We hear a lot in the media about childhood obesity and we all understand the importance of watching our kids’ diets and controlling their junk food intake. (Sometimes that is easier said than done, isn’t it?)
But we don’t frequently hear about the fact that physical activity isn’t valuable just to avoid excessive weight gain. Physical activity is directly related to the overall development of your child.
Beginning around age two, when your child has mastered crawling and climbing and folding her hand around a favorite doll or grasping a spoon for meal time, she is beginning to develop muscles. By taking those first waddled steps across your heart as a parent, she is developing the gross motor skills to later run, jump and skip.
Gross motor skills- which refer to the development of the large muscles in the body- enhance your child’s ability to learn in other areas, such as behaviorally, cognitively and academically.
With this information in mind, you will never again look at a basketball goal as a simple contraption where your older children gather with other kids in the neighborhood to shoot a few hoops.
By encouraging your younger child to throw the basketball to you and to attempt to dribble the ball, skills such as coordination, balance and directionality are being learned. When you encourage your child to aim the basketball at the basket, you are teaching the ability to focus and follow through. You are also helping her to develop spatial awareness. With repeated tries, she will begin to associate distance away from the goal with success in actually putting the ball through the net.
One of the other wonderful parts of this experience is that you are teaching your child to gracefully accept defeat when she misses the basket and celebrate like crazy when she does. Because the Goalrilla Basketball Goal is adjustable, you can provide her with years and years worth of opportunities to celebrate a score.
The Basketball Goal Store is here to show you how you can have lots of great educational opportunities happen for you and your child when the moment involves a Goalrilla basketball hoop and some patience.
-Pat of the Basketball Goal Store Blog Team