What Do You Think Of Children Looking Up To Sports Stars?
Especially with the recent news of two more prominent athletes using drugs.
Do you feel that as a whole they are reasonable for children to admire?
Or are they in the same realm as celebrities?
I do of course think it goes w/out saying that the first person children should look up to is the parents.
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Tags: admire, Celebrities, Children, first person, Looking, News, realm, recent news, Sports, Stars, Think, What
Posted on February 9th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
I find it relatively sad that we look to celebrities to be untouchable gods to young children. These people are famous for a job they preform. They are no better than any other person on this planet. We form opinions based on what we read about them and not the real person. Sort of like Octomom. How would you feel if your child looked up to her? We need to start instilling real life people into our children’s eyes as role models.
Posted on February 9th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
I think it’s perfectly acceptable, unfortunately we hear a lot about the few athletes who make poor choices and not enough about the majority who work very hard to achieve goals they’ve set for themselves. I would encourage a child to look up to an athlete and talk with them about the qualities they admire in that person (just like any other role model). Yes, parents are a child’s first role model but I know many parents who are really piss poor people of standard. There’s nothing wrong with a kid looking up to a football star or olympian, but it’s the parents responsibility to show children how much work went into that person becoming what they are and they had to practice and try and fall down alot before being a professional. That means never giving up on something you are passionate about.
Posted on February 10th, 2010 at 4:18 am
It use to be that athletes were always admired for their talents… what they could do on the ice…or in the pool… on the field. You did not hear much about their personal lives. NOW because of the celebrity status we give them, we also know every detail of their personal lives…from marriage tot he colour of their socks. I think if our kids are idolizing someone we as parents need to make sure that they know that their favourite start is still human. When we see a start like Mike Phelps fall it can be a good chance to get in there and talk to our kids about the dangers of drugs ( if it can mess up and Olympic gold medallist life it will mess up yours too) Use the celebrities failures as a way to teach your kids that even those people who have everything can lose it all to drugs.
Posted on February 10th, 2010 at 9:16 am
Back when I was a kid, Picabo Street, Mia Hamm, Andre Agassi and Micheal Jordon were the athletes you looked up to and admired. Have you ever heard of them doing anything to negatively influence a child? Nope. But now look at Kobe Bryant (cheated on his wife and was accused of rape), Micheal Phelps (smokes pot), LeBron James (for being greedy and taking additional offers), Barry Bonds (steroids), Mike Tyson (freak), and the list goes on. It’s ridiculous. I think that if the child picks a good role model (would you rather your child admire Raven-Symone or Britney Spears?) everything should be ok. We just need to guide our children and let them know what is wrong from right
Posted on February 10th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Oh I don’t know much about sports. My husband watches football and golf and my daughter watches football just to see the cheerleaders. lol
She loves the Dallas Cheerleaders does that count?
I think it’s fine to look up to the athletes on a professional level but something else entirely to look up to them on a personal level. I wouldn’t encourage my daughters to follow the lives of any cheerleaders and be a copy cat. Striving to do a back hand spring front tuck , though, seems Okay.
Posted on February 10th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
I think sports stars are becoming more like celebrities or that they belong in the same realm…And you never know when something embarrassing is going to come out or find out who’s doing drugs, beating up their girlfriend, etc.
Of course, we are steller examples of everything that is right in the world…
Posted on February 10th, 2010 at 10:08 pm
I wouldn’t mind my kid watching them and all, and even thinking that they are great, but to look up to them… I dunno. I sort of want to set higher standards my kids than that. Here is the thing, today’s stars aren’t really that impressive. Yeah they might be better at the sport, but they aren’t that great personality wise. It’s all about them and their money. I would just like to show my kids all the old time athletes that really had to work to win, and wanted to win it because their heart was in the game. Watch Hoosiers, or Rudy,.. those were real sports stars. Although I must throw in there,.. I would not mind my kids looking up to Tim Tebow! Hopefully he stays on the right track!
Posted on February 11th, 2010 at 4:22 am
I will be very surprised if my son is not in the NFL. Let me tell you why: he came home from the hospital on Feb 3rd, 2008 (SuperBowl Sunday) and his 1st birthday was on Feb 1st, 2009 (what do you know, SuperBowl Sunday!) If that isn’t a sign straight from the heavens then I don’t know what is!
