This blog on Caring and Compassion is part of the C’s System blog series.
Caring for oneself and for others, showing and feeling compassion towards others is a very important quality to possess for every person, inside and outside of the sporting environment.
Numerous scientific publications are dealing with the matter of for example: Empathy in sports, exercise, and the performing arts (Sevdalis & Raab, 2014), Association between self-reported empathy and sport experience in young adults (Shima et al., 2021), Investigation of empathy and self-esteem in decision making and decision-making styles among those who played team sports (Certel, Bahadir & Sönmez, 2013), Investigations of Empathy Skills and Moral Decision-Making Attitudes in Athlete Students in Terms of Some Variables (Turan & Çirmi, 2021) and The Caring Climate: How Sport Environments Can Develop Empathy in Young People (Gano-Overway, 2013).
Compassion includes empathy, the ability to understand what another person is feeling, or at least the attempt at understanding the emotional state another person is in, being able to sense and read emotional needs of another person (Gano-Overway, 2013).
Developing empathy, and the skills of caring and compassion as a sport participant will not only be needed within the sport environment but they are vital skills for every person to possess, apply and live by also outside the sporting environment.
For us coaches this means that they are part of a person-centred coaching approach within the sport environment.
But how can we as coaches support the development of Caring and Compassion in our sport participants?
Instead of citing literature at this pint again, I am sharing a few practical examples for coaching sessions.
Of course, there are plenty of other ways out there to help your sport participants to develop empathy, caring and compassion for themselves and for others.
