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Here’s a sign of our cultural times revealing something is off in the hearts and lives of America — bad behavior at youth sporting events. This is merely one of countless other things that show culture’s pendulum swing of extreme behavior regarding finances, morality, beliefs, and so on.
The below news video captures a several minute introduction to the rising bad behavior and its impact even on the referees. The news anchors attempt at the end to provide helpful tips and tricks to minimize parent’s bad behavior, though it will fall short as a solution.
Parents are the sole rightful and responsible people in a child’s life to train them up, and regardless of what people believe (or not) about God, he created it that way. Parenting children is the immediate training context to work through bad beliefs and behavior before they are grown and gone from their parents. Meaning, it’s not the government, law, or sporting even policy that needs to replace the parent. Rather, parents need to change (repent). You would see a massive de-regulation, de-lawing, and de-invasion of government when parents and family related guardians train up their own children to believe and behave rightfully.
Is getting loud at a sporting event bad behavior? No. Is working through the frustrations and joys of the game bad behavior? No. The bad behavior comes from a belief that they are entitled to a specific outcome they want. And when a referee call, sports play, or situation arises that prevents the desired outcome, there’s an explosion or result of the awry belief.
We have certainly come a long way from the Roman Empire’s Colosseum days two thousand years ago where they praised and cheered for the deaths of humans (mainly gladiators and Christians). So, some fighting and screaming here and there is still not bad if you are one to compare. However, one thing is missing from both extremes. What is missing? God. There is an incredible and insatiable desire to live godless in everyday life, hence why it appears in sporting events.
Sporting events are certainly to be fun, competitive, intense, focused, loud, quiet, and even maturing as well as character building. But that comes from the context of parents already mature at work on their immature child (vs. the parents being immature). Sporting events or children are not to be the god in our life that controls us. And, our aim is not to correct bad behavior at sporting events, but understand believe what God wants for our lives. Hence why this then shows up in every area of our life, including sporting events.
Therefore, what we are really seeing is untrained and unrepentant adults training their kids to do likewise, exponentially affecting lives for generations to come in how to behave in life when things do not go their way or they don’t get their way. Instead of swinging with the pendulum, let’s cut the string and fall to a strong foundation of truth and love. The greatest affect on a generation is to be godly (i.e. what God wants).
Sporting events have many great benefits and lessons to learn, especially learning to lose and how to treat others in the midst of loss.
