Brain Gymnastics
Who would’ve thought that gymnastics can not only benefit children physically but mentally as well? Gymnastics for young growing bodies and minds can help develop a lot of academic skills in children. The more that a young child climbs, creeps, tumbles, crawls, and rolls the more densely wired their brain becomes for academic success. Movement is one of the key factors in a child’s brain development, gymnastics incorporates all kinds of lateral and bilateral movements. The right and left hemisphere of the brain are designed to constantly communicate with each other. While the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body and vice versa, learning how to climb up a ladder ignites a constant communications for both sides of the body to coordinate and work together to get to the top. When the brain is conditioned to actively engage both sides it creates a coordinated movement pattern which in turns can help create fluent readers, who complete different reading tasks with ease. For example, while reading, the left side of the brain focuses on letters, and the sequence of words, while the right side attends to comprehending what is being read. Reading fluency depends on an intimate conversation between both hemispheres of the brain – a clear signal.
Children of all ages can benefit from the complex sport of gymnastics. The more a child is physically active the more coordinated they become. A child that is well-coordinated tends to be more confident in playtime, different sports, and in school with their peers as well. Through the challenge of learning gymnastics skills, the students gain confidence with each step that they take. Doing skills on the beam and bars helps them gain confidence in their own abilities. This improved self-confidence will transfer to other areas of their lives including school. Gymnastics instruction helps develop better coordination and body movement. For the young child, where their world is more physical than mental, a great deal of their self confidence comes from how coordinated they are. Some children do not have the skills to be a “star” athlete in any sport. But in gymnastics we can control their progress and challenges. Children who are a little weaker, a little overweight and/or a little less flexible can all find success with our terrific, caring gymnastics teachers. EVERY child can benefit from gymnastics.
In gymnastics, kids have to earn the skills through hard work, we just can’t give them to them. This hard work shows them that the more they work the more they learn.
Participation in gymnastics helps the athletes become more flexible, enhancing competency in other sports. Flexibility also helps limit injuries. Gymnastics also helps promote social skills. Especially for the younger ones, gymnastics affords a weekly opportunity to learn about social skills like listening, following directions, taking turns, being quiet, respecting others and a lot more. On discipline, there are rules in gymnastic classes and the teachers treat these rules as being very important. The more positive discipline the children receive the safer they will be.
