How Karate Can Help Your Child with Self-Control
Learning to exercise your self-control muscles is similar to improving your physical health through exercise. You must practice it daily. It takes a concentrated effort to make your self-control muscles stronger.
Self-control consists of many components; willpower, self-discipline, regulating oneself, or conscientiousness. It is about learning to limit distractions, hold back impulses, or quickly bounce back from emotions.
As a parent when your child is having a complete meltdown, it can be unnerving, a cause of tremendous stress, and sometimes embarrassment depending upon the setting. One can write off these incidents as being a childhood behavior. It is true; however, if your child continuously has these types of meltdowns, it can negatively impact your child’s future.
Knowing the difference between normal childhood behavior and more pressing issue is extremely important. If your child continuously has meltdowns and struggles with self-regulation, it is important to help your child address these challenges sooner rather than later.
Research shows that children with undeveloped self-regulating skills tend to do more poorly academically. In addition, these children tend to suffer from more anxiety, depression, and aggressive behaviors. Long term these children often resort to drugs, alcohol and are a magnet for negative peer pressure. Remember, your parent’s words “be careful who you hang out with or chose your friends wisely.”
Learning to control your emotions rather than having your emotions control you is an important life skill to master. Even adults have difficulty mastering self-control. Karate is a great way to help your child learn how to control his/her emotions as well as to develop self-regulating skills.
An exceptional full time martial arts facility will have an intentionally designed program to help students learn how to recognize, feel, and re-direct emotions in more positive direction. An intentionally designed program will help the students make the connection between physical exercise strengthening the muscles and heart with the process of exercising one’s self-control muscles to strengthen control of emotions, decision making, ability to limit distraction, and to bounce back from emotions.
Yes, self-control muscles it the mental and emotional analogy of physical exercise. The more we bring awareness and practice exercising our self-control muscles, the stronger our self-control muscles become. It is a practice every highly qualify martial arts program will teach as a regular part of every class.
So, if you are parent, be concern about your child’s lack of self-control, consider enrolling your child is martial arts program. Like doctors, not all martial arts academies are created equally. Before you enroll in a program, make sure the program gives you ample time to try a class and to see firsthand how the instructors and team members interact with the students. You may also want to drop in unexpectedly with any notice.