Many parents preach about the many benefits of sports for young children. Emotionally, they have been thought to build confidence, leadership and foster cooperation. Physically, they are heralded as promoting coordination, motor skills and muscle/heart health. Parents often believe that “in today’s competitive environment” sports help prepare us for this “dog eat dog” world.
Often, the reality is that people are more likely to be competing with themselves rather than others.  Competition in young children can actually encourage them to become selfish, narcissistic and inwardly-focussed rather than have compassion or empathy for others.  Many parents think that the benefits to self-esteem are reason enough for their kids to attempt to excel in a sport that suits their physical abilities the best.

Childhood development experts used to believe that if we taught our kids to have good self-esteem, they would grow up to be more self-confident and resilient.  The problem with that is that boosting self esteem means that you are actually teaching them to compare themself to others, often in a competitive way.  Competition in children is widely discouraged in many leading alternative school systems such as Waldorf and Montessori.  Competitive behaviour and even competitive sports among young children actually can harm self-esteem and makes having compassion or empathy for others more difficult.  When a child tries to be a “winner”, there are also “losers”, and having a child feel that they have “lost” is extremely damaging. Where self-compassion is a way of relating to your self …