Introduction
Sports are an important part of any person’s life. The importance of sports in our lives touches all realms of life with valuable effects on health, psychological welfare, personal development and the like. Sports are specifically important to kids since they aid all aspects of development in children. Importance of sports in children is, therefore, a subject of great concern to parents since some parents may miss the importance of sports in their kid’s lives and deny them to participate in sports. This will make the kids to miss an essential ingredient of their development since with parents who do not value the engagement of their kids in games; it will be difficult for a kid to engage in the same. This paper is an in-depth exploration of the advantages of engaging children in sports at a tender age.
Importance of engaging kids in sports
There are a myriad of advantages that accrue with the engagement of children in sports at a tender age. First of all, the kids get physical practice and thus they are able to engage in other physical activities with ease. This way, the kids also become healthier since they help the children’s bodies to burn excess calories. Games also help kids to unwind after a tedious day at school. They forget all the stresses of school work and enjoy their time in the field. This enables them to relax and go back to school the following day with a refreshed mind which will translate to better performance in school (Pascual 1).
Among the most valuable benefits of engaging kids in games is the fact that the games help to keep the kids occupied and thus the kids will not be idle. This is a very valuable benefit since idleness in kids may have very serious repercussions. These repercussions include succumbing to influence from other kids and also keeping bad company. Idle kids are also prone to development of psychological problems which may prove to be a serious challenge. Such problems include autism which is mostly genetic but which can also be developed by idle children. On the other hand, bad company may make the kids develop undesirable characters like drug abuse at a tender age (Pascual 1).
As stated in the paragraph above, games are a very important part of a kid’s development process. While in the playground, kids learn very important concepts that have a life-long influence on their lives. Some of the skills developed by children in the playground include teamwork, acceptance of failure/defeat, ability to relate well with other people and development of skills for relating empathetically with other people and the like. These skills become very valuable as the kid grows since the kid encounters difficulties in life that he/she solves using skills gained in the playground. Most of these difficulties are social difficulties. The playground is bound to make children develop empathy since in each game there is a winner and a loser. In case the kid loses, he/she will learn how to accept failure (Pascual 1). In case he/she wins, he will learn how to handle success while at the same time being empathetic with other people.
Lastly, some people are highly talented in games and not in other aspects of life like class work and the like. Engaging kids in games therefore ensures that the kids are given a chance to explore their talents and thus they discover what they are highly talented in. This may fill the thin gap between the success and the failure of the kid in life. This is because if the kid is not talented in other things, it is unlikely that he/she will succeed in life, but if the kid is given the chance to discover and develop his/her talent in games, he/she may develop a very successful career in the games (Moss 1). For instance, if a kid is really talented in soccer and lacks other talents, it will be wise to engage the kid in sports and probably make the kid join an academy for the same. This is because soccer is among the best paying professions in the world.
Conclusion
As much as games are important in the lives of children, care must be taken to ensure that kids do not engage in unproductive games. For instance, computer games have been proven to do more harm than good to children. This is because they actually make children develop autistic characteristics and also make them perform poorly in other aspects of their lives like academics. Parents should therefore be extra careful to ensure that their kids are guarded against games that may affect their lives negatively. In the same way, parents should identify games that are bound to aid the development of their kids and facilitate their kids to engage in them. This will ensure that kids reap maximum benefits from their childhood bliss and also ensure that no opportunity for development of game skills is missed since some of these games may turn out to be very lucrative in the course of the life of the child.
References
Moss, Lauralee. “Sport for children”. 2008. Web.
Pascual, Karen. “School Spirit Can Boost Kid’s Health”. 2000. Web.