I’m linking up again the DC Trifecta for the Friday Five. Each week, Cynthia, Mar & Courtney come up with a fab theme to get us all spinning our creative wheels. This week it’s “Anything Goes”. There always seems to be a ton of sports talk in our house which got me thinking about some of the important life lessons sports can offer to our kids and all of us. Here a some of my favorites.
5 Life Lessons Sports can teach us all:
1. Practice makes better.
Practicing your given sport-running, biking, soccer, baseball etc. will eventually make you better. Practice doesn’t always mean perfect but it does give you the opportunity to grow and learn everyday. 
2. Don’t be afraid to try something new.
Throughout our lives, we constantly encounter situations that are new. New schools, new jobs, new relationships we will all face them. The self confidence we can build through trying and succeeding at sports has the potential to help us achieve success in all areas of our lives.
3. You can’t win all the time.
One of the hardest lessons for us all. You may watch your children lose a game they worked so hard at playing or fail an exam they studied so hard at. As an adult, you may not get a job you thought was yours, lose an account or fail at a relationship. Experiencing loss as a child through sports, can teach you that you can’t always win but that shouldn’t stop you from trying. Resilience, perseverance and failure- lessons we must all learn and accept are played out everyday with sports.
4. Be a team player.
Having just witnessed my son’s lacrosse season these past few months, clearly many kids and their parents have a lot to learn about good sportsmanship. Learning to be part of a team, leading by example and demonstrating positive leadership skills are qualities we all want to see our children grow to attain. Demonstrating these skills ourselves in our work and home lives are the way we teach them to value these qualities.
5. Do what you love & have fun doing it
Finding activities you love and doing them routinely teaches your children to value fitness and take care of their bodies. Sports can be a great stress reliever and a huge part of a social life.
What life lessons has sports taught you or your children?
Run your own race, no one elses!
Absolutely so important to remember and not get swept up in race hype or others’ goals.
Great list! I think practice is so important. Want to PR? You’ve got to train for it!
Absolutely! But not a guarantee. 🙂
Great life lessons Deborah! When I use to coach swim team we would remind the kids of these exact points. Others include (related to #1) – it is not going to be easy and everyone is different.
good points as well! Thanks!
This is awesome! Thank you very much Deborah! I remember what my coach said before, that we need to love what we are doing. Because for as long as we love our chosen field or path in life, it’s easy for us to accept failures as well as our successes. Number 2 is true, that is my motivation in life. 🙂 I never contain myself in my comfort zone. I am not afraid to try new things because I believe that there are greater things ahead of me that I just have to explore.
Thanks and I totally agree! Hard lesson to learn and teach our kids but an important one. Thanks for stopping by!
Great lessons to be learned. All important things to learn. And it is important to learn that you can’t win all the time, which means you have to lose. But losing doesn’t mean you don’t get back up and keep going. Important to learn and grow from.
Agreed! Sometimes a hard lesson to teach our kids. It really helps for them to see us do it with our own sports as well.
I love this list. I think it’s really important for kids, especially today’s generation, to learn that they can’t always get everything they want. Society really has begun a destructive cycle of shielding our children from failure and disappointment. But it’s foolish to think that way. It’s a part of life that we will eventually have to learn as we get older.
Great points!
Thanks! I agree. When my kids were little “everyone won” so as they grow up and realize that’s not the case, some of them don’t take it so well. Hard lesson to learn but an important one for parents to teach.
Great list! I played sports in high school and the biggest thing I learned is that it should be fun! If I put too much pressure on myself, I stopped enjoying it. Unless you’re planning on going pro, just enjoy the camaraderie and exercise 🙂
Exactly! Most of us are just in it for fun and exercise and people can easily forget that.
Wow, great list… great life lessions! LOVE the quotes you included. I never played sports growing up (unless you count 1 season of T-ball, which really was not my thing at all, haha, I was mostly a lefty, but was sort of ambidextrous and so I never knew which side of the plate to stand on) on a regular basis. I feel like I’ve had to learn some of these lessons through other methods, and I’m sure if I would have had sports in my life as a child and growing up, it would be easier as an adult now. But it’s never too late, right! 🙂
I never played sports as a child either and you’re right we have some playing catch up to do as adults having never experienced that as kids. And you’re right never too late!
You are so much stronger than you think!
I love it when I realize that is true! Thanks for adding that one.
This may sound kind of narcissistic but in an individual sport as in running it has taught me that sometimes you need to do things just for you! #Friday5. Have a nice weekend!
That is true! Everyone needs me time makes us better moms and happier people.
Great list! I don’t have kids, but I hear from friends that in many sports now there is no winning or losing team. I think that’s a shame! No, it does not feel good to lose; but the lesson it teaches is an important one for both self-confidence reasons & learning to be a good sport.
Agreed! They need to learn that you don’t always win and that’s ok so that they know how to handle it as adults. Thanks for stopping by!
great lessons Deborah! I think with anything in life you have to fail in order to know the feeling of winning and how powerful the journey can be.
agree totally! It makes you want it more. Happy #FridayFive
Fully agree with all of these. Great list ! And yes, we seem to have a lot in common !
We do!! Have a great weekend!
great article! Remembering to always have fun it very important but good sportsmanship is huge! We have to be good role models for our kids and there are a lot of parents out there who are not 🙁
True! Unfortunately I’ve seen that too much lately and I don’t want my kids to grow up into adults that yell at refs and curse at other parents. Tough lessons to teach but so worth it.
Great list! Definitely important lessons. I really like the “can’t win all the time”. One of my kiddos is just learning this and it is definitely important. It can be hard for them but itndefinitely helps them to keep at it and to not give up if it is something they want to continue.
I just watched my teen lose his lax game in the finals after being undefeated all season. Broke my heart and his I’m afraid. Good lesson to learn if he wants to play through high school. It was tough to watch.
Great post. I’m trying to teach my boys ALL of those every day!! Thanks for the reminder!
They are hard lessons to teach our kids but definitely worth it.
Great lessons! I’m a fan of the trying something new! This year I’m training for my first triathlon, and just got certified as an indoor cycling instructor.
Good luck with you tri. They are so much fun. I used to teach indoor cycling and really enjoyed it. It’s a lot of work to come up with new classes and music each class but so rewarding. Hope you like it too! thanks for visiting.
These are all so true!
Thanks for stopping by!
Love this topic that you chose — these are great lessons! They are definitely important ones to try and instill in children.
They are tough to learn but well worth it!
Such a great post! I think it also teaches them that everyone has a strength and something to contribute to the team.
good point so true!