I would rather he pursued a more respectable career; ultimately, it is his choice.
Posted on February 11th, 2010 at 6:56 am
Well my daughter is only 1 so she isnt looking up to anyone just yet.
My younger sister is 15, and looks up to two tennis stars, Rodger Federa and Serena Williams.
I dont think theres a problem, I mean its better than looking up to people like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.
Posted on February 11th, 2010 at 11:54 am
I hate that my son looks up to those guys as his hero’s I have always said it. He knows about what happened to Arod we didn’t tell him he heard it at school!!!! I didn’t think kindergartners talked about that but I guess so
This is a very huge baseball home lol my husband knows then all lol
Posted on February 11th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
Same realm as celebrities to me…unless we are talking about college foot ball…and even then my team had lots of players arrested last year for weed I do believe, but they were suspended so… GO PENN STATE!!! lol
Posted on February 11th, 2010 at 9:06 pm
i think it’s cool jus as the athletes are role model material like tupac waz to hip hop and to minorities
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/2Pac_Legacy09
if you wanna make a change like Tupac, MLK, or Obama please join my yahoo group and let your voice be heard……. or read
Posted on February 11th, 2010 at 11:42 pm
I think the child tends to admire the positive aspects surrounding that particular sports start such as what they have achieved in comparison to the additional details such as drug use.
Posted on February 12th, 2010 at 1:47 am
if you have ever seen a child who would prefer to look up to his/ her parents as opposed to a cartoon character, beware – it’s another world
Posted on February 12th, 2010 at 3:41 am
It’s fine to look up to sports stars, just don’t let your kids eat Kelloggs cereals and they should be fine.;-)
Posted on February 12th, 2010 at 4:04 am
I say it’s a good thing. why? well because this will help your kids with a degree. and if they like the the sport they shouled go for it
Posted on February 12th, 2010 at 10:52 am
I think you need to steer your child away from this type of behavior.
Posted on February 12th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
it is acceptable because kids need to have dreams of being a superstar and looking up to them.
Posted on February 12th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
If a child is looking up to a sport star because of their athletic achievement, then that is fine. There is nothing wrong with a child dreaming about winning gold medals like so-and-so did.
However, I do not believe it is right for a child (or anyone) to look up to any person as an idol, or role-model. I think we should all pursue the dream of being all that we can and should be, and not dream of denying our own lives to become a separate person.
Athletes, celebrities, friends, neighbors, etc., are all people. No matter how good someone appears, they are still human. And as humans, we have failings, weaknesses, and things in our lives (whether past, present, or future) that we are very ashamed of. We as people will be a disappointment sooner or later.
A child can dream about winning 8 gold medals. But a child should not dream of being Michael Phelps.
Posted on February 13th, 2010 at 1:40 am
I would certainly encourage this behavior to influence a child to take up a sport that they love because of the health benefits that can be gained if they play the sport themselves, not to mention they could gain social skills from belonging to a team, as well as making friends and enlarging their social scope so to speak.
From a psychological point of view, one thing that I think is unhealthy however, is the gap a child makes between their ideal self and their actual self. If they obsess over becoming as big as say for the sake of argument, David Beckham, unfortunately that is very unlikely to happen in reality. The gap between the actual self and this ideal self would be far too large and the obstacles that would be needed to theoretically cross this gap between the two would be many in numbers and certainly extremely challenging. I hope you can see where I’m coming from.
Regarding sports stars abuse of drugs, I guess if a child’s sports idol has been partaking in such things, they should just be educated on the downsides of drug taking (emphasising on shame, side effects, dangers etc etc) and they shouldn’t let it discourage them in the love of the sport itself, and maybe the child will, in time, find a new sports star to draw inspirations and motivations from.
Generally speaking, looking up to idols is a common thing amongst everyone, let alone children, whether someones idol is involved in sports, writing books, making films, creating music or artwork, and so on, drawing from any of these topics will help build up a childs character, along with a broader set of interests and knowledge about that particular topic, and maybe even start them of in the direction of a related career.
Sports themselves encourage many positives, and as long as a child steers clear of the rocky road that is drug abuse, it could really enhance their lifestyle as I’ve already mentioned. I’m sure lots of people would agree.