Sport is emotion: teach to live them well

Sports is an exciting activity for the guy who has to have his first competition after a period of preparation and is already wondering how it will go, putting his hands out wondering how it will turn out since it has been a while since the last one. It is also for Modici and Neymar, the symbols of two teams, Croatia and Brazil, that came down to penalties to decide who would pass the round. At the end, everyone cried some in joy and some in sorrow.

Sport easily generates emotions, so much so that the stress it brings about is considered a privilege. These are emotions that do not arise from wars, disasters or negative events but from feeling engaged in something that one enjoys doing. Sport is passion, which some manage to turn into a job, but without setting aside the emotions it determines in every person, planetary champion or young person who wants to have fun.

Sport is related to well-being, therefore, it enables the development of many psychological and social skills that should enrich a person’s daily life and not only his or her sports life. To achieve this, sports must be based on the universal values of respect for others and rules, otherwise it becomes cheating or seeking shortcuts to success.

Young people must be taught the value of emotions, explaining to them that they accompany our every thought and action. That it is not wrong to be disappointed or angry about a race gone wrong, indeed negative emotions are a demonstration of our interest in that activity. However, we must also teach them to experience their passions and disappointments constructively. Teach them that when we adults say that it is from mistakes that we learn, we also believe that and do not instead behave in the opposite node, humiliating them because they make mistakes.

Teachers who are parents, coaches and psychologists must provide them with ways to handle the difficulties they encounter and not leave them, instead, alone in understanding what happened and finding solutions.