Raising Happy Athletes

By Tyler S. Stahle in the Winter 2026 Issue

1. Keep it fun, and keep friends close. “Two of the biggest reasons kids play sports are simple,” Seeley says. “They want to be with their friends, and they want to have fun.” Parents who focus too much on winning or advancement risk losing those two primary motivations. “If you’re not checking those boxes, the data suggest that your kids are less likely to stay in sports.”

Reach Out to More Friends

“Come unto Me”

By Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

Adapted from a Church Educational System Young Adult fireside given on 2 March 1997 at Brigham Young University.

My confession is that I wish I could go back to my youth and there have another chance to reach out to those who, at the time, didn’t fall very solidly onto my radar scope. Youth want to feel included and important, to have the feeling they matter to others. Young people deserve to have true friendships—the real value of which, like our health, may never be realized until we face life without them. I think that my problem was not that I had too few friends but almost too many. But it is the associations I didn’t have, the friends I didn’t reach, that cause me some pain now all these years later.

Friendship

“Reach out to those you do not know and greet them warmly. Each Sunday extend a hand of fellowship to at least one person you did not know before. Each day of your life, strive to enlarge your own circle of friendship” 

(Russell M. Nelson, “Be Thou an Example of the Believers,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2010, 48).

Reach Out

 “Let us reach out to those in our community who are not of our faith. Let us be good neighbors, kind and generous and gracious. Let us be involved in good community causes. There may be situations where, with serious moral issues involved, we cannot bend on matters of principle. But in such instances we can politely disagree without being disagreeable. We can acknowledge the sincerity of those whose positions we cannot accept. We can speak of principles rather than personalities.”

Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley, 131.

Part of Who We Are

 “Successful missionary opportunities are more likely to be found when members are just good, true friends with others. As Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said, “If we are open about our member ship in the Church from the very beginning, . . . friends and acquaintances will accept that this is part of who we are.”

M. Russell Ballard, “Creating a Gospel Sharing Home,” Ensign, May 2006, 86.