Tennis is a great sport for your children because it is very social, interactive and let’s face it – it is a game, and what child doesn’t like a fun game where you run and whack a yellow fuzzy ball. However, the benefits of the sport are much larger than just the entertaining and physical aspect of the game. Tennis teaches you mental strength and life skills, offers you community and individual and team environment to thrive in. Read more to find out why you should enroll your child in tennis.
1.Tight Community. You can play tennis for fun and learn to play an Elite sport, but also for the close friendships you create within your tennis community. When competing side by side with someone this experience provides you with valuable life lessons. People bond over having mutual experiences something as simple as travel for tennis or gathering for a meal after tennis makes people bond and feel good about life.
2.Non-Contact Sport. Tennis is non-contact sport which immediately makes it more desirable by parents for their children. While tennis is quite athletically demanding and requires high levels of coordination you never get to bump into another player which eliminates a big percentage of the injuries that occur on the athletic fields.
3.Individual and Team Sport. You could play tennis individually or for a team. You could play it alone or with a partner. If you are individual player and like to rely on your own entirely tennis works for you perfectly as in its purest form is an individual sport. If you are a team player it works great too – you can play doubles or join a club, high school or a college team and enjoy the team environment, where you get to cheer on your teammates and they get to support you while you play as well.
4.Physically and Mentally Challenging. Once you are already playing the game, there are the aspects of the physical and mental challenge. A tennis game at its best really demands all your attention, focus and athletic ability at the same time. Especially the mental aspect of the game really prepares you for life outside the court, the battles could be quite intense and for you to maintain your focus and dedication to staying present in the game and closing a match is achievement in itself and it sets you up to respond better in real life situations when you need to fight for something or you need to stand your ground in particular situation.
5.Confidence. When you have fought battles on court and have lost and won matches you gain confidence about your abilities. Also, you gain the confidence that you can learn new things when you work hard. To me this is the one most important aspect of Playing tennis. It is a demanding sport and a game, but the number of things that you learn about yourself in the process of learning and playing tennis really helps you in life when you need to make decisions about yourself.
6.Tennis is Life in Miniature. If there is one statement that best describes tennis is that the game of tennis is life in miniature. You are fighting to win against another human, there is cheating, screaming, emotions, scorekeeping, breaks, ups, downs, I can go on and on about all the different situations you put yourself into while playing tennis. In essence you practice for life in safe environment while playing a game. I grew up playing tennis every day of my life and often I am in situations where something unexpected happens in my life and I have a reference from a tennis memory from my childhood to go back to and derive wisdom, so I can face my problem in adequate way. Now when I have to teach my 6 year-old things I often give him examples of matches, players, and situations that gave me framework for life to explain to him why things are the way they are. Needless to say, that he plays tennis 3 times a week, so he can create his own database of valuable life lessons that will always push him forward.
Check out my YouTube video where I talk more about the benefits of enrolling your child in tennis lessons: https://youtu.be/uBQwp3Dv66k
Thanks,
Eli