What Your Child Can Get Out of Competitive Teams

When your child wants to join a sports team you’ll have lots of questions. How much time is required? Will we still be able to have family time? What about homework? What about school altogether? For many teams, such as soccer or softball, the time commitments are not so large as to significantly affect your family’s lifestyle. For gymnastics, the commitment is much larger, but before you say no, think about the benefits for your child of participating with competitive gymnastics teams.

Basic Benefits

Just as with recreational gymnastics classes, children’s overall fitness continues to improve when committing to a team. Strength, flexibility, and endurance all increase as your child spends more time working on gymnastics skills and routines. At the same time, as her abilities move to new levels she’ll also become more confident not only in the gym but in all areas of her life. Most children who are involved in a competitive sport that they love also do well in school, despite the time required for workouts and competitions.

Growth of Mental and Emotional Skills

Joining a competitive gymnastics team also boosts a child's mental and emotional growth. Goal setting becomes more important, giving her a solid foundation for this life skill. Learning how to cope with the boredom of repetition, as a child practices the same routine over and over again, contributes to a mental toughness that lets her see beyond the moment to the ultimate goal. And as hard as it may be to accept, turning in a less-than-stellar performance at a competition teaches resilience so your child can get up and try again.

Social Rewards

Although you may be concerned that the commitment required by competitive teams may take away from your child’s social life, many former gymnasts agree that the friendships formed with team members are among the most solid and long-lasting of their relationships throughout their lives. Your child will learn to cheer on her teammates and rejoice for the one who achieves the highest score. Children on competitive teams also learn about commitment; they don’t want to let their coach and teammates down, so they go to practice even when they don’t want to.


Overall, whether your child competes with a series of teams as she grows older or finds that a couple of years of competition is all she wants, she’ll achieve a sense of accomplishment she can find nowhere else.