Cheerleading Child Development

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Every parent wants to encourage their child and ensure that they are developing on pace with or even above their peers. How do parents give their children an opportunity to go above and beyond their appropriate developmental milestones? The answer lies in the hobbies of the child and how these activities affect their rate of development. Overall, involvement in activity leads to greater development in children. However, finding the activity that achieves developmental goals in physical, psychological, and social aspects can be difficult. Luckily, the greatest opportunity for children to grow and adapt to the changes occurring during their development appears in one notable but often overlooked activity. Cheerleading is the best activity to …show more content…

“Children learn to engage with others, watching the behavior of others, and demonstrate proper behaviors” (Ewing). This activity teaches children how to differentiate their social behaviors when addressing a certain person or audience. A coach would be approached differently than a teammate in a social manner. The ability to adjust social manner to a particular audience is an imperative skill for children to acquire. However, this skill is often not developed by children until they are in early stages of teenage years. Cheerleading starts this behavior earlier in child development, which creates children that are more proficient in communication and demonstrate a respectable maturity. On a smaller scale, interaction with large crowds prepare children for future public speaking. Cheerleaders learn to be comfortable with large crowds and learn speaking skills such as voice projection, eye contact, and audience appeal. A crowd will not listen to a cheerleader, if the cheerleader does not demand their attention. Therefore, a child must learn to use their powerful nonverbal and verbal skills to attract the crowd. Applying these skills, cheerleading produces a stronger social ability than other activities through massive amounts of personal

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