Nora Wiley- Schwartz 711
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people are stopping their children from playing competitive sports every day
because kids can get hurt. But there are ways to prevent that, and competitive
sports prepare you for the life you have ahead of you and keep you healthy.
Without competitive sports, your kid could be one of those kids that sits
inside all day, not being very active, and not knowing what the world outside
of their house is like. Do you really want that? This is why kids should play
competitive sports.
Playing
competitive sports prepares your kids for the life they have ahead of them.
This is very important. In ‘Competitive Sports: Helping Kids Play It Cool’, the
text says, “sports prepare the body to rise to a challenge with focus,
strength, stamina, and heightened awareness.” This tells us some important
qualities that help you become a stronger person. Another quote from
‘Competitive Sports: Helping Kids Play It Cool’ says: “playing sports can
impart many wonderful life lessons--valuing teamwork, overcoming challenges,
controlling emotions, and taking pride in accomplishments.” This tells us how
competitive sports help kids learn basic good qualities for life. For example, one
of these qualities is controlling your emotions. Most kids learn to not have a fit on the field in
the middle of the game because the game must go on. Kids will start doing this
in their regular life as well. This is a great example of just how valuable it
is to play competitive sports. If everyone experienced this, we would all be
much more prepared for the life ahead of us.
Playing
competitive sports helps you stay healthy. Without competitive sports many more
kids would be overweight in America. Kobe Bryant, an NBA champion says, “You
need to get out there and compete because it’s going to decrease your chance of
having diabetes 30-40 years from now.” This is meaningful because nobody wants
to get diabetes when they’re older, I sure don’t. ScienceDaily, a local news
paper states that “Students in grades seven and eight were asked to fill in a
survey, and boys were 15 times more likely and girls were 30 times more likely
to describe their health as fair/poor when not playing on a sports team.” This evidence
shows how playing sports impacts kids a lot when it comes to staying fit.
Sports have always kept my brother and me healthy as we are growing up.
Even
though competitive sports help you in the long run, many think that sports are
much too dangerous. The NY Daily News says
“Each year in the U.S. an average of a
dozen high school and college football players die during practices and games,
according to a new study that finds heart conditions, heat and other
non-traumatic causes of death are twice as common as injury-related ones.” Many
parents are resigning their kids from sports because of the hard hits, the
collisions, the falls that all add up. But there are many ways to prevent those
life threatening conditions. For example, more padding and gear such as
appropriate helmets can be applied. Many kids don’t tell their coaches when
they are not OK. They answer with a
simple “I’m fine”, and think they are showing how brave they are. But what
really shows that they are brave is saying when they are really hurt, and
cannot play. In Crave Competition: Its Good For You, it states, “some say
competition is toxic. They are not wrong. Life is toxic.” This is very true. We
need to use sports as a training ground in order to know how to deal with the
challenges that are coming ahead of us.
To
conclude, we should all play competitive sports because without it, we may not
be mentally and physically prepared for our own lives. We need to step up to the plate (sometimes
literally) and get out onto that field. You’re not “protecting” your kid by
keeping them in. Let’s start today.
Works Cited
"Average 12 High School and College
Football Players Die Each Year, Study Says." NY Daily News.
Reuters, 6 Apr. 2013. Web. Jan. 2015. <http://www.nydailynews.com/>.
"Competitive Sports: Helping Kids Play It
Cool." KidsHealth. Ed. Michelle New. The Nemours Foundation,
Mar. 2011. Web. Jan. 2015. <http://kidshealth.org/>.
De Sena, Joseph. "Crave Competition, It's
Good for You: Column." USA Today. USA Today, 12 Oct. 2013.
Web. Jan. 2015. <http://usat.ly/1awXiFC>.
Shelburne, Ramona. "Kobe Bryant Says
Healthy Competition Key in Youth Sports." ESPN Los Angeles.
ESPN Internet Ventures, 14 Jan. 2014. Web. Jan. 2015.
<http://ESPBLosAngeles.com>.
"Young Teens Who Play Sports Feel Healthier
and Happier about Life." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 14 Oct.
2010. Web. Jan. 2015. <http://www.sciencedaily.com/>.
