Youth Mentoring Programs

The Benefits of Sport – What Do Youth Get Out of It?

It’s the yearning for connection. When teammates congratulate a receiver and tell him how proud they are for his making the big catch, it’s pure intimacy. Sports offer a community of support—something that is quickly disappearing from our individual neighborhoods.

Who do kids look up to? Who are their real heroes? The Search Institute (a non-profit organization that provides practical research, which benefits children and youth) says during the first 18 years of life, it is common for young people to be strangers in their own neighborhood. Their research shows that fewer than one in five kids believed that their neighbors cared about them and they didn’t know many adults outside of their own family very well.

With parental presence diminishing—children are being raised, more or less, by their peers and the mass media. They spend too much time alone at home. On top of that, too many adults fail to model or even value caring behavior. It’s the very reason why it’s essential for adults to respond because they are the ones who have often failed in their responsibility.

Our culture tends to focus on young people’s problems and there is a hopelessness and powerlessness among adults in finding the solution. Few believe they have the capacity to intervene and would rather avoid young people than get involved.

During the 1996 United States presidential campaign, First Lady, Hillary Clinton, repeated the African wisdom that “it takes a whole village to raise a child.” Unfortunately, society’s focus on services has affected our sense of community. If everyone reclaimed or accepted their shared responsibility to nurture the youngest generation, kids would have a better shot at being groomed into becoming caring adults and turning to positive activities.

Adults tend to use perceived lack of time or their being uncomfortable with youth as an excuse not to get involved. The Search Institute has discovered that mentoring programs can reduce the onset of alcohol and other drug use, inhibit personal violence, and improve school attendance.

“Sports can take on the role of being a second family,” says April Clay, Chartered Psychologist and member of the Sport Psychology Association of Alberta. “Kids see these people on a regular basis and can form a really close relationship. The group may provide a sense of stability that isn’t happening at home. The child may not have consistent parenting or caring parents. In the sport environment, there may be some adults—coaches and parents, who provide them with a different kind of experience, of consistency and security. In a difficult home environment, lack of consistency and conflicting messages can really damage. There may also be physical abuse. Sport gives kids another environment that lets them get to know themselves differently.

“There are lots of benefits to sports besides promoting exercise and movement…mastering physical skills. In terms of the psychological side, kids have access to people and role models that they might not otherwise be exposed to. That can be good and bad. There are more examples for them to learn from. Learning a set of responsibilities, meeting a goal, setting goals, learning how to interact in a team situation, develop social skills, understanding self discipline, and delayed gratification—having to sacrifice something to get something you want. Patience, setting up a goal, and working towards something.”

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