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.

Be Employed and stay Healthy

Despite the slow economy, restaurants are pretty full during lunch time. This is good news for the food and beverage industry but not so good news for everybody else.

One of reasons of why you should not eat in restaurants while at work is that you will most likely eat food that is rich in calories and low in essential nutrients. You will also spend a lot more money eating out rather than when you prepare and bring your own food to work. You will also go from your chair in the office to the chair in the restaurant and back to the chair in the office. If you commute on average an hour both ways you are looking at spending the first ten hours of your day in different chairs: car seat, office chair, restaurant chair. While on your way home, you will naively think that one workout in the gym will put your body and health in balance. It will not. So here is an example of the strategy to be used between waking up and going to sleep that may help you lose weight, get or stay in shape, improve health, save time, and save the money. 

     

Time Line	Event	Action
6am to 6:30am	Alarm goes off	Turn off alarm (do not snooze). Jump out of bed with enthusiasm. After finishing the daily bathroom activities exercise 5 – 10 minutes (stretching, two or three sets of pushups, sit-ups, and squats). Stretch again.
6:30 am	Breakfast	Have a bowl of cereal with 1%milk and one scoop of protein powder. This kind of breakfast will give you all the nutrients you need to start your day strong, to have enough energy until lunch and it will help you to easily control hunger
10am	Snack time	Have some fruit
11:30am	Lunch break	Do not eat now. Go for a 40 minute walk in the park, around your office complex, or walk up and down the emergency stairs. Stretch when you are done
12:15pm	Back to the office	Now eat what you brought in your cooler. For example, it can be grilled chicken breast (no skin) , salad (no dressing), a slice of whole grain bread, water (no coca cola, ice tea or that kind of garbage)
3pm	Snack time again	Eat low fat yogurt mixed with some fruit (avoid fat free dairies)
5pm	Work done	Go home, relax, eat something light, and get ready to hit the gym
10pm	Bedtime	Sleep like a baby because you deserve it

Preparing food is always fun, preparing good food is easy and fairly quick. If you do not have it, I recommend you by an electric grill. I grill both meat and vegetables. Buy a cooler. Do not be ashamed because of colleagues who eat out in restaurants all the time, they most likely pay their lunch by credit card, not by debit card or cash. If you sometimes must eat out at restaurant because business demands that, prepare yourself mentally to eat light and healthy: without breads while you are waiting for food, without any other drinks but water, without dressing in your salad, without skin on your chicken or fish, and without deserts. If you prepare yourself for temptation, you will be okay.