With the rise of social networks all over the internet, parents are getting more and more worried about their children’s upbringing. Sitting all day with a mobile phone doing nothing but watching YouTube videos or playing video games isn’t a great way to raise a child.
With that said, if you’re a parent and you are looking for a good sport for your kids to pass time, physically engage their bodies and have fun, then soccer is the answer. Yes, soccer is good for kids.
Soccer is a great sport for kids. It helps them build their social skills, it improves their decision making, and it’s a great workout for their bodies. Soccer can be taught to kids very easily and it’s safe most of the time.
Here’s a list of why soccer is a great choice for your kid’s summer time.
1- Soccer helps improve social skills.
One of the best things about soccer is that it is a group sport. Many kids can come together to play a soccer match.
When your kids decide that they want to play a soccer match, the first thing that they need to do is interact with other kids.
They need to talk to other kids in order to decide how to divide the players in 2 teams. Then they need to discuss a small plan with their teammates in order to win the match.
They have to decide who is the goal keeper, who are the defenders, who are the midfielders and who are the attackers.
All of these discussions and interactions among kids help them grow their social circles and help them improve their social skills.
We are social creatures and we need to be around people to survive mentally the same way we need food to survive physically.
I made a lot of friends when I was a kid by asking a bunch of strangers who are playing soccer on the beach if I can join them. They almost never say no. Some of the kids I met on soccer fields are still in contact with me up to this date.
With that said, soccer will provide an enough amount of social interactions to your kids for them to keep their mental state very healthy.
2- Soccer helps kids become better decision makers
As we grow up, the decisions that we have to make become more and more life changing. It’s great to be able to gain some decision making skills when we’re young because it’s much better to mess up when we are kids than to mess up when we’re adults and when our lives depend on it.
Soccer can give your children the ability to make better decisions.
As this study suggests, soccer is one of those fast sports that require instant decisions from the players on the field.
A soccer player is always one decision away from either scoring a goal or helping their opponent score a goal. The best part is that players usually have less than a few seconds to make decisions during the game.
This is great news for the kids who play soccer. When a kid is new to soccer, they’ll struggle to make good decisions during the game, but the more they play, the better decisions they start making.
For example, when they’re in front of the opponent’s goal, they might decide that it’s better to kick the ball towards the opponent’s goal instead of passing the ball to a friend.
The more they play, the better decision makers they become. Decision making skills in soccer can expand outside of the soccer field and they can help your kids make better decisions in their lives later on.
3- Soccer can boost kids’ self-esteem
Good Self-esteem improves a person’s life a lot. It’s great to gain a good self-esteem from an early age. Soccer can help your kids achieve that.
Since soccer is a group effort, then every member of the team will appreciate the efforts of their team members, and every member of the opponent team will also fear the talents of the opponent’s team members.
If your kid scores a goal, their teammates will run towards them and hug them as a form of celebration, and their opponents will respect your kid more because they now know that he/she is a good soccer player.
The same thing happens if your kid blocks the ball as a defender, or make a great save as a goalkeeper, or make a brilliant pass as a midfielder.
According to this study, positive social relationships and interactions with others can boost one’s self-esteem. It starts from the age of 4 and it spans across all the older ages. If your kid is above 4 years old, then their self-esteem will improve when they experience positive social interactions with other people.
With that said, soccer is a great sport to help your child build their self-esteem because they’ll have a great social interaction with friends and strangers whenever they decide to play a soccer match.
4- Soccer is easy to learn for kids
There are many rules when it comes to soccer. I have written a dedicated article about these rules if you’d like to learn more about them. However, kids do not need to abide by all the rules.
The only 2 rules that your kid needs to know are the following:
- Kick the ball in your opponent’s net to score a goal
- The ball should not leave the soccer field.
That’s it. That’s all of what your kid needs to know when they play their first soccer match. You kid can very easily join a soccer game even if they haven’t played soccer before.
This doesn’t work in other sports like tennis for example. You’ll have to teach your kid how to hold a racket and how to hit the tennis ball with the racket if they want to play tennis.
The worst part is that they can’t play against anyone unless they learn how to hit the ball with their racket first which can be hard.
This isn’t the case in soccer. Your kid already knows how to kick a ball, and they can join any soccer game because soccer games are a group work and they don’t rely on a single player.
So even though a kid might not know how to play at the beginning, they still can join a soccer match without ruining it.
5- A soccer match is easy to set up.
The only equipment that you need to buy in order to play soccer is a ball. That’s it. You can even make your own soccer ball by squeezing a bunch of old papers and wrapping them together with tape.
A goal can be made using sticks or stones, and any small space near your living place can be used as a playground.
With that said, you almost need nothing to play soccer. Collect your friends, get a ball (or make one), find a good spot, build your goals and kickoff the game.
6- Soccer is a safe sport for kids
Safety comes first. If you’re concerned about your kid’s safety when it comes to soccer, then it’s good to let you know that soccer is safe.
Soccer is not a violent sport at all. It’s played by hundreds of millions of people of all ages all around the world.
You need to take some small measures however when your kids decide that they want to play soccer.
- Make sure that your kids are playing with other kids and not with teenagers or adults
- Make sure that the kids who are playing with your child aren’t aggressive.
You don’t want your kids to compete with people that are older than them. Older people might accidentally hurt kids during a soccer game.
You also don’t want your kids to play against other kids who are very aggressive and do not take playing soccer seriously.
7- Kids learn to lose when they play soccer
It’s true that winning a soccer game can boost a kid’s confidence, but losing a soccer game is of an equal importance for kids too.
Your kid will learn that life isn’t always going to be easy, and that it’s okay if they lose. The most important thing to do when your kid loses a soccer match is that they train and try again, and again until they secure a victory.
This is true in any other sport and not just soccer. But it’s worth mentioning here. It’s very important that your kids learn that losing isn’t the end of the world and that they can always train more and come back for a victory.
8- Soccer is a great workout for kids
Kids need to move around and keep their body engaged. Soccer helps them achieve that. When they play soccer, your children will have to run, kick, jump, slide, and so much more.
All of these actions will help them improve their physical capabilities and make them healthier. If you kids play somewhere around 3 soccer matches per week, then you can rest assured that they are doing the perfect workout for their age while enjoying their time with other friends.
9- Soccer helps your kid be part of a team.
A single person can’t achieve a lot, but a well coordinated team of like minded people can. Soccer can help your kid learn to be part of a bigger team.
In order for a team to win a soccer match, they have to work together as a team and not as individuals, else they’ll find it very hard to win a single soccer game.
With that said, when your kid joins a soccer team, they will have to work with other teammates in order to win. They need to know where to stand, when to pass the ball, when to signal their teammate to do something and so on. They also need to trust their teammates.
Such requirements can help your kid when it comes to being part of a team. It helps them deal with people, and it helps them do their part and trust that other teammates will do theirs. It helps them to forgive teammates who couldn’t do their work for some reason, and so on.
In simple words, soccer can help your kid perfectly fit inside a team.
To wrap up.
Soccer is a great sport for your kids. It helps them on so many levels. Soccer can boost your kid’s confidence, it can help them exercise, it can help them socialize and make new friends and so much more.
The best thing that you can do to your kid is to buy them a soccer ball, gather their friends and let them play soccer together.