How to Make Your Young Child Successful in Sports?

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BSharma
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Re: How to Make Your Young Child Successful in Sports?

Post by BSharma »

Thanks Sunil for your informative post and I am sure that we can learn much from your advices. 

I particularly liked Sunil’s suggestion of letting young children play mini-tennis when they are still not strong enough to handle a tennis racket.  Tiger Woods’ dad cut off the handle of a golf club to let a young Tiger take full golf swings. 

Sunil’s advice, “Try not to be present at the time of training / coaching (You wouldn’t go & sit in your child’s school to see how studies are going on!)” is very appropriate.  I play at a tennis club that has an excellent youth program and I see some parents who hover all over their child during coaching sessions and then admonish them for not doing well on the court.  I guess that parents have to drive their children to tennis coaching sites and then have to wait while the coaching is ongoing, but parents should find something else to do during that period. 

On the other hand, it is a good idea to accompany your 4-6 year-old child to the soccer field, basketball court or sports field and be around to be supportive of them. 
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Re: How to Make Your Young Child Successful in Sports?

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Whether a young child is going to play soccer, basketball, tennis, cricket, or hockey, running is going to be an important part of the sport.  When my children were young and were going to start participating in organized sports, I tried to make sure that they had good form while running.  I did not have Internet in the 1980s to read about proper form or biomechanics of running, but I went to the public libraries (in America) to read about it.  Nowadays, this information is available via Internet.  One does not have to be an expert to notice if a child has good form while running or not, and if you notice flaws then try to get them corrected sooner than later.  A child who runs well has a distinct advantage in sports over another child with poor form. 
THE BIOMECHANICS OF RUNNING

I tried to work on my children’s balance, coordination, strength, stamina and speed when they were still around 4 - 6 years of age or so.  No, they did not go to a gym to gain strength.  :wink:

I let my children to run wild in the backyard or in a park regularly.  We would pretend to be airplanes and run with our outstretched arms (wings of a plane).  We would run in circuitous routes and it develops the muscles around the ankles and also helps in improving balance.  Think of games as a way to make the children to run for fun rather than making it a chore or a study lesson.  Playing on jungle gyms in the parks helped them to develop strength.  The public parks in USA have several equipments for children that help upper body strength, balance, coordination, etc.  One would have to improvise in places where these facilities are not available. 
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Re: How to Make Your Young Child Successful in Sports?

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Running is a basic element of many sports, but so are hand-eye coordination and catching/throwing a ball.  Here are some activities I did with my children to improve their sports skills:

Playing “catch the ball” inside and outside the house using bean bags, soft rubber or sponge or beach balls.  Once they had mastered simple catching techniques, we played games requiring anticipation or abnormal movement of the ball in the air.  The former required playing a game of catch with more than 3 or 4 people where the ball could be thrown to anyone in random order.  I used a big beach ball to teach my children how a ball can swing sideways or downwards if side-spin or topspin could be put on a beach ball. 

Watch children play cricket in India and there are some who can throw the ball well and others have feeble throws.  As my children became more skilled in catching, I helped them to throw the ball properly.  Since I was coaching baseball, we had plenty of baseball gloves and using them was a great way to learn to throw and catch a ball.  Go to the Internet and check out websites about the proper way to throw a ball.  The mechanics of throwing a cricket/baseball ball and serving in tennis are quite similar and my tennis serves would get stronger during the baseball season because I would be throwing a ball over hundred times each day. 

I introduced basketball to my children once they were about 4 or 5 years of age and dribbling the ball and shooting baskets are great exercises for learning hand-eye coordination.

Skipping ropes is another easy, cheap and fun way to develop strength (ankles and knees), balance, stamina, and hand-eye coordination.  My children did not participate in judo or similar activities, but they do develop many of the skills required to enjoy and play sports well.  I had the YMCA people teach my children how to swim properly and they went to the YMCA pool a couple of times a week later on to have fun.  My children swam for the YMCA and another swim teams later on once they became more interested in swimming.

