How to motivate children with little athletes

Do you have trouble exercising your child? Why? You will have to find out if you spend more hours of the bill in front of the television or video game console, if you are untrained or unmotivated for competitive sports and what you are doing is individual physical activity.

Also assess whether his character, somewhat shy or reserved, slows him down when participating in a team, either because he is embarrassed or because he considers himself worse than his teammates. Find out what's wrong because exercise is vital to your physical and mental health.

That children and young people move less and less, is not new. And that this growing sedentary lifestyle threatens your cardiovascular health, either. Magazine The Lancet United Kingdom, notes that children need at least 1 hour of exercise a day to prevent cardiovascular disease, obesity and other symptoms related to sedentary lifestyle. In addition, it enhances intelligence, develops creativity and imagination.

Why is a child a little athletic? Solutions that work

To help all parents in general, but particularly those who are more worried about their children who are lazy, unmotivated or untrained for sports, we analyze four types of boys whose characteristics negatively influence their physical activity.

1º IS SEDENTARY BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN DWELLED TO THE TELE, COMPUTER AND VIDEOCONSOLA
Without realizing it, he has substituted sport for these sedentary activities. You have adopted a passive attitude when it comes to motivating you to exercise. In addition, these customs will lead you to overeat.

You are in time to remedy this situation, mainly to prevent obesity and the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases. According to specialists, 90 minutes of exercise three times a week is the minimum that the child needs to reduce cardiovascular risk.
Therefore, you should look with your son or daughter with what sport or physical activity you enjoy and propose to do it. The sooner you discover the benefits of sport, the easier it will be to avoid harmful habits in the future. Children who exercise are happier children.

2º IS A REFLEXIVE AND QUIET CHILD, LIKES MORE MENTAL AGILITY ACTIVITIES THAN PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES
Physical activity does not need to be strenuous to be beneficial. Although it is always positive to participate in a competitive sport, whether collective or individual, you should never force a child to do it. However, motivating you to practice low impact exercise will also help you to develop mental agility: riding a bicycle, walking at a good pace, swimming, running, etc.
Ricardo Marquez notes that "fortunately there is a wide variety of sports and, in addition, they tend to adapt to all tastes, our function will be to look for a sport or physical activity that is satisfactory to our son". In any case, if our son is reluctant towards sports, we should not dramatize. We will have to respect their more sedentary habits and set goals that are appropriate to their way of being.

With regard to girls, many of them, when they reach these ages, calm their movement needs and become calmer, adopting a more lazy attitude towards sports. Also, you have to give them the opportunity to find the physical activity they like. In addition, you can find other alternatives such as finding a center where aerobics is done, different types of dances, etc.

3rd APPARENTLY, HAS A FEW APTITUDES TO SPORT AND GIVES SHAME TO PARTICIPATE IN A TEAM BECAUSE IT IS BELIEVED WORSE THAN ITS COMPANIONS. IT IS DEMANDED EVEN TO PERFORM INDIVIDUAL SPORTS
Your child needs sports, but his problem is self-esteem, either because he thinks he is worse than his classmates, he is less gifted, or he is full and has more difficulties running or jumping. Physical activity becomes a real torture.

Ricardo Márquez states that in most cases, any collective sport is attractive to any child, to the extent that the group of boys has a similar level. The heterogeneous teams desperate to the higher level and also to the lower level. In order for success to be assured, it is essential to look for a team with a similar level among the boys, to be attentive to the group of friends with characteristics and a similar sporting level, to find the sport interesting for the child, and to objectively determine which are the real abilities of the child to establish the type of exercise and intensity.

We must not ignore the importance of the coach, who will make each session a fun and demanding meeting with that sport so that the child finds his favorite: football, handball, basketball, volleyball, hockey, etc., in what collective sports is concerned.
"Success leads to success and if they see themselves progressing in their level of competence, they will not abandon that sporting practice, we all like to practice what we have an acceptable level of," recalls Ricardo Márquez.

4º YOUR CHARACTER, SHORT AND RESERVED, PREVENTS YOU FROM PARTICIPATING IN ANY TEAM. MORE INDIVIDUAL SPORTS WITHOUT COMPETITION
Although we have already indicated that the competition is positive to develop other virtues in the child, we can never force him, although we encourage him.Moreover, if you are shy, we must motivate you to find a team sport that will help you overcome that shyness.

However, despite the attempt, your child may not be motivated to perform group sports and, however, find other individual sports interesting, where they focus on their physical and technical improvement, and also develop all the basic motor activities: running , jumping, throwing, receiving, turning, kicking, etc. Therefore, we must offer a variety of activities.
In the field of individual sports we can choose between racket sports, martial arts such as judo, athletics, gymnastics, swimming, cycling, etc.

Jaime Márquez
Adviser: Ricardo Márquez. Bachelor in Physical Education (INEF) and professor.