Introduction

Family Friendly Sports (FFS for short) is everything that the term reveals word-by-word, and a lot more behind the obvious. It is about bringing together families and offering them the opportunity to enjoy together the numerous benefits of sports activities and spending some entertaining time together, while improving their physical and mental status. Everyone could be benefited from their participation in such activities: the children on one hand and their family members on the other. Speaking of whom, they could be parents, relatives, friends, carers or any other guardian who is in charge of supporting a child in a family sense.

People say that “a family that plays together, stays together!” and this should not be mis-considered as an oversimplified conception. Speaking more concretely, participating in some sport activity as a family, does not only offer the self-explanatory health benefits of any physical exercise, but also helps the family develop strong bonds between the members, by:

• Building common memories – which sets the basis for emotional stability and inner development.
• Allowing intimacy and meeting one’s emotional needs – “fighting” for a common cause allows family members to come closer, support each other, share emotionally rich moments and express their feelings to one another.
• Creating family togetherness – sharing is caring and this does not only apply to materials and services, but also to shared moments – in FFS case, wins and losses and effort and hard group work.
• Building a sense of belonging – feeling a sense of community with one’s family members, feeling secure and safe in one’s “family team” reflects to real life, exactly as it does in the sports field.
• Opening up the communication lines – participating in FFS activities, encourages the family members to open communication and find new ways to express themselves.
• Facilitating the healing process for any relationship struggle – releasing stress, overcoming grudges, promoting cooperation towards a common goal is helping members to let go of any dark emotions and helps in conflict resolution.
• Supporting the children’s social and emotional development – growing with the out-of-the-box involvement of one’s family, experiencing different moments and having one’s guardian lead by example, supports the child’s well-being and multidimensional development.
• Learning new skills cooperatively – it is definitely special to learn something new along with your family and share this experience of improving one’s skills and capacities together with their most beloved ones.

And the list can keep on growing bigger and bigger – who could doubt this? But is it only the children and their families the beneficiaries of such an initiative? What about sports clubs? Why would they bother including FFS activities in their regular sports programs? Let’s share a few ideas…