The Psychology of Sport
The importance of children participating in sporting activities goes beyond the physical benefits. There are times when your child will win, but equally, there will be times they will loose. Being a gracious loser takes practice and developed maturity. Partaking in sports allows children to experience losing, this teaches them to overcome disappointment. It teaches them how to cope with unpleasant experiences and encourages resilience. When playing sports children develop the skill of patience and become aware of the time and persistence it takes to nurture their sporting skills. These skills are transferable to other aspects of their life, such as at school in the classroom.
Socially, sports allows children to develop essential skills that they can carry through their life-time. They learn co-operation and how to listen to other children to achieve a common goal. Being part of a team can also give children a sense of belonging. Whilst all children will benefit from this feeling, it is often of notable importance in children who have experienced divorce or family changes. Having a group that they feel they belong to can massively benefit their mental wellbeing and create a safe and reliable place for them to exist in. Young children are often confined to the boundaries of friends they make at school. Playing within a team can help them to build social circles away from an educational setting, broadening their social experiences. Playing as part of a team helps children to understand and accept discipline, teaching them how to follow rules and accept the consequences if these rules are not followed. These skills are helpful to children during their time in school. Learning to respect adults and take instructions from them will encourage positive behaviours within the classroom and lead to academic success.
Participating in sports will nurture a child’s understanding of the importance of self-control and discipline. Children are forced to train even when they do not want to. They will learn that in order to achieve a desired goal you must exercise self-control and work towards what they want to accomplish. The skill of self-discipline will be vital in their academic career and beyond, helping them to understand that they need to try hard if they want to succeed. Sporting activities are also essential for developing a child’s concentration and focus. Physically, engaging in physical activities increases the flow of blood, and thus oxygen, to the brain. This helps to make a persons brain sharper and more focused as it promotes the creation of electrical impulses and activity. This increased activity and neural connection promotes focus and concentration which will benefit your child in the classroom when learning new skills and information.
Playing sports also helps children to develop emotional control and teaches them how to cope with negative feelings in a healthy, positive way. For younger children, playing sports is beneficial for the development of their basic emotional control of anger and frustration through loss and disappointment whilst playing the game. It is important to allow children to feel, upset, anger or frustrated when they lose. Acknowledge these feelings but teach them to not let these feeling negatively affect their performance, but instead channel them in a positive way to help improve their outcome next time.
For teenagers the management of emotions is of particular importance. During the teenage years there are many physical, mental and hormonal changes occurring which can be stressful and challenging. In your teenage years your brain experiences neural connection strengthening and weakening. This process occurs in the ‘grey matter’ of the brain to make the brain more efficient in the way it processes information. This brain remodeling begins in the back of the brain and ends in the front, in an area called the pre-frontal cortex. The pre-frontal cortex is responsible for our decision making and controls our ability to plan and articulate the consequences of your actions. In addition, this area of the brain controls a person’s impulses. Teenage behaviours often appear uncontrolled and impulsive, sometimes even aggressive, but this can be explained by the pre-frontal cortex being the last area of the brain to experience neural remodeling. A teenagers environment is thus extremely important as it will influence their already fluctuanting moods. Exposing your teenager to a variety of sporting activities inside and outside of school can have notable benefits to their overall mood and emotion management. It can provide a safe and managed outlet for any aggressive behaviours that may foster within your ever changing teen. Participating in sporting activities will consolidate a teenagers ability to work within a team and manage negative emotions in a productive manner. Teenagers are also highly susceptible to feeling overwhelmed and stressed due to their constantly changing emotions, social connections and hormones. If left unmanaged, childhood stress carries the risk of the development of anxiety disorders. Exercise can prevent stress. When participating in sporting activities, brain areas that release positive chemicals known as neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, serotonin and endorphins, are activated. The release of these neurotransmitters within the brain are essential for mood regulation.
Overall, it is important for children to engage in sporting activities to keep their body moving and their brains alert. The benefits to physical activity extend beyond physical health to improvements in focus, concretion, self-discipline and mental heath.
