July 27, 2014

Team Sports vs Individual Sports for an ADHD Child

For my son team sports wasn't a good fit. He played baseball and basketball for two years and football for one year and it just didn't work. He’d get so overwhelmed. Grant it this was before he became gluten, dairy, & soy free… perhaps if he would have tried them after his diet change things would have been better.
I have found the individual sports are much better for an ADHD child. Personally I feel the reason an individual sport is a better fit for a child with ADHD is they get to make almost all the decisions, which they love. There isn't as much risk of getting overwhelmed by teammates, other players, and coaches.
My son decided to take up karate. He’s now been it for many years and it’s been so beneficial for him. The main things it has taught him is control, focus, and respect. Three things an ADHD child really needs to master!
Karate emphasize self-control, including self-discipline and respect for yourself and others. Focus and concentration are need to remember the moves and to spare with others. These things really challenge an ADHD child.
Now don’t just sign-up your child for just any karate class. Please do your homework and make sure it’s a good school. It took us two different dojos to find a karate class that wasn’t just a bunch of kids goofing off…we were looking for serious martial art teachers that “REALLY WANTED” the kids to learn karate. We also asked the Sensei if we could move our son to an adult class (he was 13 when he joined) because we thought the adult students wouldn’t “goof off” as much as the younger class. The Sensei agreed and my son thrived with the adults.
So when you’re considering sports for your ADHD child don’t forget to look into individual sports too.

Here are some other individual sports you might want to check into: archery, cross country, golf, wrestling, chess (my son will play chess with anyone and anywhere—he loves it that much), cycling, horse riding…

1 comment:

  1. Team soort are important. They teach you to work together in groups. How will you learn something if you haven't worked with a group of people before? Sorry to say but your kid is most likely going to suck at doing things when he gets older unless he always has someone there to guide them.

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