Your son the next Bryan Habana?
Acclaimed South African author and OT Meg Faure discusses when the best time is to start encouraging your LO to develop their sporting skill.
As we’ve learned by now, there is overwhelming evidence that an active lifestyle is good for the body and mind. We also know that the earlier we nurture a healthy lifestyle, the better. The question is, when is the best time to start encouraging our little ones to develop their sporting skills?
Your young child is at a highly impressionable age in the toddler to tween years. By the time the teenage years roll around, their world begins to expand, and their influences become a lot more varied. It’s best then to impart those golden long-term values – including prioritising healthy living, exercise and engaging on the sports field – before they become more independent. Since we know that exercise is vital for managing a healthy weight, immunity, cardiac and musculoskeletal fitness, as well as your child’s mood, it is definitely a habit we do want to encourage.
As tough as this may be to hear, in the first 5 years of life, the best way to bed down a desire to be active is to model it ourselves. When your two year old watches his Dad come in at the 94.7 cycle finish or watches mom train daily for the Two Oceans race, they learn that exercise is a way of life. So the first tip when getting your child into sport is to (literally) walk the talk.
In the first three years, formal sport sessions and routines are not recommended. Like all formal learning, classes and structured lessons are best left until the preschool years. That does not mean that your toddler will be doing nothing, though. These are some ideas to keep the younger ones moving:
Turn off the TV
Play your way to fitness
Choose a water workout
Sign up for a class
Teach your LO to be a team player
Organised team sports are recommended from 6 or 7 years old as this is the time when your child will best be able to understand teamwork and rules, and cope better with the frustrations that come with competition.
Starting early but gently, without pressure, is the best way to encourage a sport and fitness lifestyle for your child.
The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this article/post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Woolworths or any of its affiliates, directors, officers, employees and/or advisers.