The Benefits of Sports for Adolescent Development

Name Institutional Affiliations Date How sports benefit the development through adolescence Introduction Sports are significant activities that humans need to engage in throughout their lives. While defining sports, it is imperative to view it as any physical activity that a person engages in for pleasure or exercise. To this effect, sports help keep humans fit and physically strong throughout their lives, thus essential in each developmental stage of life. Engaging in sports improves humans’ personality and keeps all body organs alert, which proves essential for any developing teenager. Some people are very poor academically, but their personality remains defined by their sports engagement. For instance, through sports, a teenager's character may become built through developments in critical and analytical thinking, goal setting and risk-taking, shaping the future of such an adolescent powerfully. The need to analyze how sports benefit the development through adolescence is essential in understanding the impacts of sports on human development. Adolescence is a tricky developmental stage; thus, it is essential to engage its members in sports as it positively improves their health, emotional balance, strength, and skills, leading to a long healthy life. Adolescence is a crucial and sensitive transition stage as it defines psychological and physical developments from puberty to adulthood. It is a very gradual process that takes quite a significant amount of time to shape the child into adulthood. Thus, it requires great patience and proper monitoring to help the child transition accordingly. The adolescence process occurs between the ages of 10 to 19 years, implying that most adolescents are students either in primary or secondary schools, thus the need for proper guidance from teachers, parents, and society throughout this developmental phase. Adolescence exposes many children to peer pressures attributed to innate changes that they experience, like feeling mature, uncontrollable and independent during this period. Through the proper guidance, adolescents can become exposed to sport to limit their chances of engaging in destructive activities to search for happiness or kill their free time. Engaging in sport proves essential during this period as it enhances the acquisition of knowledge and skills that help shape the incoming adult. According to Razak, Abd Jabar and Wahid (2012), involvement in sports plays a significant role in enhancing humans' physical fitness and mental health, most especially in adolescents. According to these authors, parents must engage in sports with their children to show them the value of sports in shaping one's character and enhancing body fitness. Sporting activities prove essential as they prevent adolescents from engaging in harmful activities during their leisure time. As argued earlier, most people feel the need to engage in activities that define happiness