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Gymnastics is not solely about creating gymnasts (for any age) but for the preschool child it is particularly beneficial. Here’s our top ten areas where gymnastics can help your child grow into a well-rounded adult:
The UK is becoming increasingly full of obese children who risk their health and happiness by being overweight. Gymnastics teaches and encourages an active life and enjoyment of physical activity – we believe it’s got to be fun first! This love of movement translates into other sports as well as a lifetime positive relationship with activity – what better gift can you give your child.
But will my child be an Olympian? Not all children who participate in gymnastics are Olympians. In fact very few are. That does not mean that gymnastics is not for everyone. By teaching young children they can be successful at physical skills from an early age encourages them to be active and aware of what their bodies are doing and we feel that’s waaay more important.
Movement promotes good health in many ways. Consciously controlled and coordinated movements stimulates production of neutrophils (nerve growth), increasing the number of connections in the brain. The more precise the movements the more developed the network will become. So it’s essential our young children start this work as soon as possible.
By the age of three, your child will have developed around 1000 trillion connections around the cells in their brain…. Which is around twice as many as the average adult!
She says that she really enjoys it, she loves using the equipment (beam, bars, trampette) and when she talks about it with friends they are amazed that at such a young age she is using them.
Pre-school gymnastics coaching helps develop better coordination and body awareness. For young children, interacting with their surroundings is mostly physical in their early years. Gymnastics provides them with the skills to interact with their environment in ways that other children cannot utilising all their body from top to toe. Something we all wish we had more of as we age!
Flexibility is important in injury prevention and helping prevent the every-day aches and pains. No sport gives an athlete the flexibility that gymnastics does. Not only is flexibility great for gymnastics, but it aids in the development for other sports as well. Next time you watch a professional sporting event keep an eye out for how flexible the men and women participating are. Gymnastics produces, pound-for-pound, the best athletes in the world. Gymnastics uses almost exclusively body weight exercises to build upper body, lower body, and core strength.
Kids who do gymnastics show off this strength at a young age. It is also great fun for them to be a demonstrator in PE classes at school and in a lot of cases way ahead of their peers.
Research has found that children who do not spend time crawling can typically have more difficulty with reading and writing later. The reason is that when crawling, they are tracking their hands with eyes in a pattern of movement (reading). Their hands slap the ground and develop strength and flexibility in the hand and wrist (writing and holding a pencil). Hanging on bars is great for handwriting skills. (Not to mention upper body strength). When children hang from the bars, they are building strength and dexterity in the muscles found in their hands. Building strength in their upper body leads to more refined fine motor skills like handwriting.
She has learnt so many skills that perhaps would have developed later – skipping, galloping, jumping, hopping etc. She has become braver in terms of having a go in other situations such as soft play, The simple structure of the class will help no end once she starts school.
At all ages, gymnastics provides an opportunity to develop social skills. Pre-school children learn how to stand in line, look, listen, be quiet when others are talking, work and think independently, and be respectful. The older pre-school children in the gym learn to inquire about why something works the way it does. They also learn how to set a good example for the newbies who look up to them and become role models at a young age. All of these skills are stressed by our coaches because they are so important for a good learning environment.
Here at Affinity, skills are learned through progressions. By teaching in this manner children gain confidence as they progress through these skills. With each step, they become more confident in themselves and that carries over into all aspects of their lives.
The classes have really helped with her confidence. It has developed her listening skills and taking direction from the teacher. The classes have also really helped to support her development in other classes she attends. Her overall strength and coordination have improved too.
At Affinity, manners and kindness are a two-way street. Our coaches pride themselves on conducting classes in a way that is kind and caring to all of the students and in turn we expect that the children are well mannered and kind to their coaches, along with the other children in the class. Through these two key important areas from our staff, gymnastics classes led by example, we strive to help in your efforts as parents to raising a respectful child.
The average two year old manages to add around five new worlds to their vocabulary each day…. Whilst we may have to rely on word of the day apps!
I enjoy watching him and seeing how he is challenged and how much he behaves and engages in the activity.
Gymnastics is a challenging sport. Every skill you learn is earned through hard work and repetition. A great thing about pre school gymnastics is being able to see the direct relationship between hard work, practice and results. The harder children work and the more they practice the more quickly they progress. There are few better ways for a child to see how hard work and determination pay off.
