Young children need to learn how to lose. I DISAGREE!

Why do children need to learn how to lose?  What motivational speaker came up with that?  When people talk about youth sports, you hear it all the time, sometimes to justify decisions.

The biggest cry of the anti-LTPD army is that young children need to learn how to lose. (for the record, LTPD is not about removing scores ... but that's another story).

For the record, in my humble opinion, when it's done at an adult level, kids don't need to learn how to lose.  I didn't always think it was very wrong, but I did always feel it was wrong.  Now, as I reflect back on mistakes and successes and learn from that, my position is more defined.  Watching my nephews come through their respective systems now, I feel even stronger about age appropriate programming.  (writer's note, I write this article drawing on YEARS of making mistakes.)

First and foremost, kids don't need adults to teach them how to win or lose.  They live and learn it everyday at the schoolyard and playground and I think it's great.  Most playground games have a winner and loser.  Some kid has to get picked last for teams.  Not everybody gets to be Sidney Crosby in street hockey.  Somebody dumps their bike quicker and gets to the Slurpee

IMO. Coaches need to know the Laws of the Game.

Would a true understanding of the Laws of the Game help our players?

Have a read:

http://www.goal.com/en-ca/news/4175/major-league-soccer/2013/03/13/3823121/roy-miller-penalty-encroachment-was-intentional

To me, a professional player  making such a mistake is embarrassing.  And his justification didn't help.

We work on techniques, skills, tactics, etc but can we really teach our kids everything we want without a solid understanding of the Laws of the Game?

Here is a direct link to FIFA's Laws of the Game document.

http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/footballdevelopment/refereeing/81/42/36/log2013en_neutral.pdf

One thing has always impressed me about baseball people ... they know the rules of their game