Martial Arts Training Helps Children Build Social Success

As parents we want nothing more than for our children to do well in school.

We want them to feel confident, happy, and to experience success. We want them to build positive friendships that support them to do their best and be their best. The last thing we want is for them to fall in with the “wrong crowd” at school or be involved with social missteps such as bullying. This social success is integral with academic success to doing well in school.

Martial Arts is about providing a physical opportunity for your child to build their character not just about them learning the kicks and punches. Participating in martial arts gives them a weekly opportunity to building character traits; to have them stretched and tested in a controlled environment. Like any skill to be given the opportunity to build character and to receive feedback on how to improve is how we become stronger, how we build any skill or character quality.

So specifically how is this achieved through the training at UMF Academy?

1. Self-Control

Kids learn to control themselves when they’re in the Academy because they are instantly rewarded for that self-control through their ability to master the techniques they are learning. They feel, see and experience the success that self-control will bring them. This is an important distinction for them throughout their life. They also receive physical feedback when they are not practicing self-control and this allows them to learn that if they are able to control themselves, then they can avoid unpleasant situations. We want our children to know this in every fibre of their being.

Self-control is also a huge part of the focus in martial arts because the ultimate goal is to seek to avoid physical confrontation rather than to engage in it, an amazing skill for our children to learn and to master within themselves.

2. Self Confidence

Training in martial arts allows children to build self-confidence. There is perhaps nothing more powerful socially than this confidence, because the major reason kids struggle socially is because they don’t believe in themselves, in their value and in their ability to produce a positive outcome in their environment. This has been widely documented as one of the main reasons that kids are bullied and why they become bullies in the school yard.

During martial arts training kids learn so much about what they’re capable of, finding themselves doing skills that they never thought possible. There is nothing that builds self-confidence better than the experience that you can achieve something yourself without the assistance of your parent. This builds strong independence. There’s also rank advancement and the achievement of awards and badges to recognize their accomplishments in a concrete way.

Self-confidence building is the foundation of martial arts training and at the core of technique and practice. This is one of the major things that sets martial arts apart from the many other sports your child may choose to participate in.

3. Respect

Kids learn respect in the martial arts Academy, not because their Sifu is walking around the Academy screaming at them. That’s not the kind of respect that we’re talking about. The respect is built from the well-developed structure of the martial arts environment, where the times to talk and to move are prescribed during class. That structure is satisfying and a great building block for kids, who really do thrive on structure!

Martial Arts structure has its basis in ancient tradition and was developed to support positive character growth throughout history. Even children who have previously struggled with behaviour often just settle right in to the rhythm of the class at the Academy. They grow to respect their teachers and fellow students through the academy structure and environment.

As parents we all need support to reinforce the qualities and social skills we want our children to develop. It’s really tough to be the only way our child comes into contact with skills to develop their character, ad a lot of pressure on us as individuals. Often these days we are fragmented from our extended families and we can benefit from reinforcement of the values we truly want to help our kids learn.

We all know our kids will not learn Self-Control, Self-Confidence and Respect on the internet, in fact they can learn the exact opposite, but we all know they will need these traits to tackle the modern world. We want these character traits to be tested in our kids and tested in an environment where they can make mistakes, where they can push boundaries and get controlled feedback that makes them stronger and resilient. We want this so that when the real world comes calling and they need to access these qualities; the qualities are there, they are fresh and they are iron-clad! And we as parents have done our job!!