Why Is Soccer So Good For Kids?
Although baseball calls itself America’s pastime and football considers itself to be a uniquely American sport, when you drive across town on any Saturday morning you will see hundreds of kids without bats and without helmets, playing one game: soccer. Although it fails to make the professional scene in America, soccer for children has become a growing enterprise offering the best of athleticism to a full and healthy childhood. Why is soccer so good for kids?
Fighting obesity
Between videogames and families that do not eat at home anymore, children have a hard time staying fit and healthy. Junk food diets, sedentary lifestyle, and parents who work and are rarely home or involved in their lives have led America’s children down a spiraling trend towards childhood obesity. Obesity doesn’t simply affect children as they experience their youth, but will carry into lifelong habits and lead to the proliferation of diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and other weight related syndromes. The best way to combat childhood obesity is to encourage parents to provide good eating alternatives for the children and to get kids off of the couch and into the park. Soccer with its ease of play and lack of equipment is a perfect sport to allow kids to run, jump and keep their bodies more healthy.
Social skills
One of the best things about teaching soccer to children is that it is a team sport and involves many of the skills children need to succeed in their future development. To play soccer kids need to learn how to communicate with one another respectfully and responsively as they have to work together. They have to learn to share; they have to come together as a conglomerate to meet a common goal and help each other achieve the best in its pursuit. All of these attributes encourage childhood development and allow kids to make friends across cultural boundaries and neighborhood fences. For particularly shy children who were not able to translate school into a social circle a soccer team provides an instant set of companions, and a way to experiment with interaction in a safe and healthy environment.
It’s fun
Living more healthfully and learning to make friends are good goals to have for anybody entering a sport, but the other key to soccer is that its fun. Soccer offers a sense of self-esteem and well being children can develop as they see their accomplishments grow. Soccer involves both mental challenge and physical movement in a way that a videogame could never offer. Instead of sitting inside learning about enjoyment through violent games, expensive toys or isolating television, soccer allows kids to be outside developing healthy body, healthy mind and healthy esteem.
We have spent a lot of time in our society creating technological advances so that we could work less and enjoy more. Unfortunately the reverse seems to have happened. The more technologically based we have become the more sedentary, unhealthy and distant from one another we have grown. Teaching children to play soccer and be part of the team may be one of the best antidotes for the 21st century.
James Brown writes about http://www.kidstoysandgifts.com
Children Enjoy Playing The Game Of Soccer
People all over the world like to play the game of soccer, but children are usually the ones that play it the most. Parents usually have no objection to even a young child joining a soccer team because they feel that it will give them some good exercise. Most adults do not find running around a field chasing a ball interesting, however, but little children have a great amount of fun while doing it.
Most of the adults at a soccer game like to watch their children as they play the game. They like knowing that their child has learned how to play because they have demonstrated that they know the object of the game. With each goal that is scored, the children have shown that they know how to get the ball past the goalie and into the net of the opposing team.
The children will also know all about the scoring system that is used to play soccer. Every goal scores a point and whenever a teams gets two points ahead of the opposing team, then the winner of the game will be announced. They might already know who the winner is by the amount of yelling and screaming that is being done by that team and the spectators that are their fans.
Children learn to play soccer by learning about the number of players are on the teams. There are eleven people on a team, and the children know by heart that there are ten in the field and one in front of the team’s goal. The children will usually refer to this teammate as the goalie and perhaps by a nickname or two during the game. The goalie is a very special member of the team because the goalie is the only player allowed to use their hands, feet and parts of their body to make contact with a ball during a soccer game.
The children will also learn that everyone else on the team can hit the ball but they must only use their feet to hit. They also learn rather quickly that they can control the ball with their feet just as easily as they could if they could use their hands, but that perfecting that control will require hours of practice on the playing field or anywhere else that they like. They know also that they can cause a foul if they forget and use their hands during a game.
Small children and teenagers like to play this game because they think it is a lot of fun. They like the excitement that comes with playing this sport and the times after the game when all of their teammates get together and relax a while over burgers and drinks and a game of football or some other sport. Great friendships are formed when children play soccer and parents like that most of all.
