Children and Sport. When can You enroll your child to sports?
The natural desire of every parent is to raise strong and healthy child. It is clear that sport can help your child to be healthy. But it is not often we can get a definite answer to such questions as, what is the best age for child and when he can participate in sports activities.
Of course, you need to approach each case individually. In this matter a child’s gender is very important, also the level of child’s development, and finally, whether he has a predisposition to do any of sports activities. You should also take into account the feelings of the child. A child should be willing to do exercises, otherwise it will affect negatively on his mental condition. If parents do not take into account the views of a child they should expect a rapid loss of the interest of their child to do any sports. It is likely that after the first negative experience with sports, the child completely loses the willingness to engage. To avoid such cases, parents should seriously think about the time when to enroll their child to extracurricular activities.
Assessment of physical development of a child
The first important step it is a consultation with a doctor. You shouldn’t neglect this advice, because at stake there is a health of a child, and even his life. The doctor will examine the child and he will find if there are any of contraindications and also he will assess the level of the child’s physical development. Next, try to talk with the parents whose children are already enrolled in some sports classes. Find out at what age their children began to attend sports training, and whether there are any additional problems.
Choosing of the type of sport activity in accordance with the age of a child
As it was mentioned above, the choice of the extra-curricular activities should take into account the child’s age. However, every year appear new progressive exercise programs; therefore, the rules of the sport are rejuvenated. Good examples of these programs are such sport’s activities as modern rhythmic gymnastics, figure skating, synchronized swimming and others. Even three-year-olds children can start practicing in these sports activities, because the younger the child is the more he can work out. There are even some cases when the professional trainers personally come to the kindergarten to identify talented children.
When the girl reaches the age of four years she can begin to attend classes of artistic or rhythmic gymnastics. And in this age girls also can start learn how to swim. At the same time, if after the first year of training the girl will probably floating in water, it is possible that she will be qualified to synchronized swimming. Girls of eight or ten years old can already take part in the worldwide championships in this field. At the age of six if the child does not have any counter indications, so you can go ahead and enroll your child to class of the figure skating.
Seven-years-old children can start to do such sport activities as artistic gymnastics, sport dance and table tennis.
The boys of eight or nine years old can start to learn Martial Arts. Very carefully you should approach your child to weightlifting sport. Although formally the child can start this sport at the age of 10, but it will be better to do it a little bit later. The body of the child is not yet fully developed at this age, and such exercises in the gym can significantly slow his growth.
Let us examine more details of some kinds of sports. The classes of Martial Arts are very well developing the flexibility, coordination, dexterity and disciplinein children, and they are recommended both for boys and for girls. Some types of fights definitely are not suitable for young athletes. For example boxing, which is very conducive to injuries and it is a common cause of the epilepsy. Much more securable are karate, judo, aikido or wushu – basically a five-years-old child can participate in these activities.
Gymnastics both artistic and rhythmic are very demanding kinds of sport. Heavy loads often lead to sprains, cause back pain. Of course, while doing such sport they can develop their flexibility, grace and beauty but is it worth of such efforts? If it is hard for your children, you can enroll them to dance classes or ballet, where are all these same features, but at a lesser intensity. To achieve mastery in this sports section, your child should start practicing since the age of five. Children that begin to cultivate ballet or dance later also are not convicted to fail.
Perhaps no other sport can be so safe and at the same time so useful for all ages as swimming. It helps to develop the right stature and improves body condition. You can start the swimming classes with your child at least of the age of three months, because there are a lot of pools, conducting special courses for babies. The only thing that can bring some concerns to parents of girls is the possibility of the emergence of broad shoulders. However this can happen only with the professional swimmers, but for those who want to swim twice a week, it will not cause such changes.
It doesn’t matter if it is a room for a boy, a girl or both siblings you should think about the organizing of a space for active entertainments. The solution can be the Metal Gymnastics Wall bar in the child’s room.
By Marta Bojczyk