Children and Sport: When to Start

Laura, one of my readers, has a four year old boy and she asked me an interesting question: what is the best time to enroll kids in organized sports. Here is my respond:

Kids must be kids and they need to have a childhood. Some parents have very ambitious plans for their children but involving children in an organized sport should wait till they are nine or ten years old. Some parents want their kids to be successful athletes and because of that they put those kids on a risky journey with a very small chance for success. In some sports, such as gymnastics, tennis, baseball, etc. kids must start very young in order to expect success. But is that what kids really need? My belief is that first and foremost we must develop children’s psycho-motor abilities while they are very young and second, we must develop their appreciation and love for sports. Parents should be their children’s first coaches. By involving kids in many different games, certain abilities will start developing: coordination, flexibility, strength, stamina, speed, etc. I would always recommend enrolling young children in swimming or gymnastics training but only if the coaches’ approach this training as a game. Children must play and as soon as their involvement becomes too serious that would be when it is time to pull them out. If you put children in a serious training process when they are for example only six years old when they turn 20 they will already have 14 years of athletic experience and they will stay active in that sport only if they have talent that can promise successful career. But if they are not one of these very talented people, you can rest assured that if they do not dislike the sport already, they will start disliking it very soon. In my professional experience and studies that I have read about, children’s early involvement in organized sports suggests to me that the ideal time to start children’s involvement in organized sports is between the ages of 9 to 12. This is the time when children are better mentally and emotionally equipped to deal with the discipline that serious sports training demands. Also, at this age they do not only do what they see, now they also can understand the coaches’ feedback and correct both technique and behavior. Kids who start serious training later develop appreciation and love for the sport; they have greater chance to stay physically active for a very long time, sometimes forever. Kids who get involved in organized sport very young will most likely recognize that sport is the reason why they did not have the same happy childhood as many of their peers and they will not have many reasons to love sport when they grow up.

We must understand tremendous importance of parents’ involvement in children’s physical, emotional, and mental development. Parents who truly care for their own child will do more for their child’s development than any coach or nanny in the world; your commitment to parenting is all your child needs at a very young age. Unfortunately, many parents believe that paying somebody for professional services can replace play time with their own child. Good luck with that concept.