If your child enjoys competitive sports. Competition has its place, since children often take part in sports for reasons of challenge, skill and competition. A few pointers can keep them motivated:

• Help your child to enjoy the game rather than the outcome. A focus on winning rather than enjoying the game in its own right can reduce their motivation.
• Focus your child's attention on developing skills rather than on the outcome. Failing to win is likely to be a highly negative experience because it so easily conveys feelings of failure. By encouraging them to improve their game, winning or loosing becomes less important.
• Provide honest performance feedback. The feedback, more than the outcome, seems to affect children's enjoyment and interest. Children who lose but receive positive feedback feel better than those who win but receive negative feedback.
• Select a trainer with an informational style. Trainers who are perceived by children to provide more positive feedback and support tend to have more satisfied participants.
• Suggest activities that are less formal and less structured, such walking the dog or playing a game that means being physically active.
• Insist on a wide choice of activities beyond organized sport at school and in community recreation programs.
• Help your child to develop a few skills — catching a ball or learning to swim, will boost their self-confidence and motivate them to do more activity.

Widening opportunities for physical activity is doubly important when we consider the shift in motives for being active from childhood to adolescence. Being active and being able to socialize with friends and gain new skills will help young people to improve their self-confidence and become more sociable.