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Five Benefits of Enrolling Your Child in Sports

Now, let’s get one thing straight from the beginning: this article is not about forcing your child to play sports. Despite how much you might love sports, if your kid truly hates it, don’t make him or her play.

With that out of the way, this article is for the parent who is on the fence about enrolling their child on sports. You might be worried if it will interfere with his schoolwork. Or, you might be concerned about it making him overly competitive. Both of these concerns are understandable.

However, I believe there are certainly several ways your child can benefit from joining an afterschool sports team. Here are 5 benefits to consider if you’re debating signing your child up for sports.

1. Learning the value of teamwork—Whether you sign your kid up for baseball, basketball, football, or soccer, one thing is certain: he will learn the value of teamwork quickly. See, one player can’t carry an entire team throughout a full season in any of the sports mentioned above. So, your kid will learn that he needs to work together with his teammates if he wants to be successful. This is a valuable skill that will carry over to many other aspects of life, from building friendships in school to working together will co-workers as an adult.

2. Improving self-confidence—Numerous studies have found that kids who play sports are likely to have positive self-esteem. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, a child who plays sports is likely to be healthy and not overweight. This creates a positive self-image. Also, just the simple act of belonging to a team and feeling like a valued member is enough to boost a kid’s self-confidence. Playing sports really can help your kids be happier and avoid depression. That alone is reason enough to consider enrolling your kid in an afterschool sports program.

3. Staying active and healthy—Too many children today are content staying at home in front of the TV for hours at a time. As a result, childhood obesity is at an all-time high. One reason playing sports is such a good idea is that it forces your kid to stay active and in great health. Between the practices and the games, your child will get the daily recommended exercise he needs to remain healthy. And these health benefits aren’t just physical benefits. Healthy kids are able to focus better and perform better academically than those kids who are sluggish and tired.

4. Blowing off some steam—Many parents don’t realize their kids are under a lot of pressure and stress. Just because they don’t have all the responsibilities of an adult doesn’t mean they can’t get stressed out. For this reason, your child needs a good outlet to blow off some steam. Sports and physical activities are the perfect medium for doing this. It’s a nice carefree outlet where your kid can just have fun, like a kid is supposed to do. Without such an outlet, your child might start acting out, directing their aggression in a non-constructive manner.

5. Developing discipline—Every child can benefit from learning some discipline. Discipline is what will make them responsible students who do their homework and take care off their obligations. Discipline is what will teach them to respect those in authority as well as their peers. Discipline is what will teach them how to work toward a long-term goal without giving up. See, being on a sports team requires a commitment to practicing regularly and being ready for every game. Your child will learn how to set and achieve goals. They’ll also learn that hard work is the only way to accomplish their biggest dreams.

Hopefully, you can now see some of the benefits of signing your kid up to play sports. Sure, every situation is different and sports aren’t right for everyone, but there really is a lot your child can gain from joining a team. By playing sports, your kid can improve their academic performance, gain valuable social skills, and learn how to work toward their biggest goals. Whether you like sports or not, I think we can all agree that these are benefits we all want for our children.

April 23rd, 2010 | Tags: , , , | Category: family, health and fitness

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