Should Your Young Kids Play Sports?
There is a common question that parents ask as their children get to be maybe 5 or 6 years old. That question is – should they play sports? There are a lot of cultural reasons that parents have for wanting their kids to play games or not to play sports. There are a lot of personal goals and anecdotal reasons they may have as well. But you can pretty much rely on three categories of thought to decide if sports are right for your children.
Sports do several things in a child’s life. First of all, whenever a child is involved in a competition, they will naturally become more fit. Fitness comes in different forms. There is general physical fitness. There is strength training. There are endurance considerations. And you can even argue that sports help with mental fitness as well. A large concern that parents may have when deciding whether their kids should play sports is how well they can be protected from injury. And a final reason to involve children in athletic activities is that it allows them to be more social. Many children have trouble finding a group of peers on their own. Being a part of organized sports helps them bridge this gap.
For Fitness
The very first consideration that you should make as a parent when it comes time to decide if your kid is going to play sports or not is how much of a factor fitness is. Genetically and culturally, children have different inclinations toward health and fitness. By involving your child in athletic activities that get their bodies moving, you may be setting up habits and routines that will keep them healthy for the rest of their lives. Even if your child is not good at sports, just the fact that they are remaining active can make a huge difference in their general sense of health in their early years.
Protection from Injury
One of the things that keeps parents from putting their children into sports is the fear of injury. These days especially though, there is all sorts of protective equipment that you can use to make sure that your child does not get harmed. For example, you can buy excellent high-quality mouthguards if your child is going to be in a sport that involves any sort of impact near their head, face, or mouth. Nothing is worse than seeing your child’s teeth damaged by an errant ball or some other child’s shoulder or foot. If there is any sort of impact, there should be some type of mouth guard protection that is available even if it isn’t required.
Being More Social
A final reason that parents might want to get their children involved in athletic activities is that it allows the child to be social in an organized manner. Again, this doesn’t mean that your child has to be good at a sport. There are lots of leadership activities that go on even in casual sports games at low levels. Letting your child communicate back and forth with other children, coaches, and parents means that they will be more inclined to understand how to communicate and connect better with the world around them outside of sports.
