How to Encourage Your Child to Love Playing a Sport

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Most parents would like their child to be interested in some kind of sport. Even if your child never grows up to become a professional athlete, playing sports has a distinct set of benefits for kids including improved health and fitness, better social skills, discipline and much more. And, sports can be a lot of fun and something that your child looks forward to doing on a regular basis. Loving sports teaches children a huge number of crucial life skills including motivation, commitment and teamwork, but these benefits are only possible if your child is playing the right sport for them. We’ve put together some tips to help you help your child find a sport that they love.

Let Them Lead

Many parents make the mistake of pushing their child to play a sport that they love as the parent, rather than something that the child wants to do. And while some kids might love a sport just as much as you do, this isn’t always the case. Keep your options open when it comes to helping your child choose a sport to play and let them try out different sports available in your area to see which one they tend to click with the most. Many sports clubs and teams offer taster sessions for kids to come along and see what they think before deciding whether or not to sign up.

Make it Fun at Home

While you don’t want to have your child practicing their sport all the time at home, there are plenty of ways to make it fun. Arranging friendly competitions between them and their friends with a prize from a trophy store is a fun idea. You can get an array of awards from the trophy store joblot-trophies.co.uk which include football trophies, golf trophies; essentially every sports trophy that you might need. Engraved trophies make a fantastic gift idea for your sports-loving child and trophy engraving can be a fun way to award the winner at your friendly games. Don’t Overdo It

Don’t Go Too Far

Once your child has found a sport that they love, it’s easy to accidentally go too far as, after all, sports are kind of a big deal. Some parents encourage a focus on a sport from an early age that’s too intense for their child, while others overdo it by having their child playing too many different sports at once. But, too much of this can make it feel more of a chore than fun for your child, and that’s the last thing that you want if you’d like your child to enjoy playing.

Explain the Commitment

If your child is sure that they want to start playing a certain sport, it’s important to ensure that they understand what the commitment entails before they sign up. Make sure that your child knows that they need to participate for the whole season and they can always try something else after that has ended if they change their mind in the process.

Encouraging your child to love and stick with a sport is all about finding one that they really love and making it fun for them to play.