Raising Graceful Champions: Wrestler Moms can Teach Young Wrestlers Good Sportsmanship

Highs and lows—Youth sports are filled with them, creating a roller-coaster of emotion for young athletes. Weathering these feelings and maintaining good sportsmanship helps your child grow, providing benefits long after they’ve grown up.

From acknowledging their opponent to avoiding a sore loser mentality, there’s much to learn about wrestling etiquette. Thankfully, wrestler moms can help their child better understand how to behave during a match and afterward.

Celebrating a Wrestling Match Win without Showing Off

Being a good winner is knowing not to showboat or taunt the opponent. Both can get your wrestler expelled from a match or at the very least get a warning from the coach or referee.

It’s only natural that your child will want to celebrate a win, but it’s easy to overdo it. Younger children may not have much experience with wrestling etiquette.

You’ll want to not only teach your wrestler the value of being a gracious winner, but you’ll also want to teach them how to express their happiness over a win in a healthy manner. Athletes should also be able to accept praise after a match respectfully and without letting it go to their head.

Emphasizing team celebrations over solo wins can be a good way to help your child understand the basics of team participation. By working in a team, less focus is put on any single person’s wins. Your wrestler can also start to gain the soft skills needed for group work and dealing with competition in the workplace.

Be Respectful by Recognizing the Opponent

While it’s important not to mock an opponent, athletes still need to recognize each other as people and treat one another with respect. Hopefully, your child’s wrestling coach will teach them about good wrestling match behavior. You can always reinforce these lessons at home.

Some things every young person should practice with respect to another team or athlete:

• Shaking hands with an opponent before or after a match.
• Thanking an opponent after a match for their time and participation.
• Making eye contact without being aggressive towards an opponent.
• Use respectful words and tone when talking about an opponent after a match.

A Wrestler Mom Can Help Athletes Focus on Growth, Not Just Winning Wrestling Matches

Engaging in a sport, like wrestling, also helps young people grow physically, mentally, and emotionally. Matches offer an opportunity to learn how to interact with an opponent, how to behave after a win, and how to handle a loss. All of which are soft skills needed in adulthood.

Building character in sports may seem like a cliché, but it’s a very real way to develop and grow as a person. By seeing the improvements they make with regular practice, wrestlers can also learn that they can improve their bodies, mind, or life with consistent effort.

Avoiding Sore-Loser Syndrome When an Opponent Wins

How to lose gracefully is a big lesson learned for athletes too. Losing a wrestling match can cause big feelings in young people who are tempted to lash out, sulk, or even give up sports.

Starting young, wrestler moms can go over how to act after a loss and how to get better at wrestling via continued practice. Wrestlers still need to learn to shake hands with the opponent, not argue with the ref or coach, and not throw a temper tantrum.

Wrestlers can also learn that nearly everyone loses a match or tournament. But those who lose and study with the coach to improve can eventually score a success.

Good Sportsmanship Always Has a Place in Wrestling

Players involved in wrestling need to be respectful of opponents to ensure a positive experience, no matter the outcome of the match.

Wrestler moms can model gracious behavior both at the tournament and at home for their young athlete. Conversation, practice following wrestling etiquette, and emphasizing team participation can all help your young athlete become a better competitor and future adult.