Kids: our future. And everyone knows that their development is crucial to a lifetime full of potential; everyone needs to agree that at some point, exposing our young ones to the right things will be beneficial to them in the long run. After all, what we all want is their success.

Sportsmanship teaches kids a lot! Studies show that 86% of successful people, CEOs, businessmen, have had their share of life in sports, either in high school or in college. So what’s with sports that makes people tick?

Sports for one thing has countless benefits. Not only physical benefits. For one thing, physical activity is one of the things that are scientifically proven to promote mental well-being a.k.a. “happiness.”

 So what does sportsmanship and sports do to kids? Why expose them to individual sports like BJJ or any other martial arts?

Your Kids Will Need to Learn How to Handle Failure

Life didn’t create anyone perfectly fit for success. At the same time, no one is born to fail. Success relies on mental acuity and stability. Reaction to failure and the ability of a person to recover from it, can, and will spell the difference. Kids need to learn this at a young age.

No. Jiu-Jitsu will not fail our young ones. But, there will be times when they will be on the losing end of a tournament, or will be overwhelmed by stronger kids their age. Be there for them when it happens. Good Parenting + Jiu-Jitsu = strong young ones.

Too Many Apps, Less Children in Playgrounds

Back in the day, kids would go out and hang out with actual kids. We got dirty from playing in the sandbox. We became sweaty and got baked under the sun. We dug up worms. We made mud pies. We did kids stuff. KIDS INTERACTED WITH ACTUAL REAL KIDS.

Today there are too many apps that keep our children distracted. With the help of the internet, they are being limited to purely visual-sensory experiences. The value of interacting with actual kids is lost in the dark realms of the internet. BJJ changes that. Sports changes that! Yes. Your kids will be wearing their gis and actually trying to beat kids (on the mat) in real life! How awesome is that?! And they make friends too! 

Kids will Need Goals and Learn the Value of Work

Kids have aspirations. Yes. Adults do not know this but kids have aspirations. An infant aspires to comfort, a toddler aspires to communicate. Young ones that are in sports aspire to be good, if not the best!

Whatever the goals, goals are goals. It is something they will need to determine for themselves, it is something they will need to work for. As parents, you cannot work it for them. You can’t jump in the middle of a match and submit the other kid (unless you fancy a black belt jumping in front of you and doing a super-triple-quadruple Oma-Plata-Kimura LOL). They will need to work for it. You will need to remind them from time to time. This teaches them that nothing good in life is worth zero work. Breathing requires work. What more success?

You can choose not to expose kids to BJJ. It’s your choice. You can choose to keep them inside a 10 inch LED Displayed virtual world. If they matter to you, sign them up for a free lesson here.  You will be glad you did.

Nilo Valle Chinilla