Improvisation, keeping it simple (the KISS rule), ensuring fun for children, and knowing what works best for your child are some of the keys to success.  Involve your friends with children the same age as yours and everyone will have twice the fun.
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Re: How to Make Your Young Child Successful in Sports?

Post by x_y_Z_a »

I think Bhushanji and Sunil have given out some very important points.

As far as giving important to education is concerned, I think it is not tough for even an average kid to graduate along with professional sport. Professional degrees may be difficult - but a commerce / arts degree should be easy.
Choose the right schools / colleges which allow your kids to participate in professional competition even during class hours. These schools generally allow the kids to take exams separately, if required. For example, in Mumbai you have morning / evening classes which one can go to. Whenever the kid is not travelling, the kid can attend classes in addition to normal practice / training. Even to take up coaching, I think it would be much better if you graduate. 

If the parent is present at the time of coaching / training, it helps that your kid will get more attention, especially before the kid turns 11/12.  The analogy of school is not correct as the coaching in not done for all the wards at the same time.

Special diet is something that is neglected by most parents ( even we were guilty of that due to lack of knowledge / guidance).
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Re: How to Make Your Young Child Successful in Sports?

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This topic is very interesting and the posts are very informative.  There is an article published in the New York Times this Sunday that describes the Russian tennis "factory" that produces all these top fifty players on the tour.  They start as early as four and the facilitites are spartan at best, but the dedication of the coaches funded by the state, is unparalleled and uniform.  The coach checkes out a prospect by lightly tossing a tennis ball and watching the child's reaction - they also take a look at the eyes!  Only a few are taken and it is almost like selecting from the gene pool for fast, athletic kids. Tennis is actually more of a leg-eye co-ordination sport than an hand-eye sport.  You see, you move!  Soccer and Ice Hockey are probably better foundation sports for tennis that any other. The article implies that the less availability of resources, then you will have a concentration of talent at one place to nurture and grow.  Ofcourse the desire to escape the living standards, athletic family traditions and the child's love to partake of the training is crucial.  It also describes how practice help the nerves better transmit impluses  - this must be of interest to the good Doc Sharma.  South Korea has a couple of hundred golf courses compared to 17,000 in the US, but the number of women golfers from South Korea is suprising.  This is attributed to having to practice at the range instead of loafing on the course.
Practice has to be very focused and intense which helps build "talent".  I will never get over watching Steffi Graf practice for 30 minutes only.  The intensity and concenetration was unbelievable!
I could go on, but this is wandering off-topic.  To help your kids have sports as part of there life, I think leading by example of daily exercise and keeping to a regime will help kids adapt to a better life style.  Nothing like leading by example.  I enjoy all your posts immensely.
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Re: How to Make Your Young Child Successful in Sports?

Post by jai_in_canada »

I see a theme emerging.  Talent, child's intrinsic motivation, hard work, skilled coaches, positive but non-interfering parents, stable home atmosphere, development of physical intelligence through participation in multiple ball sports, development of emotional intelligence by parents letting kids become independent, and decent facilities - are the key ingredients.  To me, of all the tennis parents, Roger Federer's parents are the best.  Not because Federer is a great player, but because he seems to be an excellent human being.  His parents seem to have done all the right things.
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Re: How to Make Your Young Child Successful in Sports?

Post by x_y_Z_a »

By having the kid to play some serious level sports (with proper inputs from parents, as discussed in these posts) there are other advantages as well:

1. The kid becomes highly independent.

2. Gets focussed in all activities in life.

3. Grows to become healthy.

4. Does not become a couch potato.

5. Develops personality.

6. Becomes a better human being.
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Re: How to Make Your Young Child Successful in Sports?

Post by Sathya »

Thank you very much Mr.Sunil Yajaman for your valuable inputs. Your inputs will be very very helpful for aspiring parents.

