Youth sports

Starting children in sports from a young age has numerous benefits. It helps develop time management skills, responsibility, and social skills. It also leads to a healthier lifestyle and increased fitness. Studies have shown that these benefits persist throughout life. Sports teach children how to work together, problem solve, and create friendships. Parents often put their children in sports for the lifelong friendships they can make. Sports also build self-confidence and teach goal-setting. Physical activity is crucial for optimal development in childhood and early adulthood. Overall, starting children in sports from a young age sets them up for success in various aspects of their lives. Hello to all my lovely parents out there and welcome to my podcast where I tell you about all the benefits of starting your children in sports from a young age. By the time I was four, my parents started putting me in competitive sports. I tried out soccer, gymnastics, cheerleading, basketball, and I ended up picking volleyball in the end. While my brother didn't play any sports, I have noticed many differences in our personalities. I have noticed that I have much better time management skills than he does due to the fact that I had to be at practice at a certain time and get things done in a certain amount of time. I learned how to balance getting my school work done before practice from a very young age. I think that it has helped set me up for success due to the fact that I have always had to manage different tasks and now that I'm in college, I'm able to balance my sorority and my academics. Not only do I see these benefits in myself, but I also sent out a survey to my aunt who has a younger child who's five on a little league baseball team and she sent it out to some of the parents who filled it out for me. One of the responses I got was that I have a young boy in baseball and I have noticed that he is much more social than he used to be and it has gotten him so much more out of his comfort zone than he used to and I think that developing social skills from a young age is very important. Another response I got was I have two boys, one in baseball and one who is not in any sports and I have noticed a major difference in them. The one who plays baseball is very helpful and is always asking me if there's anything he can do and I think that is due to the fact that their baseball coach always makes them help out and clean up after practice while my other little boy who isn't in sports is much more reserved and doesn't ask to help me out as often. The next response I got was I feel like it has made our son much more responsible. He now wants to do his homework before baseball and when he comes home we have a whole routine that we do and I feel like if baseball wasn't included in our schedule we wouldn't see as much responsibility in our child as we did. Another response I got was I know that baseball and sports can be a financial burden on some parents but there are so many benefits that I have noticed in my child when it comes to putting him in sports. He is much more outgoing than he used to be, we have much better time management skills and we also have a much better schedule than we used to. Overall from my survey I have learned that a lot of parents put their children in sports due to the fact that it gives them a better dynamic with other children and it helps them increase their social skills and time management skills even from a young age. The next person I talked to was my kinesiology teacher. I asked her the question of what she thought the benefits of putting children in sports were and she stated I believe that playing sports at a young age has many advantages including the social aspects of being on a team, you get to learn how to socialize with other children and I feel like it makes kids much more outgoing. She said they get many health benefits like you start working out from a young age which leads to you working out in the future and it leads to a healthy lifestyle and you get the fitness aspect of it obviously which can help children better manage their fitness in the future. She said that there has been many studies that if you put children in sports from a young age it just follows them throughout their lifetime. She also said that it helps you with conflict and getting their kids out of their comfort zones and you develop social skills that will help in the future as an addition to what helps them now. She also said that children must share their victories and setbacks with other children and they will be able to work together and problem solve with others. They develop empathy and learn how to create friends. The main reason she stated that parents put their children in sports is for the friendships that they make and some of them turn into lifelong friendships. Other people that I talked to were my parents. I asked them if they saw any benefits in me compared to my brother because he didn't play sports from a young age and I did and they said that I am much more outgoing than he is. He's much more of like a homebody than I am and they can tell that I developed social skills from those sports and being in sports my whole life compared to my brother. They also mentioned the fitness aspect of it. I continue to work out even though I don't play sports anymore and my brother has never played sports so it is like they set a battle to get him to want to work out and stay healthy and stay fit. A website that I found a lot of research on was MU Health Care. They state that watching your hard work pay off and achieving your goals develop self-confidence. Achieving a sport or fitness goal encourages you to achieve other goals you set. Setting goals is a big part of people's futures and today and I think that learning how to set a goal from a young age is very, very important because like you set so many goals in life and it just teaches you to have the motivation to achieve them. Since MU Health also talks about the self-confidence that sports develops. I think that it just shows that they learn to be confident in what they're doing and if you have a very encouraging coach it just brings confidence and instills confidence in your child which I think is hard to do if you don't put your children in sports because you even have their teammates cheering them on and other parents cheering them on. They learn that they can do what they set their mind to and it just brings many benefits to your child's confidence. Another useful article I found was the National Academy of Athletics. They state participating in youth sports is a regular part of growing up for most of us. Physical activity is essential for a healthy and optimal development throughout childhood and early adulthood. Youth sports provide many opportunities for a physical and active routine. Boosting the well-being of kids through this time can also help your community's future as children who participate in such activities are better adjusted as they enter adulthood with plenty of life skills and lessons under their belts. This article helped me to understand how starting sports at a young age benefits many people physically and even mentally. I hope that in finding this research and taking surveys from many parents that I have helped show other parents out there that are debating whether or not to start their children in sports from a young age see all the possible benefits that their children can gain from starting sports from a young age. I know that it not only helped me but it has helped many other children for setting them up for success in the future.