The city crowds of fans, go movies, TV shows, and exhibitions about football, everyone asks “do you play sports?!” and it’s hard to stay away. Parents are thinking, not whether to give the child to the sport? Other benefits of sport but health promotion – says sports psychologist Konstantin Bochvar.
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Reference: Bochvar Konstantin Alekseevich
Candidate of psychological Sciences, head of laboratory “Psychology of sports”, Moscow Institute of psychoanalysis, the psychologist of the national team of Russia on climbing and Academy eSports M19. The curator of the Russian sector of the European Union sports psychologists ENYSSP.
The athlete must become a machine for plugging balls
– Are you a psychologist of the national team of Russia on climbing, and worked with other teams. What professional sports teams a psychologist?
– In sports there are lots of questions that are based solely psychological preparation. When talking about high performance sport, the physical training standards, training programs, equipment and inventory due to competition and globalization has already reached such a level that everywhere for the most part the same.
The performance of the athlete varies in the moment of truth, when he speaks to him and nothing and no one can help you: neither the coach nor the team nor the parents or loved one. But he needs full concentration and a calm and confident state of mind, of body, mind and emotions. Such regulation is possible through systematic work with a specialist in sports psychology.
– How long have teams of their psychologists?
– As soon as psychology has become an independent science, and it happened in the late nineteenth century, after a few years began to organize the first Congress on psychology of sport. In fact, as soon as the psychology, and the sport has become a professional activity, determined the relationship of these areas.
Sports psychologists work for more than a century. And this specific amazing region, which is not similar to medicine or teaching or social psychology, because it combines the achievements of various Sciences and implements them in the training of active athletes. Virtually all the national teams in most countries of the world have their own coaches and psychologists responsible for mental health and training for competition. This applies to clubs, teams, individual athletes.
If the fan lives and emotions, the current athlete is not to the emotions. It needs to disable itself in experience and become a machine for scoring goals, fighting off shock and assists.
Before the game and after, in the locker room – you can surrender to the emotions. And during the game emotions is the prerogative of fans. The athlete must bring their actions to the control of mind and body.
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If the child is high – don’t have to give it up for volleyball
– On the wave of interest in sport, especially when our country is the biggest football event of the year, many parents are thinking, not whether to give the child to the football? When to give to the sport? Sport for all?
– Professional and mass sport are two totally different things. Sports in the Soviet years was called physical culture, now referred to as physical activity. This is something that is useful to everyone, regardless of physique, state of health and age. Here along with classic types are yoga, jumping on a skateboard, absolutely everything that makes us stronger, tougher, coordinated and healthier. One like dancing, others prefer a solo run, swim, climb mountains, someone fit martial arts or team sports, where success is possible with the active interaction with other people.
Professional sport is a fundamentally different phenomenon. Out of one person’s professional path, a path that allows you to live sports, to do and earn just them with no other classes and priorities. Sport is a career and that does not allow you to waste your time on something else.
On a national scale professional sport in the early twentieth century was an independent phenomenon (thanks to Baron de Coubertin and other powers enthusiasts), was the alternative to war: state and ideology can defend the championship in the sport without losing able-bodied citizens, it is a war without victims. Sport – highly competitive environment and specific activities. Therefore the sport is not for everyone, not everyone always needs first: it is fundamentally different from physical activity.
When choosing a physical activity the child comes to the aid of psychology, because neither the parents nor the coaches nor the doctors can’t look beyond puberty and imagine what body, the body will have the baby in five to ten years. First Hobbies, physical activity should be based on the fact that like to the child.
– What role psychology plays in this matter?
– Sports have beneficial effects on the child, but under one condition – if the parents are included. In recent years, many parents often do find even a minute for contact with the child for emotional support, education.
If we find time, if you regularly attach the child in sports, discussing the wins and the losses, it forms a secure attachment between parents and children, positively affects family relationships, contribute to the fact that the parents and children there is a common reason to rejoice and relive.
The strategy of the sport choice often follows the path of least resistance. “Active” child, believes most suitable “active” sports: basketball, football. If the child is high, then it must give in volleyball and fencing. But this way is good for real sports career, where innate properties will quickly gain the upper hand over rivals.
If we don’t want to raise a champion, but the dream of harmonious development and education for your child, it is possible to follow the path of most resistance.
