Participating in youth basketball is a fun way to build friendships, learn teamwork skills and much more. Here’s 6 benefits of playing basketball and why you should allow your kids to be involved in the sport:
1. Exercise & Endurance
Of course, like all youth sports, basketball is a great way for your kids to get a little extra exercise throughout the week. Even if they only practice a couple of times a week, they will be getting a couple of extra hours of exercise than they would without the sport. Basketball is also a sport that requires great endurance. It’s a full-body workout for kids and it’s important for kids to learn to push toward an end goal without giving up.
2. Balance and Hand-Eye Coordination
Many sports require coordination, but basketball especially requires hand-eye coordination. When players are dribbling the ball down the court, they have to be coordinated enough to focus on their dribbling while also being prepared to pass the ball to another player or shoot a goal. The benefits of playing basketball when you’re younger is that you’ll get good at balance and hand-eye coordination early on.
3. Agility
Since basketball is such a fast-paced game, it requires quick reactions. Kids have to be fast on their feet in order to make plays. While they’re on the court, the direction of the play can change any second, so they have to be quick to adapt to the changes also.
4. Strategy
Basketball, like any sport, is a game of strategy. Between the plays, the movements on the court and everything else involved in the sport, kids will learn how to be strategic about the way they play which will lead to problem-solving thinking skills. Kids will start creating strategies to solve problems instead of jumping to immediate conclusions.
5. Social Skills
Like all team sports, it’s pretty easy to form relationships, and it’s a great way to help young children develop their social skills. With interaction with other teams, coaches and the players on their own team, there will be plenty of opportunity for conversation about the one thing they all love – basketball!
6. Easy to Play All Year Round
Of course, the basketball season isn’t year-round, but it’s an easy sport to play throughout the year – even after the season has ended. There are basketball courts in community parks, recreational centers and you can easily have a basketball goal right at your house which make it easy to practice while you’re preparing for the games! Plus, basketball is also a sport that can be practiced alone, so you don’t have to wait on other players to join you in the off-season.
At SoCal 3×3, we encourage all parents to involve your kids in as many sports activities as they have interest. Find those activities where they can be actively involved in the playing of the sport and not just watching a few gifted players dominate the play and the ball.
Encourage them to try different sports and stay involved with multi-sport activities as long as they can. Research has proven that those kids that were involved in team sports become more well-adjusted and goal achievers as they enter adulthood.
