Winning is an essential part of youth sports, but it is one among many complementary goals. ActivStars Athletics also focuses on the values of knowledge, respect, friendship, learning, and safety.
Fun, fitness, and social development come first, but winning can play a role in their impact. The “win” gives everyone involved in a sport the same goal to strive for, creating community and the vital lesson for how we treat ourselves and others in the context of “win or lose.”
Youth sporting events from ActivStars Athletics are purpose-built to have opportunities for children to win, all while learning and reinforcing our lessons on community, safety, sportsmanship, and fun.
Winning Has Its Proper Place
One of the biggest benefits for youth sporting events like competition and tests is that it gives children the chance to demonstrate what they’ve learned. They can win, either individually or as a group, through the skills they’ve worked so hard to obtain.
While we at ActivStars Athletics don’t place a large emphasis on winning a contest, we do give our students their chance to showcase their abilities. The desire to win can help your star achieve and grow in a variety of ways that are important to understand and discuss. Let’s take a moment to discuss just some of the ways that competition and winning can be important for youth sports.
Winning builds confidence. Success makes us feel better about what we’ve accomplished and the same is true for our kids. What’s important here is that children get a chance to see and feel their gains. Importantly, this usually requires winning against a team of a similar skill level.
Winning improves team spirit and cohesions. According to Rutgers, winning as a team can help build camaraderie and improve friendships for people on the same team. This leads to children learning how to work better in groups toward shared goals. Intra-squad competition, usually outside youth sporting events, also can improve team spirit.
Winning improves a child’s overall motivation. Youth sporting events give kids goals and things to achieve. When they win at a sports competition, the average child will be more motivated to try and succeed in other areas of their lives. This might be additional sports and hobbies or their schoolwork.
Winning helps children become more resilient. Knowing that there’s something beneficial and obtainable helps drive us to reach for it. Winning encourages those habits and helps children understand that one loss doesn’t mean that everything is lost. Winning comes with trying more often, and that invariably has more failures and mistakes. Striving to win, while having coaches and parents teach us what winning means, builds confidence in their abilities and helps them press on each time.
At the same time, losing helps kids build resilience. We take time to teach everyone how to win and lose with dignity and perspective. While everyone is a star and deserves recognition for their effort, we also know that some aspects of life will come with setbacks. We all encounter loss, such as not getting a job or into a certain college, and practice with losing can help everyone take these events in stride.
One thing we love about “winning” is that it doesn’t need to be measured against someone else. You can win in karate by perfecting your form.
The Showcase Versus the Showoff
A final note, and perhaps the most important thing about competition is that it gives us a chance to teach kids how to win. ActivStars Athletics coaches and staff can demonstrate and encourage proper behavior when you do well and when you don’t.
Our lessons help kids understand that success can make you feel good, but we should never use it to make others feel bad. Competitions and other youth sports events are the place we get to practice good sportsmanship and encourage fair play. It’s the best opportunity to lead by example and ensure all our kids have fun, regardless of the outcome.
We build events, games, and tournaments as ways to celebrate how far kids have come in each season. They’re encouraged to demonstrate and showcase their personal and team accomplishments, instead of being a showoff that makes a sport less enjoyable for others.
Join us for some upcoming events and see what that means for your child.
Events in ActivStars Athletics Communities
Karate stars have multiple ways to showcase their skills. Each semester comes with tournaments for sparring and forms, with multiple rounds and awards. We also allow students who meet pre-testing requirements to show their forms and techniques in order to achieve their next black or brown belt rank. Not only must students demonstrate knowledge, but they are required to show good attitude, discipline, and spirit.