Jessica Statsky, in “Children Need to Play, Not Compete,” gives explanations of the irrelevance of children’s games being conducted as competitions. She stands strong with her arguments against sports competition ideas towards children’s games. Jessica notes that the children’s guardians are the ones concerned with the results of children’s sports instead of supervising them with the aim of encouraging the children’s fitness or health development. In the article, she also disapproves of the sports competition ideas, however, outlining recommendations towards better sports strategies for children’s games. She says that this structure will enable the games to become more enjoyable and inclusive for every child to get involved.
Statsky admits that organized and well-structured sports activities are not ideal for nurturing children because they are not pressured towards winning or expectation of a win (Statsky, 2010). She also holds that in these activities, there should be no child who should be placed in an exception or isolated regardless of their physical abilities. Finally, she recommends that children’s sports competitions should be restructured in a way that the main objectives will be to enable the children to gain health, fitness, enjoyment and children corporations rather than winning aims.
Response
In my respond opinion, I think children sports are not bad, however, the manner in which the games and sports get organized or conducted matters a lot. In most instances, there are those sports activities which are healthy for the growth of children; thus, they should be regularly involved in them. There are also those sports competitions which may affect the children either physically or psychologically. This is because most of the competitive sports for win expectations they may undergo are past their ages, and thus, they might only harm them. (Statsky, 2010), has also developed strong arguments which she clearly supports thereafter by outlining valid ideas and examples of instances when some children were misused. All throughout the article, the author seems consistent towards her ideas, thus making her able to develop arguments which convince readers and the target groups that what she says is true.
I stand with her that there are many possibilities of children having physical and psychological risks, which might be associated with sports activities organized for the children. However, in most cases, what matters is the strategy in which these completions are conducted and organized. Youngsters should be trained on the means to get engaged in competitive games as well as enhance their learning of how sports have positive and negative effects. I further support her argument that “there are some sports activities which are healthy and others which at the same time are not depending with the method in which they are carried out” (Cox, 2010).
Again, I also tend to stand with the argument towards the losing and winning concepts in children’s sports are totally unhealthy. This is because, through my experiences, I have witnessed how sportsmen feel embarrassed in situations where they lose a game in poorly organized sports competition activities. Once, I was a footballer in a football team where we had to train thoroughly for competitions to avoid losing. However, it was so tiresome and depressing to our health to do all this under poorly organized sports. Furthermore, in case we lost a game, the situation worsened as it was depressing, thus most players seemed depressed from pressures impacted by the coaches. Therefore, in this case, because children are growing and building their minds they should not be involved in competing games, however, they should be taught on the best ways to corporate with each other and have fun in their lives.
Sports activities which are competitive should be left to those individuals who are rarely able to get stressed or affected by any other physical or psychological impacts of the sporting activities. The information sources used by the author the support of her argument are relevant and credible based on the nature of the activities she is talking about. To conclude, my stand is sports concept should be set to encourage children to play any game of their choice, and their coaches or parents should not focus on the winning issues.
References
Cox, B. &. (2010). Literacy is not enough: essays on the importance of reading. Manchester: University Press and Book Trust.
Statsky, J. (2010, July 9). Children need to play, not compete. Retrieved from http://www.redwoods.edu/instruct/jjohnston/english1a/readings/statsky.pdf
