How Sports and Afterschool Activities Grow the Brain
Do you find your schedule filling up with your kids' sports and afterschool activities and spending most of your time driving them around? I promise you; it’s worth it! These activities are filled with teachable moments to help your little brains become happy, connected, and successful adults.
Social and Emotional Skills
Besides learning how to follow the rules, cooperating with their teammates to accomplish their goals, and creating friendships, these activities can develop growth mindset. This is because sports and competition teach us resilience, responsibility, teamwork, and the rewards that come with effort.
Executive Skills
One part of the brain that responds readily to physical activity is Hip the Hippo (aka the hippocampus), the part of the brain responsible for learning and memory. Physical activity also grows Fronnie (our control panel)! Research shows that it increases attention spans and helps us improve at multi-tasking, ignoring distractions, and processing complex information. These are Fronnie’s jam!
Physical Skills
Not only does physical activity help our kids be more coordinated, but it also increases blood flow to your brain, which supports the release of hormones that fortify your brain cells and make the environment more suitable for the growth of new brain cells. Physical activity is a mood booster, which helps counteract the adverse effects of stress.
Your Job As Parents?
Support your little brains’ interests - doing something that your kiddos are interested in will help them stay motivated.
Praise your little brains’ efforts and not just the results - this will help develop their growth mindset. Step up your praise for specific skills as your child improves. (Note: Unhelpful comparisons can very quickly put an end to a growth mindset.)
Keep up the good work juggling your schedule!
Does this help you feel better about all the driving around? I sure hope so! You got this.
Pro-tips from One Mom to Another
PRO-TIP 1
Although it feels like driving is such a chore, it can be a huge relationship builder. The time between or on the way to games provides short, uninterrupted time to chat with your kids about how they're feeling, how their friends are doing, or what the newest school drama is.
Bonus: They can't get away from you! So if you need to have a difficult conversation, want to check in to make sure you're in tune to their emotions, or just WANT THEM TO TALK TO YOU, try chatting in the 5-15 min ride instead!
PRO-TIP 2
Offer to carpool. The best way to get information about how your kids are thinking and feeling and what's going on in their lives is to listen to them talk to their friends. Find out the latest TikTok trend, which teacher is "so mean" and which is "so nice," and who had a rough day in school. For best results, get a good mom chain going and share the info when needed. After all, we're all in this together. It really does take a community to raise brains! Just remember, what happens in the mom chain stays in the mom chain...and you never heard it from me ;)