how we all empathise with those we compete against. 

I still struggle with the balance of empathy in competition because on one hand I want children to enjoy the high of winning and to celebrate, but some sports have a way to go in getting children to be conscious of those around them that have lost.

We as parents play a huge role in how our children deal with winning and losing; some parents don’t care for competition and some live for it. We often need to put our own thoughts aside when it comes to sports and tread the balance carefully because pressure can affect children in different ways.

Growing up. I was very competitive in sport, particularly athletics, but I never felt the pressure to win from my parents. I felt nerves based purely on my own eagerness to win, but I loved the buzz of competition day, the people I got to know from all over the country, and the knowledge it gave me to be able to coach athletics as an adult and maybe inspire that generation to continue in the sport.

I stayed competitively in the sport until I got to Leaving Cert and it has always been my go-to form of exercise ever since, so my parents’ overall attitude proved very effective and it’s an approach I try to emulate.

Again, as parents we need to look at the long-term goal of our children being involved in sports and make sure that we relay that to our children regularly. I always remind the girls that sport is important because they meet other children outside of their school, so it is broadening their network of friends.

I encourage them to go to training, not because they have a competition or a match coming up, but because they will see their friends, get fresh air, stay fit and healthy, and it gives them the sense of belonging to something. Most importantly though, it is fun!