What To Expect
From Your New Warrior
Martial arts has a well-known benefit of helping children
develop physical skills and improve in discipline. For this reason, parents
often enroll their children in some type of martial arts in order to achieve
goals such as these. And while attaining these goals are possible, parents
often have unrealistic expectations of the time it actually takes for children to
get there.
Of course, age, stage of development, as well as a myriad of
other things go into exactly how quickly a specific child will accomplish a
certain goal. But there is one thing is the same across the board. When
children start martial arts, it is important for parents to remember that their
child is starting a new sport, with new people, in a new environment, and
learning new information. This would be a bit overwhelming for anyone.
Certainly, older children may handle this pressure a little better, but parents
should expect a certain amount of adjustment from any age.
The SKILLZ program’s age-specific curriculum was
specifically designed to target individual age groups and work on skills that
are essential for their stage of development. Within this framework, each age
group is also broken down to address physical, intellectual, emotional, and
social development that is appropriate for that age. By creating the program in
this way, children are able to achieve more in a quicker amount of time because
the goals are challenging but also achievable.
Parents, however, must keep in mind that children are all
different and develop and attain goals at different times. In a specific age
group, there are also children that have been in the class for a longer period
of time and have worked on the skills for that age group longer. However, even
for two children of the same age and starting at the same time, one may achieve
a specific skill quicker than another.
Let’s take this from a different view as well. Even if parents
aren’t comparing their child to another, they often feel that their child
should achieve a certain goal after only a short time of training. While parents
will see some development and improvement in skills after a few weeks, expecting
them to suddenly have a specific skill mastered, after a short time, is unrealistic.
As they say, “slow and steady wins the race.” As children
develop, we need to remember that they will get there when their bodies and
minds are ready. Expecting certain things of a child that they are not
physically, intellectual, emotionally, or socially ready for can do more harm
than good. The key is to make sure there is consistent training and practice of
the skills and celebrate small and steady wins along the way.
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