I know she gets 45 minutes of quality physical exercise which is great fun.
This is a very important aspect of gymnastics and it comes in two parts. In the gym there are rules for the children’s safety. These rules must be followed and this takes discipline. The other part is self-discipline.
Each child must have the self-control to make corrections when a coach asks them to. Children must also have the self-discipline to stay on task when a coach is working with another gymnast. Working hard, even when you think no one is watching, is a great asset to any individual’s character and cannot be overlooked. Pre school children find this particularly challenging but by the end of their second term with us they start to be more self aware of their roles within the gym.
She is gaining strength and coordination and learning the discipline of listening, following instruction and respect for her instructor and fellow gymnasts. They sometimes need to show patience to wait their turn and share equipment.
Gymnastics breeds determination. Most skills in gymnastics take a number of tries to get them right. This is true with a number of things in life. Gymnastics encourages children to get up and try again even if they messed up because they know if they continue to work hard that they will achieve their goals.
Movement reinforces the learning capacity, to store something mentally, with some type of movement. By putting it into ‘muscular memory’ it is more likely to be remembered than simply something thought about and not ‘acted out’.
The Vestibular system is located in the inner ear and provides information about gravity, balance and movement. It regulates our sense of movement and gives our nervous system information about our movement as to whether we are moving fast/slow and in what direction. It responds to the position of the head. It influences muscle tone, visual tracking, special awareness and behaviour through complex interactions of the nervous system.
80% of nerve endings to muscles in the body are directly linked via proprioception and the vestibular system with motor nerves running to and from the eyes. 70% of sensory input for humans is visual so vision plays a large part in the process of learning.
I’ve seen a big increase in my child’s confidence levels. Both in taking on physical tasks and in speaking and communicating with people.
There are things in gymnastics that are scary. A lot of this has to do with the fear of trying something that you have never done before. We encourage our gymnasts to express their fears to us, and we set attainable goals to work through their fears – together. This goes hand-in-hand with building confidence.
Our gymnasts are often challenged to try new things and our coaches lay out a path that allows them to achieve those challenges in a step-by-step manner. This approach allows children to develop strategies to overcome things that they see as impossible and encourages them to try new things both in the gym and in life. In a preschool child’s world it’s black and white, there are no grey areas!
Proprioceptive system provides information about muscle tension, body position and the position and movement of our joints in relation to each other (spatial awareness). It responds to movement by stretching and bending muscles. Sensory information regarding movement, muscle tension, pressure, joint movement and body position in space is sent to the central nervous system. This then influences motor planning, spatial awareness and behaviour.
Motor planning – how a child learns through play. i.e walks along a floor beam and falls off, has another go and falls off and wonders why, has another go and uses arms, improves technique of walking along the beam.
I love it! I like being a penguin. I get scared on the bar but then I can do it.
One thing that is often overlooked by our population is the ability to perform in front of people in a pressure situation. In gymnastics, it becomes second nature. At Affinity we encourage all of our gymnasts to volunteer as well as watch their teammates because they can learn by watching as well as doing. This creates confidence in our children to step up and do their best when people are watching. Gymnasts are often first to volunteer in schools to demonstrate or raise their hand to answer a question they are unsure of. They gain the confidence in themselves to be right, and the understanding that even if they are wrong, that they gave their best effort.
Why you should never say ‘don’t’ before a sentence…. If I say to you ‘don’t think of a blue tree’ what immediately do you think of? We only ever hear the action after the word ‘don’t’. Instead say what you want to do instead i.e walk slowly, then there’s no confusion.
Seeing her so happy and being very proud of herself when learning new skills. Gymnastics is her favourite thing to do.
All of our gymnasts learn compassion through the example set by our staff. At Affinity we know that every child, regardless of ability, can benefit from gymnastics. Our staff are committed to making sure that every class and child gets all of the great things that gymnastics has to offer. It’s great to see each pre-school class becoming a team that work together to support each other.
Seems more adventurous and active with different things.
Yikes I had better get to a class myself!! We’d love to welcome you and your child to a class for you to experience all these benefits for yourself – take a look at whats on offer for pre-schoolers at Affinity here and register for a class here.
Offering gymnastics, cheer and parkour classes where people of all ages and abilities can feel good about themselves, and achieve success in an atmosphere designed for movement, health and fun. We run classes at our own sites in Hoddesdon and Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, UK.
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