The pandemic has affected all parts of American life this year. One of the pressing issues is the affect it has had on school budgets. Syracuse and the ACC lost a year of NCAA Tournament money from March. The football season has been played without fans and the normal amount of home dates. High schools have been forced to cancel sports for the academic year and slash budgets for future seasons. Coaching staffs? Travel resources? Facility upgrades? SU is fortunate funding for the Dome has already been in place. This year has challenged it all.
While sports as spectator sports will survive at the NCAA level, regular physical activity plays a crucial role in our lives. It has a positive impact on human health, helps to develop emotional flexibility, improves memory and learning. The children who stick to training as a part of their daily routine go about life easier and become happier adults. Kids stuck at home inside during the pandemic are in a tough spot.
Daily exercising helps students to achieve emotional balance and maintain a good state of health. As a result, they stay focused on their studies and show better academic performance. That is why training kids at school is a good idea. However, this comes with many other advantages.
Here are several boons that children can get from training as part of their academic program:
Good Health
With regular exercise, students show stronger health and get seasonal illnesses less often. While obesity is a huge problem among kids nowadays, active children who regularly do sports don’t tend to be overweight. It also helps to keep the heart and blood vessels in a good shape and normalizes blood pressure. Due to regular stretching and warming up that come with any kind of sport, active children suffer from muscular tension less often. Other benefits of training are better oxygen saturation, faster metabolism, and normal blood sugar level. Let alone that athletic students usually grow into more energetic adults. In the northeast athletes are far more limited because of weather in how much training they can do. You have to take advantage of the good weather, indoor opportunities, or get creative.
Lean and Strong Body
A strong and fit body comes with regular exercise. Students who make sports a part of their life feel easier to maintain a normal weight and optimal level of fat deposits, as well as have better body flexibility. They keep their muscles toned, develop a good posture, and have better body balance. Besides, passionate about sports children spend less time playing computer games or watching videos in a sitting position, which is definitely good for their backs.
Better Self-Esteem
Any sports activity comes with a lot of challenges and failures. However, persistence, patience, and effort are the key factors for success. Children exposed to any physical activity from a young age learn to understand that failures are a part of improvement, they don’t tend to give up easily, and are usually more goal-oriented. In the world, when kids see their mistakes as a motivation rather than a disappointment, they become more confident individuals. Moreover, regular physical activity helps to value personal effort and avoid imposter syndrome in the future.
Enhanced Team-Player and Leadership Skills
Sports activities usually include a lot of teamwork. And this is where children learn to value and to play their roles, sometimes curbing their ambitions and finding a compromise.
At the same time, any team needs its leader. The experience of leading a team during the school years will contribute to better leadership and decision-making skills in the future. However, the job of a school team leader is far greater than simply giving orders. Boosting the team spirit and managing discipline are the indispensable skills every head of the team should possess. And this experience will be no less important in their future professional life.
Reduced Risk of Depression
The excitement that comes with doing sports brings joy to a child’s life. Due to the release of endorphins, kids have a lower risk to develop anxiety syndrome or depression, which is crucial in the ocean of stress an average student experiences. Also, regular physical training helps to keep their emotions in balance and have a positive attitude about life. And this is highly important if you want to achieve success in anything.
Stronger Sense of Discipline
Being committed and disciplined is crucial for professional and personal growth at an adult age. Doing sports teaches kids to be devoted to their goals and develops a strong sense of discipline. Listen any SU athlete discuss their time on the Hill. The bonds and work they built upon stay with them forever. They learn it whenever they follow the rules, obey the trainer’s orders, and practice certain restrictions. Such training helps students to stay at the top of their potential and achieve their goals, which are the core factors of becoming a successful individual.
Effective Time Management
Good management of the available time resources is another skill the students gain from their training activities. To achieve success in any type of sports, it is essential to show a hefty discipline about time as well. Simply doing what they enjoy, athletic students naturally learn to set priorities and to optimize their time for training, studies, and leisure activities. Like Kate, for instance. “I am going to buy argumentative essay for my English course and will be studying anatomy instead. My future patients need me to treat them, not polemicize about their conditions,” she insists. A good understanding of time management principles is no doubt a valuable asset for a lifetime.
Development of a Success-Oriented Thinking
Commitment to some kind of sports comes with a lot of pressure. Regardless of the circumstances, you find yourself in, you have to stay on track, be focused, and make decisions fast. Early exposure to sports activities develops strong concentration, as well as teaches kids what’s worth the risk and what is not. They also learn to resist stress and think out of the box. To cut the long story short, sport helps children to grow into adults who don’t break before the misfortunes and find creative ways to solve the problem.
Building Positive Life-Long Habits
School days often reminisce as the time of the worst mistakes, wrong connections, and building awful habits. Due to lack of experience and a lot of pressure, children frequently make bad choices that may wreak havoc into the rest of their life. Being occupied with training and sports, however, gives them less free time to hang out with bad companies and walk astray. On the contrary, their passion for sports encourages them to follow a proper nutrition routine, have regular sound sleep, and practice discipline and mindfulness in every area of their life.
The pandemic has challenged so much of the sports landscape, but we need to prioritize keeping it in tact. Sports in the school curriculum helps children to go about their life with joy and grow up into physically and emotionally healthy adults.