Thanks for your very first input: Firstly, it is important that you don’t take over the role of a coach - I will re-think seriously on me taking up some coaching classes (as preparation) to coach my son.

Try not to be present at the time of training / coaching (You wouldn’t go & sit in your child’s school to see how studies are going on!) - Very good comparison to drive home your point. Its well taken.

Bhushan-ji, If I have to make my child volleball player, I would start with the same routines that you have prescribed exactly. Means first give my child a feel of ball. Watching and Catching practice with ball. And the most important thing as you pointed out - give them running practice as often as possible. Also short running is very important I feel as it makes us move well on court later. 

I was very much confused about the age at which one has to decide on main sports. But as the discussions go on, I am getting clearer that it should be between 10-12 when child and team (coach and parents) has to make a choice of main sport.
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Re: How to Make Your Young Child Successful in Sports?

Post by jai_in_canada »

In an interview with Charlie Rose after he won his first USO, Federer talked about his training.  He said that the best training for tennis is playing soccer, basketball and volleyball.  In fact, any ball sport.  In his words, "there has to be a ball there somewhere."  Thus, it could be badminton, cricket, field hockey, ice hockey, lacrosse, table-tennis, you name it.  Federer did say he enjoys lifting weights, but does not like to run, swim, ride the bike etc.  He attributed his incredible hand eye co-ordination to the fact that he plays these sports.  So in terms of developing kids, dividing up their sports time among these different activities until they are 12 years of age seems to be a good idea.
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Re: How to Make Your Young Child Successful in Sports?

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Re: How to Make Your Young Child Successful in Sports?

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Don't know where to put this article ... So atlast decide to put in this link.

Very interesting article by G. Rajaraman of Outlook about 'South's dominance in sports.'

Be A Sport, Da

Jaydeep.
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Re: How to Make Your Young Child Successful in Sports?

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5-year old in training

Includes YouTube links.
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Re: How to Make Your Young Child Successful in Sports?

Post by sanjay5goel »

I disagree with the name of this thread. This reflects an age old mentality (more prominent in people coming from the Indian subcontinent) about living (or trying to live) their unfulfilled aspirations through their children.

All we can do really is be there for our children and help them to figure out what they want to do (even if that keeps changing  - I have, at my age, not yet figured out what I am doing in life & why). And then help them become good in whatever endeavor they choose to do. Becoming "successful" has been hyped too much in the modern world. In the long run it does not matter how successful you/we were by worldly (materialistic) standards. What matters is whether the person is satisfied that he/she tried her best at whatever he/she chose to do.

Just my 2 cents!!

Sanjay
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Re: How to Make Your Young Child Successful in Sports?

Post by arjun2761 »

sanjay5goel wrote: I disagree with the name of this thread. This reflects an age old mentality (more prominent in people coming from the Indian subcontinent) about living (or trying to live) their unfulfilled aspirations through their children.

All we can do really is be there for our children and help them to figure out what they want to do (even if that keeps changing  - I have, at my age, not yet figured out what I am doing in life & why). And then help them become good in whatever endeavor they choose to do. Becoming "successful" has been hyped too much in the modern world. In the long run it does not matter how successful you/we were by worldly (materialistic) standards. What matters is whether the person is satisfied that he/she tried her best at whatever he/she chose to do.

Just my 2 cents!!

Sanjay
Everybody has different standards on this.  My standard is whether you actually tried your best in whatever you wanted to do (and not just satisfied post facto).
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Re: How to Make Your Young Child Successful in Sports?

Post by sanjay5goel »

arjun2761 wrote:
Everybody has different standards on this.  My standard is whether you actually tried your best in whatever you wanted to do (and not just satisfied post facto).
Actually, if you take this thought further to the extreme - anyone who tried anything giving 100% of himself - there can be no failure. This is so because everything is within reach to any person if really DESIRES that (in the yogic/spiritual sense). With this reasoning we can say that 99.99999 of people in this world have not REALLY REALLY tried with their WHOLE BEING.

Sanjay
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