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Children’s day is about celebrating our children or the birthday of Jawaharlal Nehru. But the day is more than that. It’s about celebrating the spirit of childhood. A reminder to keep the child in us alive and to recognize and improve the lot of the children around us. Here are 4 reasons to celebrate sports hand in hand with children’s day:
Connect
There’s a huge, gaping chasm of a generation gap between kids and adults. To connect with kids, sports are seen as the most accessible medium. The reason for that is that you can talk all you want to them, but there’s a difference between talking and getting through. Sports provide the bridge needed to do that effectively. You can connect better with a kid by playing football with him rather than by lecturing him in a class.
Develop
There are a lot of educational and social benefits coming from getting kids involved in sports. It also promotes cognition, creativity and allows the child to develop social skills. Getting them involved in sports helps kids find relief from stress and anxiety, providing an outlet for self expression and channeling their energies constructively. It enables the children to develop themselves in all areas of life.
Provide
Providing a structured environment for sports lets us observe different dormant tendencies in kids which aren’t brought out in classrooms. But the problem is that with the increasing urbanization, open spaces are gradually shrinking. On one hand, kids living in slums are the least likely to attend school. And by prediction of the UN, by 2050, 70% of all population will live in urban areas. That does not bode well for the all round development of kids in our country. Although India is predominately a rural country, the migration keeps moving towards urban cities with an urban sprawl. For the freedom and development of children, we need to provide open spaces for them to play.
Celebrate
Nothing makes us feel like kids like going out and playing. Why not celebrate the day by doing so? The spirit of childhood can be best kept alive by getting out and playing sports. Childhood was all about outdoor sports. Running and jumping around. We should take a day to do the same as adults. Loosen the ties and get on our toes.
Funny how a decade ago we played football with our feet. Today we play with our hands, with fingers tapping on a gamepad. Let’s not let the grass grow. Go out and put your footprint on the fields!