James Brown writes about http://www.kidstoysandgifts.com
Busy Children Learn While Playing Soccer
In this day and time, parents feel a deep need to keep their children occupied and out of trouble. One of the ways that they found to keep them busy was to let them play a game that they liked a lot and let them practice skills that they learned through books and classes at school. Parents found that soccer gave their children an outlet for their frustrations too.
Playing soccer also allowed children to build their self esteem and be around children that had the same interest in a sport that they found personally rewarding. With a soccer game, children had the opportunity to meet new friends and have all sorts of fun too. Soccer was good for children in so many ways and parents really like the game because it helped their children improve their teambuilding skills.
Parents like watching their children play soccer. They could sit for hours watching them on the field and know that they were not only learning to play the game better each day, they were also building strong muscles and learning to pace themselves throughout a game. With soccer, the children were entertained for hours at a time and parents did not have to worry about where they were or who they were with.
Soccer is a game that is played with two teams so learning teambuilding skills is a daily occurrence. Each soccer team consists of eleven players who are assigned various positions on the playing field. Soccer is a favorite pastime of many countries and once children learn the object of the sport then they will be kicking goals into their opponents net all of the time.
By developing kicking skills, children also learn how important their level of play is to the rest of the members of the team. By playing soccer, children also learn to play by the rules and coordinate their methods of play with eleven other people on their team. They also learn the consequences of using other body parts to score a goal because when they use their heads or arms they learn quickly about the penalties that they are assessed for that violation of the rules of soccer.
Children are able to build their strategy skills by learning how to use their torso and head to maneuver the ball down the playing field. With a few interceptions while using the head and torso, they are able to place the ball where they want it within range of their opponent’s goalkeeper. They also learn how the goalkeeper does their job and are amazed when they use their arms and hands to push the ball back into the game and away from the goal that they work so hard to achieve.
James Brown writes about http://www.kidstoysandgifts.com
What’s Best About Beckham?
The measure of an athlete on the world stage is not simply how popular or highly regarded they are in their own sport, but how well known they are to people outside of the sport. When an athlete breaks the bounds of their own notoriety and becomes a household name to people who can’t name anything else in their sport of choice they are truly a superstar. In the United States, where soccer is not a widely known sport and most Americans haven’t been able to name a player since Pele, David Beckham’s name resounds. What is it about David Beckham that makes his name synonymous with the game?
On the field
David Beckham started his professional career in the 1994 — 95 season for Manchester United. By 1996 Beckham was the name repeated frequently by media and fans alike. As his outstanding plays pushed Manchester United farther than they ever dreamed they would go, his signature free kick and seeming ability to bend the ball around defenders or kick it over the heads of goalies became a stunning example of the grace behind the game. Beckham also became known for his outstanding discipline and willingness train and craft his soccer ability, as well as helping others on his team to develop training regimens and create the best of professional play. Many teammates credit his professional attitude and inspirational play for their ability to recover in hard fought games and persevere to championship.
Off the field
Any player who achieves athletic recognition in a sport as popular internationally as soccer also achieves name recognition. For David Beckham this recognition was the start of a series of international endorsements for products, companies and fashion lines. At one point, he was a spokesperson for a fashion line, hairstylist, exercise routine, a spa and Disneyland. His status as a fashion plate, has brought him attention for his neat appearance and an unwanted moniker when he was listed in 2002 by salon.com as a stunning example of a metrosexual. His reputation as someone as interested in his appearance as he is his on-field statistics followed him throughout his career and lead to even more fame and fortune. While he adamantly responded to the charges of metro sexuality by proclaiming his love for wife Victoria Beckham, he also admits to being a victim of obsessive-compulsive disorder and having a need for his appearance to please him. This humble pronouncement only served to raise Beckham’s image in the eyes of his peers.
In the news
Of course, not all of David Beckham’s press is good for him. His marriage to Victoria Adams, also known as Posh Spice, gained him more media attention than playing for his team. Many English fans began to see him as a star and not an athlete. His recent move to Los Angeles, California as part of the Los Angeles Galaxy team, and his subsequent purchase of a house in Hollywood Hills has led many to speculate he has lost focus for the game that he loves.
Only time will tell if the lasting legacy of David Beckham will be his free kick, his wife, or his image. What we know now is that his discipline and skill on the soccer field have translated into unforgettable games and a wonderful life.
James Brown writes about http://www.sportposterdecorations.com