You would be wrong. I've already been through youth soccer and t-ball. I have to assume the league is not keeping score, or this wouldn't be an issue. Maybe some of the parents should ask themselves why the score isn't being kept by the league. If they don't like it maybe they can move their kid into a league that takes kindergarten athletics a little more seriously.
My apologies.... No, we do not keep score until 3rd grade level, I was curious if this was the belief of everyone else. Is it important to keep score below 8 years old? That is the question before this august assembly. DD
While I agree with the latter parts, I have to admit I got a little confused by your previous post and this one. At first when you said "children need this", I thought you DID want to keep score, no matter the age... but when you said "it is unfortunate that some are extreme [parents]"... uhhh... you don't want this, but you DO want to keep score? I am just a little confused is all, you have valid points both ways, though.
I think you should keep score, because that's how games work. I've taken my husband's cousins to their baseball games/camps and the parents piss me off. They yell at their (6-7 yr old) kids. That is NOT fun.
I think if the kids are adhering to the rules of the sport while playing, you should keep score. But, if the kids are so young or bad that they're touching a soccer ball with their hands or double dribbling in basketball with impunity, then don't bother with the score either. Of course, that you're officially keeping score doesn't mean you have to make a big deal about it. Posters keep caveating with "losing gracefully" but I don't think that's something 1st graders do. They'll be petty about it. So, I'd keep it but downplay it.
Didn't mean for it to be that muddy I'm for keeping score, I think children need to win and lose. As a parent I spend alot of time saying "Almost" " Maybe next time" and " You suck!" (kidding) Parents should parent better. Everyone's reaction is the real issue, not the score. Maybe that's a tad too buddhist.
Ha. ^ nice. www.FFPS.org (fun fair positive soccer) does NOT allow you to coach or to encourage strategy during a game or on the field, and they only want you to cheer the TEAM on. This minimizes the stress kids will feel. no_answer, you would love this and so would E.
I voted for keeping score. I think it is important to teach kids to compete. Some will excel. Some will fail. I think our society has gone way out of balance trying to help the low performers at the expense of the ones who can excel.
I'm getting a feeling of de-ja-vu with this thread, only last time it was soccer. =) I'm all for not keeping score. We are all winners. Plus, it keeps crazy parents in check.
I guess the real question is when is it time to keep score? I think at an early age it is all about having fun, and getting them into the joy of playing, but at some point, it is about competition, and we need to let the acheivers acheive, and set an example for others to follow. One boy on our team just loves sports, he will play any game, basketball, baseball, soccer, that is all he wants to do.....even over video games....and he is our best player, maybe even the best in the league at this point. I am convinced though that it is because he is ultra competitve and just wants to play..... We shall see if he holds his edge in all sports as he grows up... DD
It's great keeping score only if you win. Noone wants to keep score when they lose, even adults. They want to forget it as quick as they can. It's all BS about losing graciously. Some adults can do it. Most kids can't and noone can handle losing game after game after game. It does happen in Youth sports that some teams would lose most if not all of their games. Most of those kids quit the sports. Some of them end up right here surfing the net instead of playing a sport even if they are bad.
i vote to keep score. there are certain times in life you can't win and it's no use ignoring that. the sooner they begin to accept losing, the sooner they can cope and learn how to rebound... which i believe is a more useful life trait.
That's what losers say. But I agree to keep score. Only to crush your opponents and learn never to accept defeat.
You know what? I think I am going to finally take a stand with the "NOT" keeping score at the under 7 level. I realized that all teams are not equal, there is no draft, there is no equalizing of the talent. So, some teams may have all new players, while others have players that have a couple seasons experience, obviously the new guys would get crushed, pretty consistently, and I think that if you emphasized score, they probably would give up too early. I think score keeping starting around the 3rd grade level is fine......by then most of the player will have played a while.... As an example my team has 7 players, 4 of which have been playing on the team for over a year, and the other 3 for half a year......we are a very seasoned team, who plays hard, attacks the ball and scores often. But, if we held a draft, 2 of my guys would be top picks, so no way we would have the same level of talent......and that is just not fair....to all the teams. Some of them we played had players with very little skill.....again, the luck of the draw and not fair. We play basketball in the winter, and the teams are evenly split up talent wise.....that seems more fair to me. DD
yea most kids can't handle it, that's why it's called learning. the desire to be the best you can be is something we instill in our children from day one both consciously and unconsciously. failure is a hard lesson to learn, but it's something everyone has to experience at some point. there certainly is a threshold for children understanding the concept of winning and losing, but considering children develop mentally and physically at much different rates you are essentially holding others back so everyone can get what is perceived as a "fair shake" by not keeping scoring and basically letting them run around and kick a ball. how is it different to reward a child for scoring a goal by celebrating and telling them they did a good job as opposed to being rewarded for good behavior. it's all positive reinforcement intended to teach a lesson. so if the point of the game is to score the most goals why create that disconnect where theres no score?
"This is what's great about sports...This is what the greatest thing about sports is...You play to win the game. HELLO?! YOU PLAY TO WIN THE GAME! You don't just play it to play it...That's the great thing about sports...you play to win." On a more serious note, I don't think the problem is keeping score or not keeping score, it's the overbearing parents. The parents who yell at kids and treat little league soccer like it is the World Cup. The problem is, those parents will still be overbearing regardless of whether the score is kept or not. Most kids will have fun playing regardless of if they win or not, and most will likely forget they even lost once after-game snacks are passed out. But at the same time, life lessons can be taught from an early age by keeping score. I'm all for keeping score and not coddling the youngsters.
Learning to lose graciouly is pretty easy if you only lose once in a while. There are teams which lose most or all of their games. Some of them by a lot. I've watched games with scores of 10+ to nothing and those are not the worst (there are listing of 17-0, 18-0 scores ...) . You have to see those kids ..., I've seen them crying and begging their parents to let them stay away while being dragged to the field. Not fun.
