In the modern world, where screens have children’s attention, finding engaging activities that promote physical and mental well-being is difficult. If it’s not interesting enough, they easily get distracted.
That’s where badminton comes in as an excellent choice. It is a fast-paced game that engages the entire body and the mind to make strategic decisions. That’s why playing badminton has several benefits for children.
In this article, I am going to discuss some of the top benefits of badminton for children.
1. Physical Fitness
Badminton is a full-body workout disguised as fun. Kids engage their arms, legs, and core muscles. The constant movement across the court includes lunges, high jumps, and stretches. This promotes cardiovascular health in children. Which means their heart and lungs are strengthened.
- While jumping, stretching, and making quick movements around the court, kids engage their leg muscles.
- Repeated strokes with the badminton racket involve engaging the entire hand muscles.
- Doing the lunges and jumps also targets the core muscles.
Thus, all the major muscle groups are involved while playing badminton. This leads to improved overall strength and endurance.
Badminton also helps maintain a healthy weight. Kids are especially extra active. So, they tend to burn a lot of calories. Plus, it also helps in boosting their metabolism.
2. Coordination and Balance
Kids need to keep a constant eye on the shuttlecock to track its movement throughout the court. Plus, they need to swing their hand at exactly the right movement to hit the shuttlecock.
Children often miss the shots the first few times they play. However, with experience, they learn to analyze shuttlecock movement and use their arms at the right time. This tells us that badminton significantly improves hand-eye coordination in kids.
Plus, in between all the running, holding the racquet (It’s a bit heavy for small children.), jumping, and more children learn to keep their balance.
You must have seen someone fall face down after taking a powerful swing. That improves over time, and they learn to keep their balance.
3. Mental Agility
During a badminton game, children must make rapid decisions. They must decide where to hit the shuttlecock or how to respond to an opponent’s shot. This enhances their ability to think on their feet and make swift decisions.
Children learn to plan their moves, anticipate their opponent’s strategy, and adapt their game plan accordingly. Which means they learn strategic thinking from an early age. This will also help them later in life when they have to make smart decisions on their feet.
Apart from this, kids also need to keep their entire focus on the game. Badminton is so fast that a slight distraction can cost them a point. They learn to concentrate and block out external distractions.
All of this together leads to better mental agility in your child. They learn to control their mind, read and analyze other people’s minds, and make strategic decisions based on their observations.
4. Social Skills
Badminton offers a fantastic opportunity for children to socialize and make new friends. Playing with others fosters a sense of belonging and team spirit. The shared experience of practice sessions, friendly matches, and tournaments creates a positive social environment and makes way to build lasting friendships.
When playing a doubles game, kids need to work in a team and communicate effectively with their teammate. They learn to cooperate with their partner and understand different roles in that relationship.
This makes them understand every other relationship in their life. Just throw a badminton reference, like how they need to cover their partner so they can take the winning shot, and your child will probably understand what you have to say.
5. Discipline and Patience
The thing with sports is that they teach you discipline. You have to follow the set rules without any resistance. You must follow your workout routines and maintain a healthy diet. You need to stay away from any recreational meds. All of this brings a sense of discipline in children.
They learn that no matter what they shouldn’t deviate from their path. Even coaches encourage kids to keep a routine so they can follow it with discipline.
In badminton, you need a lot of patience. Those different types of strokes don’t come easily. You need to practice consistently and trust the process. Improvement in badminton doesn’t happen overnight so kids need to be patient and put in the time and effort needed.
6. Stress Relief
Physical activity like badminton releases endorphins. They are chemicals in the brain that act as natural painkillers and mood elevators. That’s why playing badminton helps relieve stress. It helps children feel happier and more relaxed.
Badminton is an engaging sport. It comes as a great distraction from the stressors of everyday life. This mental break is important for maintaining emotional health.
Some kids feel overwhelmed due to new learning at school. For them, badminton can be a happy distraction. Plus, the elevated mood will help them focus better later in the day. They will have a relaxed state of mind and so they can study better.
7. Flexibility and Agility
As we saw in the physical fitness section of this article, badminton involves all major muscle groups of the body. Apart from strengthening these muscles, the body also becomes flexible.
The lunges and stretches mold their body to bend quickly in any direction necessary. This means kids become not only flexible but also agile. They can assume any position in a matter of seconds. Because if they don’t they’ll probably miss the shuttlecock.
Did you know that flexible muscles are less prone to injury? They also lead to overall physical well-being. Combine that with quick reflexes and you have got a strong sportsperson.
8. Confidence Building
Mastering new skills and winning matches provides children with a sense of achievement. This boosts their confidence and encourages them to set and achieve new goals.
Regularly playing badminton and seeing improvement in themselves boosts self-esteem. Kids start to feel good about their abilities and are more likely to have a positive self-image.
They even learn how to handle losses. They know how to bounce back from failures. They start to understand that mistakes are part of the learning process. So, instead of sulking they remain motivated to improve themselves.
9. Sportsmanship
We all have seen players getting aggressive while playing or blaming the umpire for a wrong decision. These are signs of a lack of sportsmanship. If you inculcate this in your child from a young age, they are less likely to behave rudely on a court.
Playing badminton teaches children the importance of fair play. They learn to respect the rules and their opponents regardless of the outcome. This makes sure your child has integrity and a sense of fairness.
They learn to celebrate their wins and gracefully accept their defeat from a young age. They fully develop sportsmanship.
10. Enjoyment
What’s in it if not fun? Badminton is a very interactive game. Any kid who gives it a try loves it because it is so much fun to run around the court and make the shuttlecock fly from one end to the other.
Kids have fun and that’s what matters in the end. They go home with a sense of complete enjoyment. This lifts their spirits for the rest of the day. It’s more likely they will do school work with an open mind after a session of badminton.
Conclusion
There you have some amazing benefits of badminton for children. It is important to know that the benefits are not restricted to the ones mentioned in this article. There’s a lot more to this sport.
It is important to get your child excited about badminton to truly reap these benefits. Forcing them to play or making it a hectic routine will have negative effects. Your child must enjoy the process. Let them explore the sport and decide to play at their own pace.
You can play along with them or find a partner of your own to play with. If they watch you having fun, it might pique their interest.
FAQs
How does badminton help a child’s development?
Badminton helps a child to develop physically, mentally, and socially due to the nature of the sport.
Can a 6-year-old play badminton?
Yes, a 6-year-old can definitely play badminton. In fact, many professional players in the United States started their journey as young as 5 to 6 years.
Can badminton increase height?
Yes, regularly playing badminton can increase the height of children to some extent. The high-jumping movements facilitate the growth of children.
