The Importance of Psychology in Children in Sports - Coursework Example

The Importance of Psychology in Children in Sports Coaching and mentorship Participation of children in sporting activities relies on the content the media presents. The media give prominence to sports but with a degree of bias. Among the most conspicuous sports in the world today, as portrayed by the media is football. Such television channel as super sport providing more prominence to different football leagues across the world. While such portrayals are essential in motivating children into participating in the sport it deters the development of other sports in the society thereby denying children who lack talent in the sport effective opportunities to hone their skills in other types of sports. Children or youth participation in sports is fundamental owing to the myriad advantages that such participations present to the children, personality development if one fundamental psychological feature that participation influences (Weinberg & Gould, 2010). However, the media portrayal limits the development of effective personalities in the children owing to the fact that the media limits sports and athletics by giving prominence to specific types of sports. Participation and success in sports relies on an individual’s talent. Talent refers to an innate potential that people exhibit from childhood. Coupled with interest and effective training talents turn into life sustaining professions. Children participation in sport is important since talent discovery at such early ages help develop successful careers in sports. Personality influences performance in sports, mentorship of children helps influence the development of a desirable personality a feature that thus influences the productivity of the children in sport even as they grow up. Sports are strenuous activities that require both dedication and discipline, children trainers must therefore strive to develop appropriate mental states that will help motivate the children participating in sports to hone their skills progressively. Mentorship and coaching are therefore two interrelated yet vital aspects in children’s participation in sports since they influence the development process of the children. As explained earlier, effectiveness personality development is commensurate to the performance of children and the subsequent development of the talents as the children mature into adults. Mentorship refers to the process of developing appropriate mental state in the children in order to influence them to appreciate sports (Gardner, 2007). As such, mentors provide the children with a realistic view of the industry thereby motivating the children to take up sports both as a profession and as a part time activity. Mentors in sports often include both established and retired sports people who lived successful lives enjoying the benefits of sports. Such people act as role models to the children who seek to emulate their performances. Coaching on the other hand is an equal important aspect of talent development that refers to the actual training of the intricate features of the sports. Coaches are professional sports personalities who understand the feature of the sport that help influence the performance of an individual. Coaching is an extensive process that requires people who understand both the particular sport and the industry (Gould, Collins, Lauer & Chung, 2007). Coaches must equip the young learners with essential skills that will help them develop successful careers in the respective sports. As such, coaches require the professional expertise coupled with the ability to teach. Additionally, since they spend most of the time with the children, coaches must possess effective personality traits to help regulate the behavior of the children while motivating them as well. This way, it becomes easy for the children to master the concepts taught. Among the fundamental personality, features that help improving performance in sports include confidence, composure under pressure, motivation to succeed and dedicated support. Participation in sporting activities while at tender ages thus helps equip the children with such features a fact that helps develop them into stronger individuals that children who do not take part in sports. Children who engage in sports perform better in academics and develop faster than those who do not owing to the benefits of dedicated training and the discipline required for participation in sports (Danish & Hale, 1981). The need for confidence helps improve the performance of a child in sport since the children must develop appropriate solutions to the challenges they face in the sports. Additionally, they must make decisions quickly and execute them effectively in order to improve both their individual performance and the performance of their respective teams. Furthermore, the teamwork mentality required in sports helps equip the young players with effective interpersonally skills a feature that contributes to the rapid development. Child or youth participation in sport is currently on the rise owing to the myriad advantages of such activities. Sports help equip children with appropriate psychological state providing children with persistent engagement and motivation thereby influence their performance. Sports provide children with secondary engagements besides their academics thereby curbing instances of negative influences, as is the case in unregulated social groupings. Among the life skills that children acquire when they participate in sports are emotional, behavioral, social and mental developments as the children develop appropriate features that help them improve their performance in the sports. Additionally, sports present the children with myriad challenges that require effective yet immediate solutions in order to overcome. Through dedicated coaching and motivations, the children develop decision-making abilities