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SearchA psychologist offers insight on a study showing how playing team sports can improve a child's executive function, which includes skills like memory and focus.
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CLEVELAND - If your child plays a team sport, you may be glad to hear that the skills they’re learning at practice could benefit them at school too.
A recent study from the Netherlands found children who play team sports seem to have better executive function, which includes things like memory, focus, ability to adapt and emotional control.
“I think that it’s the practicing of those skills in a team sport. It’s like working out, right? You can get some of that in school, but this is a venue where you're doing more of it,” said psychologist Matthew Sacco, PhD, sports psychologist for Cleveland Clinic. “And so I think it's an extension of what we might see through childhood development.”
Dr. Sacco was not a part of the study, but said the findings make sense when you take a closer look at team sports.
For example, children have to consider their teammates, remember plays, take instruction, and make quick decisions.
He said beyond that, sports have also been shown to help kids with social skills and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Interestingly though, researchers from the study noted that 70% of children here in the United States stop playing sports by the time they're 13.
Dr. Sacco thinks that may have to do with the pressures that come from playing in more competitive leagues as they start to get older.
“Kids get tired of it, and they can get burnout, especially if they’re in something that may not be rewarding for them, or as it once was. Because once we get out of that, ‘hey this is fun’, everybody is kind of playing, everybody is having a good time, which is that traditional kind of recreational model, the competitiveness is not for everybody, or developmentally not yet for some people,” he said.
If your child is interested in trying a new sport, Dr. Sacco recommends signing them up for a rec league first.
That way you can see if they really like it before committing to a travel team, which can be expensive and time consuming.
