Sometimes, however, the player would stop coming to practices and games. More vividly, I remember the screams of joy and the feelings of confidence that were bursting from those players in these moments and the pride that was beaming from their parents' faces. It is these moments that reinforce to me how important it is not to forget to teach good sportsmanship when teaching the other basic skills of a game. This can sometimes be difficult to remember, however, when we see professional athletes fighting with each other, fans booing players at a stadium, and parents at little league games criticizing other players. It has been estimated that 22 million children and youth, ages 6 to 18, are involved in organized sports outside of school.
Research indicates that participation in sports can promote healthy development.
In order to better understand these benefits, much of the research on youth sports has examined how sports enhance aspects of children's social development. According to the findings, children learn to assess their social competence in sports through the feedback received from parents and coaches. Self-esteem, on the other hand, is developed through both evaluation of one's own abilities as well as evaluation of the responses received from others. Lack of feedback and criticism is often interpreted as a negative response to the behavior. Because children often use social comparison as a way of determining their ability in sport, participation in youth sports activities provides children with many opportunities to determine their ability compared with others on their team.