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Watching Sports With Your Kids
Most dads around the country are already familiar with the time honored American tradition of watching sports with your kids. Listed below are several good reasons why watching sports together with your kids can be a first-rate idea:
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Watching sports on television can be a great opportunity for dads to spend some bonding time with their children. Many dads say that the bond they have with their children reminds them of some sports connection they may have had with their own fathers. Maybe you remember spending time with your dad watching the New York Yankees battle it out with the Boston Red Sox? Or, maybe you and your dad watched the classic rivalries of the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers or the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins? In any case, watching sports with your child allows you to create lasting memories together. Maybe you'll turn up the volume on the TV, fix some snacks, and pretend that you and your child have front row seats in a major stadium. It might be silly fun, but you and your child will cherish it forever.
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Many kids love sports! Children get interested in sports initially because they first watched the sport on television with their families. Sharing those special moments watching sports can and should lead to opportunities to venture outside with your children. Maybe, dad, you will have an opportunity to venture out to the local sporting shop to buy your child his/her first baseball glove, football, or hockey stick.
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There are many life lessons that parents can teach their children while watching and playing sports. Some of the lessons are: fair play, teamwork, never quitting, personal integrity, and giving your best effort. Ask open-ended questions like, “Why do players continue to play so hard when they are losing the game?” or “What’s so important about teamwork?”
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There are many great sport movies that have father-friendly themes. These movies can help to make the connection between sports, fatherhood and family. For example, movies like "The Natural,""Field of Dreams," and, "Hoosiers" have some great scenes that promote the importance of family.
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Sports help to bridge the generation gap by connecting dads’ love of sports as a child to his children’s love of sports today. Dad, you can talk to your child about what sports you liked when you were growing up. Doing so will help to provide your child with some perspective as to what life was like when you were younger. For example, maybe you'll talk about seeing Hank Aaron break Babe Ruth’s home run record and the social impact it had on the nation. Additionally, kids often look for things to have in common with their dads -- watching sports with their dad makes it easy for them to connect. If you think about it, most kids at a certain age have a favorite team and/or players and, in most cases, they end up being the same team or players that their dad or other family members loved as a child.
Overall, there are many activities from which kids get to choose, but one thing remains true - any activity that combines their love of sports and spending time with dad is sure to be a winner! Bottom line, kids like watching sports because they get to spend time with dad.
In the end, be sure to take that same enthusiasm you have for watching the pros play sports and get outside with your kids and make your own sports memories. When it comes to what they like best about sports, it is clear that most kids like to play sports as much, if not more, that just watching. To be sure, as your children develop into athletes in their own right, you will develop as a parent. So, enjoy the experience, and the happy memories will last a lifetime.
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