5 Reasons to Enroll Your Child Without Disabilities in Inclusive Sports Classes
Have you considered trying inclusive sports? If your child doesn’t have a disability, and you’re not sure what the benefits of inclusive sports classes, like Inclyousion Sports, might be, keep reading!
There are five benefits of inclusive sports for children without disabilities that we have seen:
Improvement of multi-sports performance
Learn new sports
Understand how others learn differently
Build friendships
Have fun!
Improvement of multi-sports performance
Many of the kiddos in Inclyousion Sports classes are participating in their town league sports programs in addition to our classes. We signed up our son for his first year of Little League, and we will continue keeping him involved with Inclyousion Sports classes based on the benefits they have provided. There are three reasons for this, in addition to being the coach’s son ;)
The benefits of having your child playing multiple sports have been researched and found to develop a well rounded athlete as they continue developing muscle movements and coordination. It has also improved performance of children who specialize in a sport later in life.
Inclyousion Sports class sizes and ratios of coach to child is small, which allows children to have lots of attention from our coaches. This may result in faster sport skill development and understanding.
Our coaches are uniquely trained to break down a sport, break down a skill within a sport, and adapt it to your child to ensure individualized progress based on where each child is developmentally. For example, a child might be working on holding a ball, the next child is working on bringing it over their head to throw, the next child is working on stepping with the opposite foot to throw the ball, and the last child is working on increasing distance or speed with their throw. This all happens simultaneously within each class depending on what each child needs.
Learn new sports
Our curriculum of one sport per month enables us to rotate through a catalog of sports, to allow children to be introduced to and practice new sports. This is beneficial for kids to learn new gross motor movements, new social skills associated with each sport, and avoids lulls from playing the same sport repetitively. In addition, for the parents this model has been a huge success giving them information about what their child might like. Several parents thought their child would not like a certain sport and their kiddo ended up loving it. A new sport every month, allows the parents to see if a child likes a sport without breaking the bank for a 8 or 12 week single sport program.
Understand how others learn differently
The design of our program is created for a wide range of abilities for all children. Kids with or without disabilities are learning from each other. Having this diverse learning group, encourages kids to use perspective taking to understand how others might feel or learn. Involving your child in inclusive classes gives them an early opportunity to be involved with a population that might not be their typical friend group, which teaches them an important skill set to thrive in a diverse world awaiting for them as they get older. Caring, compassionate, and respectful are values we want our kiddos to leave us with as they join other programs or schools.
Build friendships
Within this diverse group of kiddos, I’ve seen some amazing friendships develop that otherwise would never have existed. Our kiddos are inviting each other to birthday parties, YMCA swim outings, and weekend get-togethers are taking place. Our families are the backbone of our program as we continue to grow, and nothing makes me happier than when I hear about a birthday party involving the kiddos in our classes.
Have fun!
Lastly, our classes are just plain fun. We use tons of fun, colorful, engaging equipment that all of the kids love. Our coaches are energetic and make each class a positive experience. Also, our coaches are trained in giving lots and lots of positive reinforcement, which looks like ample high fives and good jobs being doled out at every class. Our goal as coaches is to have your child love our classes so much that they talk about us during the week and I love hearing when that occurs.
When I envisioned this program, I went back to my childhood. I know I would have benefited incredibly from our classes. As a wild and energetic 4 year old, I could have used a highly structured, small class size, program with a focus on inclusive and behavioral strategies. Yes, I did my town leagues and then travel teams, but I know I would have loved learning a new sport every month and playing with new toys and equipment. Our classes allow kids to be themselves, learn new sports/skills, develop friendships, and enjoy playing with other kids. What else could you ask for?
Ready to sign up for inclusive classes? Check out our current Inclyousion Sports locations here or read more about how to bring inclusive sports to your own community here.
-Greg
