In all likelihood, you are already familiar with the sweet video. It seemed like a beautiful moment, a moment to pause and reflect on what we teach our sons about kindness and about masculinity.
Parents now wonder how to raise a child who would behave as Isaiah did at the time, with kindness and empathy instead of anger and rage. How do we raise children of any gender who are willing to take the risk to offer affection, comfort and support in such a public forum?
Here are some ways parents and caregivers can encourage awareness, caring, compassion, empathy, and courage.
An opportunity for discussion
Our inclination might be to talk to our kids, giving them lessons on the importance of kindness, empathy, emotional intelligence, and other “soft skills.” Instead, we can watch the video above and ask them questions like:
What do you think each player feels?
Why do you think this kid was forced to comfort the pitcher?
What do you think the other children were thinking and feeling?
What about the parents in the stands?
I am in favor of this approach. It’s a great opportunity for your child to think about compassion, one of the qualities that parents constantly say they want to foster in their children.
The power of modeling
Too often, parents underestimate the power of their role model on their children, yet it is one of the most powerful influences on the kind of people our children become. It affects their thinking, their behavior, their belief systems, and the way they treat others.
If you are a parent or caregiver, pay attention to the role model you are providing for your children. Are you patient or do you tend to lose your temper regularly? Are you critical or do you accept?
High school baseball coach Andrew Santella, author of “Soon: An Overdue History of Procrastination, From Leonardo and Darwin to You and Me,” encourages parents to pay attention to their own behavior at their children’s sporting events. or other extracurricular activities.
“Parents’ behavior in games is often much more problematic than children’s,” he told me. “Too often, it’s parents who model poor sportsmanship while coaches work to teach the opposite.”
“It’s also very important in those situations where your son or daughter does something sporty and shows great character, give them credit for it like you would if they hit a home run.”
Encourage children to express their feelings.
On and off the field, we tend to encourage girls to express their feelings much more openly than boys. A 2019 study in Modern Psychological Studies suggests that gender-role conforming boys showed a lower tendency to express emotions openly compared to girls, but that boys experienced a higher level of stress as a result of emotional repression.
The Little League hug can help show our children the power of emotional expression, and might even encourage them to be more expressive, lessening some of the stress they may experience. One guy I work with even expressed “crazy respect” for the player by showing his emotion. I’m sure he wouldn’t resist showing that emotional side of himself when he was faced with a similar situation in the future.
Ask yourself why our children play sports
Participating in team sports provides children with unique life lessons. They learn to win and lose gracefully. And they can also discover new sources of self-esteem and confidence.
Our children also learn about the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. They learn the power of conditioning, technique, strategy, cooperation, and discipline that will serve them well in many areas of life, from work to relationships.
Sports and other extracurricular activities can also present leadership opportunities for kids, Santella told me. Sometimes you have a player on your team who may not be the most skilled on the field, but with a little encouragement can become a leader of team morale and discipline. “One way or another, sports provide an opportunity for children to make their mark and prove themselves. It’s a big deal in their development as a whole person.”
If your child isn’t the one bravely walking up to the mound and offering that hug, or clapping for the slowest swimmer in the pool, that’s what they’re there for. They witness it. They see that kindness and empathy breed kindness and empathy.
And most moments on a team aren’t as clear and dramatic as that hug broadcast on ESPN. Most of the moments consist of subtle gestures of encouragement, a handshake on the bench, or other fleeting little moments of humanity. It is those moments that build character and provide children with precious examples of how to present themselves to other people.
We can’t always teach those lessons in our homes or at school. But sports have those opportunities in abundance.
They will be better people for it. And this is what parents tell me they want for their children more than anything else. This is your best chance to raise a child with the courage, empathy, and compassion shown by a Little Leaguer.
Source: www.cnn.com