Active, communicative, restless child may be interested in a single sport that will require it skills of self-regulation. For example, athletics, small or difficult types of coordination types of as gymnastics, where you have to “think” and alone to show the result.
A shy and unsociable child interested in hockey, soccer. Through club activities such child will be able to discover talents and learn to communicate, if he did not know how.
So the strategy choice of sport depends on what kind of future for the child we want.
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– But many sports may be too late to deal with.
– When talking about a professional career, Yes. Each sport has its own starting age. Gymnastics or figure skating require early inclusion in sports in 4-5 years. And the types that require enormous stamina, like running long distance or Cycling, no. The peak of development of these qualities at the age of after twenty years. It is time to change a lot of sports and go where I wonder, much later, not in four years.
But if we’re talking about physical activity and harmonious development of the whole person, body, soul, to start at any age good. Limitations of course there are.
For example, children, in my opinion, shouldn’t be Boxing because it’s accumulating a concussion and it is obvious that it is not useful. But any physical activity will develop and plasticity of the nervous system, and bodily flexibility, and learning new things, will produce the motivation and will be extremely useful in school and other activities.
The sport will not go astray
– Can the sport deal with any teenage problems or make them worse?
You have to look at the situation in which the child lives and his family. Speaking about the beneficial effects of sports, we cannot say that professional sport for many children becomes a social Elevator.
A child from the region moved to the big city, where there are sports facilities, travels around Europe and the world, where successful acts and earns a career. It may be a leap up to the child from not a very safe environment if he is successful and motivated, healthy and physically strong.
For all children (this is especially critical for Teens) sport is the way to go on a curve track. All harmful and risky behaviors characteristic of school time: low physical activity, obesity, harmful habits (alcoholism, drugs), destructive and self-destructive behavior, bullying and any form of unwarranted aggression – all of these risks are incompatible with a sports career.
If a teenager is seriously committed to the sport, then with high probability, this guarantees that he will not be in disadvantaged situations. Sports career – a lot of support and help in this matter.
If it is about the teenager, the sport not only strengthens the ties of the child and the parents, but communication with peers, because it teaches confidence, team work, increases stress. Any sport gives a lot of reasons to cope with stress, setbacks, therefore, those who are involved in sports, more stress compared to those who do not play sports at all.
When talking about the risks that the activities could aggravate or damage, it is nothing to go in my head does not come. There is no regularity that the sport – something dangerous, harmful and risky. There are risks of professional injury, but as the practice of medicine, home injuries are more common and more dangerous. That is no reason not to exercise.
– What psychological problems can be solved with the sport?
– Firstly, any sport or activity teaches the simple things, no matter what you do: to get a good result, and we have to do something boring and monotonous. The performance of the party in the ballet is preceded by hundreds and thousands of hours of painful stretching and boring testing at the bench. The one who do sports regularly, develops the ability to motivation and goal setting. Those who are not very industrious, not very good student, just will not stay in the sport. Athletes are all different, but there are no lazy! Serious classes definitely help anyone to be disciplined and hardworking.
Secondly, physical activity improves to a certain measure of confidence. Moreover, the adequate. After the first lost of the competition, we understand that there are objective reasons for our defeat. Athlete easier to accept yourself, to accept yourself, work on yourself. For adequate and healthy self-esteem sport is the best remedy.
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The third point is communication and the ability of people (especially selfish) to play by the rules, which was not invented by you but by someone else. In the case of unsportsmanlike conduct you are not. To be effective, and everyone wants the outcome, have to be honest, to accept the rules that exist. And that’s all important qualities for adult life.
Fourth, you should pay attention. And for shy and insecure people sport is a tremendous resource of support and friendship. Doing among their peers, seeing other people’s flaws and virtues, demonstrating their own, we are bound to each other. Many of us that sports owe their friends and loved ones.
– Sports probably develop different qualities, but what?
– Depending on the sport, the specifics are different. It may seem that martial arts are doing the very aggressive people. But, as the science and practice in these athletes is not the high level of aggression, and their main skill is the ultimate self-regulation. When they are hurt, they should not give in to emotions, their task is to outwit the opponent, to win, and it is possible to maintain tactical and strategic thinking, not to surrender to the instincts, but soberly ponder and plan.