as they constantly improve their performance in sports. Teamwork is vital in most sports a feature that compels the children to acquire effective interpersonal and communication skills in order to improve their relationship with others in the team. This way, the children acquire effective life skills thereby developing faster than those who do not participate in sports. Section 2 As the discussion above portrays, children participation in sports is fundamental to their development. While appropriate discovery of talent in the children coupled with effective training may help develop a professional sportspersons in the children thereby giving the children successful lives in sports, such feature make sporting extremely competitive thereby eliminating other children from participating. The discriminate media coverage of the sporting activities help increase the prominence of particular sports while ignoring many other sports that help extends the bounds of sports thereby increasing the number of children who can participate in the different sports. Sports expose children to challenging situations thereby compelling them to make decisions. This compels the children to assess the challenges and develop realistic solutions a feature that improves the life skills children acquire from different sports. Children or youth sports has thus become contemporary social feature as parents motivate their children to engage in different sports where some identify their talents thus becoming successful sports personalities while other simply participate in sports with the aim of developing their personalities. The role and position of children participation in sports in the contemporary society is therefore fundamental a fact that makes the biased media coverage redundant. Sports are cultural features. This implies that as cultural features different sports are prominent in particular societies. However, through enhanced interactions among societies in the contemporary society, people exchange cultural values key among which is the type of sports among communities. The American football for example differs from the conventional football also known as soccer. Additionally, most American youths show preference to basketball while football remains the most common sport in the world today. Through effective marketing, the English premier league enjoys a global fan base a feature that has increased the reputation of the sport. Additionally, such global events as the world cup have further increased the prominence of football globally. This makes football one of the most common sport in the world. The media is a fundamental aspect that has succeeded in developing a global village. Cultures have interacted on the media with the media contributing to the success and suppression of particular cultures and sports in the world today. More children therefore continue to appreciate football at the expense of other sports a feature that affects the personality development especially of the children who may not possess interest in the type of sport. Among the sport, dynamics that different sports manifest include team cohesion. Success in most sports including football, basketball and rugby among many others rely on the cohesion of the team. Coaches and mentors therefore provide the learners with effective interpersonal skills in order to improve the cohesion of the teams. With increased cohesion of the teams, the players communicate with each other more effectively. This improves the performance of both the team and the individual players but affects the development of the children. The need for increased correlation among players in such teams influence the development of the children as they increasingly become attach to their mates even in other social issues. The media coverage of the sports thus influence the type of skills that children acquire whenever they engage in particular sports. While interpersonal skills are essential in the development of the children, the children just as any other individual require appropriate skills and a degree of independence (Abrams, 2010). Athletics tend to promote individualism in such sports as tennis, golf and badminton among many others coupled with different athletics such as cycling encourage the players to think and act independently. The independence vouched by such games is essential in developing mature adults who can take responsibility of their mistakes without necessarily blaming their colleagues. In retrospect, children need to have the actual view of the society a feature that should compel the contemporary media, coaches and motivators to improve the prominence of different sports and athletics. The prominence that football enjoys in the contemporary society is a creation of the media portraying the fact that the media can easily make any other sport more conspicuous as they are currently. Participation of children and the youth in sport is essential in fostering both the future of the sports and in developing the personality of the children in the society. However, each sport has its advantages and disadvantages. This requires that the children must have the exposure to different sports thus try such with the view of determining their interests in such. References Abrams, M. (2010). Anger Management and Sport; Understanding and Controlling Violence in Athletes. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Danish, S. J., & Hale, B. D. (1981). Toward an understanding of the practice of sport psychology. Journal of Sport Psychology, 3, 90-99. Gardner, F. (2007). The Psychology of Enhancing Human Performance. Spring Publishing Co. Gould, D., Collins, K., Lauer, L., & Chung, Y. (2007). Coaching life skills through football: A study of award winning high school coaches. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 19, 16-37. Weinberg, R.S. & Gould, D. (2010). Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Read More