Why is it important for children to play a sport?

Playing sports is an excellent way to reduce stress for young athletes. It is also beneficial towards your youth’s mental health. Children can feel overwhelmed with schoolwork or other aspects of their lives. Sports can provide them with an outlet for their energy and assist with reducing stress. Involvement in a sport not only benefits a child’s physical dimension of health, but it can also help with a child’s mental health.

Motivation

Playing a sport can give children the motivation to keep active. Being successful at learning and using new sport skills can help boost self-esteem. This gain in self-confidence then propels a higher level of motivation for future success in the sport to occur.

Friendships

Being a member of a sports team provides children with the opportunity to meet new people. For young athletes, making social connections can lead to the development of long-lasting relationships. This is  an important skill for children to learn.

Socialization

Sports can be a great way for children to socialize. It is important that children learn how to work with one another in a cohesive manner. It also teaches them to learn how to get along with each other even when there are differences of opinion. Being a member of a team teaches children how to interact with one another in a constructive fashion to reach a common goal.

Teamwork

Teamwork provides a medium for children to gain skills and participate in a group effort to win a competition. The child athlete eventually learns that the only way to win at a sport is to work together. This creates team member bonding. The bonding activity eventually leads to friendships. It also helps children feel that they are an important member of a larger group that is working together to accomplish an important goal.

Gains in Mental Health

Being a member of a team will help to boost the child’s self-esteem and self-confidence. This helps their overall mental health by teaching them the importance of being optimistic, lifting-up each team member’s spirits when they are down, and cheering for each member of the team during performances of the sport. As athletes learn these skills it can carry-over into helping to reduce stress and improve feelings of positivity in their life and those around them. Winning can help them feel successful at the hard work during practices. Losing can teach them the importance of sportsmanship by congratulating the winning team and losing with grace. This helps teach them that a loss is not a failure but an opportunity to learn what to work on to strengthen skills for the next competition.

Life Lessons

Through sports, many different lessons and values are learned. For example, it teaches children the importance of work together to gain a common accomplishment. This lesson is helpful for future work experiences as an adult. Being active in sports helps teach athletes to learn the importance of how to maximize each team member’s strengths and to assist them with improving their weaknesses. This leads to supporting one another during the ups and downs of team competition. This can help the child athlete learn how to handle life’s many challenges.

Conclusion

The importance of involvement in a sport will teach children lessons that will help them gain success in competitions and forming relationships. Sport activities helps children learn how to reduce stress and increase happiness by supporting each teammate to perform at their highest level of ability. When everyone works together as a team to gain success for a common goal, this leads to each team member feeling important for their individual contributions. Feelings of success and camaraderie lead to higher self-esteem and confidence. Each team member can possibly gain feelings of strength in their capabilities. This can empower them to use positive tactics to tackle the many challenges they face as they go through life.

Resources
Blast. (2016, Feb. 16). The Effects of Sports on Relationships. Retrieved from https://blastmotion.com/blog/sports-on-relationships/#gref