Does picking up a sport at a young age make a star?
Almost all professional athletes who are at the top of their sport started taking part in it at a very young age. It is very rare to find an athlete who rose to the top of his or her field even though they started
at a late age. There are a lot of reasons why it is beneficial for a professional athlete to have started young in life but it seems to be that all of them do start off very early on. But the question is when; if they start too late will kids who have started
early get a head start over them or not? It seems this question is a tricky one that requires considerable analysis.
The best athletes in the world get into the sport at a very young age. A lot of the time they are 5 or 6 years old when they first pick up a racquet or start to kick a football around. Rafael Nadal, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lewis Hamilton
and many others all got their start around the same time. Even something like motorsports requires a future Formula 1 driver to start out very young and start by driving a go kart at around 6 or 7 years old. Many tennis stars start to learn to play the game
at the age of 5 or 6.
There is a big difference between playing games and taking part in organised sports. Games usually take place in the home with a parent playing with their children, but organised sports take place in a school setting with kids
playing on teams with other children who are the same age. Playing on a team helps a child learns many different things that they would not pick up if they played games at home only. Teamwork, discipline, the spirit of competition and skills at the sport are
all things that may not necessarily be picked up in a home setting. Even though a parent imparts early knowledge and the skills a child needs to succeed in a sport, it is usually a coach or a teacher that is able to hone these skills and mould the children
into future sports stars. Coaches and physical education teachers have the skills to teach children the basics of a given sport and help them flourish on their own.
The parent though plays a big part at an early stage. By picking the first sport for a child, they open their eyes to a new experience but they should then also not force the child if (s)he does not want to continue and wants to
try something else. It is very interesting to think that if a child had been given a different sport by its parent at a young age to try, would (s)he have become a completely different sports star? Would Michael Jordan have become an American football player
instead of a basketball player if he had been given football as a first choice by his parents?
This is the reason why kids who become future athletes start off very young. They have the ability to switch to another sport if they want to. A child with natural athletic talent will stand out in sports from an early age and
at that time they can try two or three or even four different sports and pick the one they think will suit them the best. It also happens that because a professional athlete’s career usually does not extend beyond the age of thirty, they cannot waste the early
years of their lives. Nowadays, the trend of drafting NBA players straight out of high school has started. Maybe that is too young and maybe the players need to go to college to gain some life experience but it is happening and will continue to do so in the
future.
One of the things that a lot of sources tell parents about their children and sports is that the age of the child does not really matter. What matters is the interest level of the child for the sport. Studies have shown that a
child that is even ten or eleven can rapidly pick up the skills and talent needed in a sport if they are really interested in it. So at the end of the day the age of a child might not really be that significant, but what is relevant is how much interest there
is in the sport. Everything else will hopefully fall in place in the end.
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