For hockey and football, for example, is important not only communication and understanding of the intentions of the enemy and teammate, but first and foremost control their attention. The athlete can narrow your attention to the ball, the stick or the puck. He needs to see the entire site as a whole. To understand not only the trajectory, but the trajectory of the enemy. To observe, assess, react – it requires a colossal waste of mental energy.
When talking about single sports: figure skating, gymnastics, archery, climbing, the most important thing here to be able to disable the inner critic and accurately reproduce what is taught. That is to cope and manage your stress while showing great coordination. It just seems simple. It’s incredibly difficult, and the man who gave himself the power of panic, the body refuses, he becomes awkward, constrained.
The psyche coach will not break, but it can be a family man
– Athletes interact with their coach. And means of this interaction are different. Coaches often do not mince words, devalued, overly strict, to allow the athlete to the result. The same applies to coaches in sports clubs. Can the nature of the coach and his behavior towards the child hurt, especially in adolescence? Or sport so harden that they no longer notice the violence against yourself?
Coach is one of the most respected figures in the sporting life of a teenager. It is appropriate to draw a parallel between teachers and coaches, most of which loves children and his job.
But, as with school teachers, violence, and cynicism so bright things that to them are often riveted everyone’s attention, and mostly the blame for the negative stereotyping in the media. For a thousand cheerful and friendly coaches will find one that strikes the aggression and cruelty. But it’s not a rule but an exception, and often it is associated with a high degree of responsibility and professional burnout, not that a person is bad and immoral.
If the coach is incorrect, if the parents see that fellowship with him brings danger or risks, it is necessary to interrupt this interaction. However, this applies to any other professional, from whom the child is to some extent dependent. If communication does not suit you, you can change the teacher, the doctor, the tutor. If everything goes well, the coach becomes a close family figure to the child. The person he trusts, and this trust is fully justified.
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– To humiliate and devalue all the same quite often coaching technique, with the argument “otherwise it will not work.” If it doesn’t break the psyche of a child? I do not know him cruel to others?
– Popular expression, “to break the psyche” is used too often, this is an extremely rare phenomenon. The mind can break in combat, then we are talking about post-traumatic stress disorder. Aggressive or impolite communication is frustrating, to humiliate, to offend, but it does not break the psyche. This should be treated soberly.
The worst thing associated with the communication is reducing the child’s motivation. The sport can become repugnant to him. This is not good. Have physically active parents are born healthy children and educating them in the spirit of sports is cyclical, passed down from generation to generation. Therefore, it is necessary to try, even if a child is not a champion, he retained the love and affection for physical activity. And it will help the involvement of parents who can provide the correct behaviour of the coach. They can take the child from the sport with the same purpose. And not even becoming the champion of the world, this child in the future will certainly be able to have with your kids running around the Park, to skate, to play in the country football.
The task of parents not only raise Champions, how to instill a love of physical activity. That is why we need to be in synergy with the coach. If he instills a love of the sport, that’s good. If he’s efficient, but cruel, is to change it.
The focus of parents should always be the health and welfare of the child, in the second place the performance of the training process, and only at the last their own ambitions.
– Often parents give children to do for the company or because the section opened next to the house, not always considering the views of the child. How acceptable is it and what is the consequence?
– If the will of the child is ignored when parents try to realize their ambitions (mother dreamed of becoming a ballerina and my father was a water Polo player), the child may simply not justify parental expectations.
If the child is in a situation of the dynasty, when they want it or not, and to continue the work of their ancestors have, then it could turn out better than others, since his parents had been, but failure is not excluded.
If we tell the child that it is necessary though something to do, but what exactly, depends on what section is next to the house, it is a normal strategy. It is convenient for parents and often brings a good result. Many world Champions, with whom I spoke, remembering the beginning of her career, talked about clubs, children’s sports schools, which were near the house and where they went after school. In this case, the only risk is that the child may become bored if the sport will not be his calling.
Importantly, physical activity was not only useful, but also liked the child. For example, your son looks matches Tyson and dreams of becoming a boxer or sees Fedor wants to do Sambo, the daughter enthusiastically watching matches, Sharapova or performance Khorkina… Motivation is half the battle. And further all depends on ability. Or the child becomes a professional athlete, or just exercise and grow healthy and happy.