Playing sports has a ton of benefits. If you’re on the fence about letting your kids join the sports club, afraid that the time they’ll spend on extracurricular activities will cut into the time and hours they spend on their core academics, you couldn’t be more wrong.
Sports playing teaches soft skills and improves your child’s physical health and strength. Here’s a look at the many reasons why playing sports should be an activity you’ll want to encourage.
1. Health
Your child’s international school in Noida offers sports as a form of extracurricular activity because it helps the kids stay fit and in shape. By playing sports regularly and practicing in the field, athletes develop muscles and core strength. Those improve the physical condition of your students, keeping them safe from heart diseases, enhancing heart efficiency and reducing the risk of cancer.
2. Self-Confidence
Kids who do well in sports gain widespread acceptance from their peers and other students and even the teachers and staff at school. That improves the self-esteem and self-confidence of the students. By doing well in sports, they gain a ton of encouragement from everyone and that helps them stride out into the field full of confidence and fire, driven to win the game.
3. Teamwork
One of the best things that sports playing teaches kids is the concept of teamwork. It’s when they understand that they can’t act however they please because someone else—their entire team—is depending on them. They need to act out their roles and do them well if they want to contribute to the success of the team.
Teamwork also means that the entire team works together to reach a common goal. That’s a quality that the students need to learn. There’s a reason why companies love job applicants who know how to play nice with others, who know how to elicit cooperation.
4. Leadership
Some kids are given the chance to take charge of the team. They could be the team captain and it’s their job to motivate and encourage everyone else on the team to give it their all, to play with the goal to win, and to win against all odds. Kids who know how to rally their troops are a valuable asset to communities and companies everywhere. Their leadership skills are in demand whether in school or work.
5. Social Skills
Kids with better social skills have more friends, are much more well-adjusted, and are generally happier.
That’s because they’re much better at building connections. They know how to handle people, how to avoid conflict, and how to work together with others.
Most often, it’s not the schoolwork—or as it happens when you’re employed—not the work itself that often stresses people out but other people. Learning how to get along with others through excellent social skills will make your children’s lives easier. They recognize the importance of other people in their lives.
6. Sense of Belonging
There’s nothing like being a part of a team to know that you belong somewhere. All people need that sense of knowing what their place in the world is, that level of acceptance from a group that they know, admire, and respect. That’s what being a part of a team does. It provides that belongingness so kids grow up self-assured and certain. They know there are people who accept them as they are, who are there for them, and that makes a difference in how they act and relate with everyone else.
7. Discipline
Playing sports and being a part of a team, including an international school in Noida, also instills discipline in the kids. They know they have to follow rules and that they have to do what the coach tells them. Regular meetups mean that your kids will spend a lot of their time training. While that’s a likely concern, especially when your kids start to apply for scholarships, if your kids are disciplined, then they will know how to manage their time wisely.
8. Scholarships
There are scholarships aimed at kids with a talent for playing sports. If your children show promise in this, then they could get scholarships to finance their education and take them the rest of the way through high school or college.
That’s one way to secure your children’s future. And if your kids do apply for an academic scholarship, though, many of these programmes look at the extracurricular profile of the applicants. Having a strong track record in sports will look good on your children’s application. It indicates that your kids are well-rounded with hobbies and interests.
9. Fights Stress
Sports is a good way to fight stress. It improves cognitive as well as the memory function of your brain. After spending hours on slogging through lessons or reviewing for the exams, or even preparing for scholarships, your kids can go play sports and have an outlet where they could vent their stress. That means they aren’t bottling their emotions up, which is good for their emotional and mental health.
10. Improved Energy Levels
Regular exercise strengthens the body. Your kids are able to be active throughout the day as a result. Regular exercise aids the performance of their lungs and they’re able to absorb more oxygen into the body, which is crucial to generating energy. If you want that for your kids, then encourage them to join a sports club they like. They’ll have more staying power in school.
11. Manage Emotions
Working with your teammates, losing on the field, winning—it’s easy for emotions to run high when playing sports, even for kids. Being surrounded by all this and exposed to all this means that your kid learns early how to manage their emotions. If they’re afraid or nervous, they learn to control that.
If they feel bad about losing their shot at the finals, they can’t appear bitter or angry. Instead, they learn to be a good sport about it. And when they win, they learn how to be gracious to the other team. All that training helps your kids look after their emotions well.
It is important for children to encourage kids to participate and enjoy international school in Noida.