Team sports are usually regarded as one of the most valuable means for getting children to co-operate starting from an early age. However, this essay will provide reasons why this is not always the case, being team sports such as football or basketball sometimes very individual-centred and likeable to create high levels of competition and distress.
In many cases teams use to rely on the outstanding physical qualities and skills of just one of its component, thus not fitting perfectly with a teamwork vision. In other words, individual values of less talented members could get shadowed in order to enlighten someone else’s virtues, at the expense of a more co-operative spirit which should aim to give credit to everyone. For example a football match could be entirely based on all the players trying to create the perfect conditions for their ace to score a goal, letting aside their personal ambition to succeed in the same purpose.
Moreover, sports could easily encourage children to adopt competitive behaviours within teams. If not well-trained and educated, young people are instinctively willing to excel and prove themselves better than peers. In this conditions teamwork is therefore negatively afflicted by individual ambition which can also lead to experience high level of stress. Recent research in social humanities has in fact reported a strong correlation between practising team sports and the presence of anxious traits in children’s behaviours.
In conclusion, team games are proved not to be the most effective way to teach young people to work together as they tend on the contrary to encourage only personal talents and could lead to some serious psychological consequences.