Raising an Athletic Daughter:
Moms Play a Key Role

Helping Your Daughter Develop a Love for the Game

By Brooke De Lench

Helping Your Daughter

As a mother you can have an enormous influence on your daughter's lifelong pursuit of physical fitness or sports. A 2008 study by the Women's Sports Foundation found, in fact, that mothers topped girls' list of those who ”encourage me a lot.“

Here are some tips on how to help your daughter develop a love of sports and get the most of her sports experience:

• Plant the athletic seed early. The trait of athleticism shouldn't be assigned just to boys. Girls who become elite athletes often report being inspired and motivated to play sports early in life. Starting your daughter out in sports when the time is right (notice I didn't say organized sports; you don't need to start your daughter in team sports until she is six or seven) is important because studies show that if you don't get your daughter involved in sports before age ten, there is only one chance in ten she will be participating in sports when she is twenty-five.
• Mold sports awareness and build fundamental skills in pre-school.Girls who play sports without basic skills are more likely than boys to feel like failures and give up. Use the pre-school years to mold your daughter's awareness of sports and begin developing fundamental skills (kicking, overhand throwing, catching, and running). Use a Koosh ball, which is easy and safe to throw and catch, or a Frisbee, to develop these skills. It is a myth that girls can't throw overhand just like boys.
• Encourage your husband to roughhouse with her more: Rough-and-tumble play and other forms of physical play, as well as physical aggression, are three to six times less common among girls than boys, a sex difference that continues through childhood and adolescence. Studies show that fathers tend to engage in more active play with their sons than with their daughters. The 2009 Go Out and Play study by the Women's Sports Foundation also found fathers encourage their sons to be physically active at a higher rate than that reported by girls. It also found that while 46% of boys cited their dads as teaching them the most about exercise and how to play sports, only 28% of girls did so. The bottom line: encourage your daughter's father to play more actively with her.
• Talk with your daughter about your sports participation.Research suggests that if you play or played organized sports, your daughter is more likely to play. If your daughter doesn't know you were an athlete because you aren't currently playing sports, don't display your trophies or show her your scrapbooks, she is more likely to think that boys are inherently more athletic than girls. It's never too late for your daughter to know about your sports history; it can change your daughter's perception of where she acquired her athleticism. Not knowing that you played sports may lead your daughter to associate her own athletic ability with your husband and not with yours.

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