"Coaches, Parents, Umpires, Oh My"

It's that time of year again when our kids are playing recreational baseball for our respective teams. Pretty much any night of the week you can find the various age groups utilizing the many fields. Our kids are not only playing a game, they are learning social skills, athletic skills, team spirit, sportsmanship, and how they should conduct themselves both on and off the field. Children that play sports get not only the benefit of exercise, but they learn about competition. It's extremely important for kids to realize they are not going to always win and learn how to lose gracefully. Of course every parent and coach wants their team to win, and with lots of practice and teamwork there is a great chance they will, but learning to take responsibility for ones action is a major part of any competitive sport. Even the major league teams make mistakes. Sometimes it's the coaches fault, but they don't want to take the blame, sometimes it's the kid's fault, but he/she will get another chance and with extra practice may be even better. The one person who is always blamed seems to be the Umpire. Teaching children that nothing is their fault and blaming someone else will carry over into other aspects of their lives. All Umpires are trained, some go through special training at Mason Dixon to be even better umpires. During one game an Umpire makes up to 10,000 decisions in those short innings, even Major and Minor League Umpires mess up a call once in a while, but for the most part their decisions are correct and they know the rules inside and out, probably a lot more than we as parents know. So, let's let the kids have fun and work hard to be the best teams they can be and not place blame on anyone. Kids feel bad enough when the strike out or miss a play, remember their mistakes and work with them to correct them, not yell at them. Swearing on the field or conducting ourselves in an unsportsmanlike manner doesn't help the game, it only shows our kids the wrong behavior, we want them to grow up to be mature, how can they do that if we act like a bunch of middle schoolers? So, this season let's cheer for our teams and our kids and leave any negativity at home, guarantee to be a much calmer, happier, and fun season.