In a sports-crazed society, when every parent wants a future All-Star (and scholarship collegian), it can be hard for us to see the morality of sports. We can limit our understanding of this subject to questions of sportsmanship and spiritual mindset. We should consider these things carefully, of course, but there are other matters to think about as well.
For example:
- Parents all around us are starting their children in sports at incredibly young ages. Children as young as four or five will be going to weeklong sports camps this summer. This practice is so recent that little data exists to speak to its effects on childhood development. Is it really healthy for kids to be entering athletic competition at age five?
- Whether right or wrong, what in our cultural water would prompt us to make it? Why would we put five-year-olds in athletic competition with one another? What is our heart motivation in doing so?
- How much importance should we place on sports in general in the lives of our families? Knowing that serious teams will require lots of time and energy on the part of a family, should Christian parents commit their children to serious competition?
These are just a few questions that pop up in my mind related to this subject. Sports are filled with moral questions. Particularly in America, it is easy to ignore or overlook these questions and place our children in harmful spiritual and physical settings.
Read the rest of his post. It was good for me to read as a guy not wanting to be a "psycho sports Dad".
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