Playing Varsity Sports

Children are becoming more and more inactive as video games and other forms of media are taking up a lot of their free time. As a result, more and more children are overweight and even obese. If they stay like this throughout childhood, they will probably never lose the weight they need to lose to be healthy as adults. Instead of allowing your children to waste away in front of a screen, make them get up and get moving. They can play, do activities, and they can also work their way up to playing varsity sports in high school. They will be much more healthy because of it.

Before your children can play varsity sports, they have to start young. What you can do is introduce them to as many sports as you can to see if there is something that they like. Some kids automatically know they want to do something and have a drive for it, and others just need time to find out what they like to do. Don't eliminate things like golf from the picture either. It may not be as physical as something like football, cheer-leading, or wrestling, but there is quite a bit of exercise involved in golf. Some schools offer golf as part of their varsity sports. Take them out and do things with them and they will find at least one they would like to try.

It can be overwhelming to take kids to practices, meetings, and games or meets when they are young and probably not very good at what they are doing. However, this lays the groundwork for success in varsity sports in high school. They learn early that there is hard work involved, but also that hard work does pay off. Not only is this good for their physical well-being, it is also good for them mentally. They are going to be successful in life through hard work of all types, and if they learn that early, they are going to do so much better at anything they try from then on out.

Some schools are cutting back on varsity sports, but they still have great programs. Big districts may have to combine some teams into one so that they can still afford to have them. This means less spots on the team, but it also means the sports will survive until the time comes when school budgets have a little more leeway again. Encourage practice and study so that they can get that spot on the team for varsity sports, but don't make it so that they hate it. You can tell when you kid needs some downtime, so give it to them. Downtime is just as important as anything else or your child could become a mental mess.

Varsity sports are also not always cheap. What each school can provide varies year to year and school to school. Some have things that can be used and some parents may have to go out and buy needed items so their children can play in varsity sports. If you are having a tough time affording everything, talk to the couch or even the school board. There are some programs that can help students out that need it for things in school and also for extracurricular school activities like sports. Other parents often help too. It can be hard to ask for help, but think of it as asking for something to make your child's life better. People are always willing to give more than you think.