Football for Children: Good or Bad?
Winning or losing; Injured or healthy; Happy or sad; Insecure or confident; Good or bad? What can football do to the youth of America? Are the lessons that can be taught by football worth the risk of mental or physical harm that can be encountered through the sport? There are theories that have both opinions, but the decision is one that should be made by the parent. The parent wanting to make the decision about their children's participation in football is natural. The reason for this is that every mom or dad has a natural paternal instinct to protect his or her child (Ros-Lehtinen 1). The two concerns that parents have today are: physical injuries such as bumps, bruises, breaks, or anything of that nature, and things that could be detrimental to the mental state of a child, for example confidence problems, or obtaining too much fear of the sport at a young age. The concerns that parents have about the physical aspect of the game are legitimate. Dr. York M. Briggs explains, that if children over work themselves at a young age, then it could lead to many physical problems (Briggs). SafeUSA have studies showing "...that 15 to 20 percent of players age 8 to 14 are injured during the
As most people know, Henry Ford initialized the assembly line and was very successful because of it. Henry Ford once said, "Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, and working together is success"(results). Mr. Ford knew the importance of teamwork, and his quote shows how he feels about the subject. It is completely inevitable that a child will learn teamwork playing football. There is absolutely no way that a child can be on the field with ten other players and not realize the importance of his and other people's role. Just by realizing that everyone has a role initializes the learning of teamwork. Teamwork will spread through the team rapidly (Smith 64-67). Many parents will agree that football has many good things too offer, but they feel that the risk of injury is too much for their child. Growing up I excelled in football, and because of that participated all the way through football. Football helped me develop many characteristics. Some of those characteristics were leadership and teamwork. On the other hand my friend never developed leadership skills, and lacks discipline in many aspects of life. It is not definite that, by playing football, these skills would have been acquired, but many lessons learned on the football field can be turned around and used in society (Coakley 37). It is equally important for a family to have a leader at the head of the household. If a family does not have someone who is a good leader, then they can run into many problems down the road. If a family has no leadership skills, then parents will not be able to decide what their children should do, what they should eat, where they should live, or what school their children should attend. Basically, a child must learn leadership at some point in his or her life, or it could be detrimental to his or her entire future and the future of h
Some common words found in the essay are:
Briggs SafeUSA, Washington Wizard's, Bad Winning, Ford Coming, Sports Medicine, Commission Football, York Briggs, Henry Ford, playing football, child learn, leader field, decision parent parent, henry ford, chance learning, parent parent, leadership skills, learning teamwork, football injuries, concerns parents physical, physical harm,
Approximate Word count = 1263
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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