Our latest post in a series of blogs on Community Sport comes from Dot Davies. Dot is an S4C and BBC presenter – she’s a huge sports fan and mother of two young boys.
Someone told me recently that New Zealand kids believe they can walk on water, whereas Welsh kids will ask for their wellies. True? Not sure. But it made me think. Putting aside ideas of an inferiority complex as a nation, where can we begin to instill that 'anything is possible' attitude in our children?
Community Sport. Perhaps I feel even more strongly about this since becoming a parent. Almost without even thinking about it, we have imagined from the day they were born how sport would and should shape them as people with individuals from within our community becoming their mentors, their confidantes, their friends. My children are only four and three yet already involved in rugby and gymnastics allowing them to make friends, teaching them communication and social skills, not to mention the social benefits for myself and the other parents we've met.
A passion for sport is what I truly want for my boys. To want to do their best and to enjoy what comes with that. All this in the hope that sport and the community it thrives within, will help shape mine and all our children as individuals providing not only health, but social benefits.
Who's to say that mine or next door's children aren't capable of being world class footballers, athletes, rowers, cyclists? Anything they want to be. They do however need to be given the opportunity and the encouragement to strive to be the best they can be.
I look around my peers and each one has a story of how this running club and that netball team helped them through their teens. I took it for granted. I'd like to think there will be a wider community who will look out for my children and want the best for them. Sport helps us to achieve that. Community Sport can only be a good thing. Wouldn't it be great if our children feared nothing and left their wellies by the door.
Follow Dot on Twitter @dotdavies1
This blog was written in conjunction with the launch of a strategy for Community Sport in Wales. If you’d like your say, get involved in the debate on twitter – using the hashtag #communitysport and you can mention us @sport_wales
