Athletic Games For Children

Children naturally run, jump, skip, kick and throw, seemingly non-stop throughout the day. Encourage your children to channel their exuberance into athletic games that give them an outlet for their energy. Athletic games help children avoid the epidemic of childhood obesity, whose rates have tripled --- 5 to 15 percent from 1980 to 2004, according to the American College of Sports Medicine.

Age-Appropriate Games

Introduce athletic games to toddlers and preschoolers by playing games with them that involve running, such as tag, kicking, bicycling or playing catch. Young children, who are more capable of following directions, enjoy T-ball, gymnastics and beginning martial arts. MayoClinic.com recommends waiting until your children are over 8 years old for contact sports and more organized games.

Considerations for Parents

When choosing athletic games for your child, pay special attention to physical and emotional safety issues. Look for what safety equipment is used, whether proper form and movement is taught and if warm-up and stretching is part of every practice session. Look for coaches who are positive and encourage all the players to do their best. MayoClinic.com reminds parents to focus on the pleasures of physical activity and emphasize that effort and improvement are more important than winning.

Two Popular Games

While soccer has long been popular around the world, children in the U.S. began playing it in droves when the American Youth Soccer Organization, AYSO, began in 1964 with nine teams. As of 2009, AYSO had over 50,000 teams and over 650,000 players, of which 40 percent are girls.

Professional baseball established a baseball program for teenage boys in the 1880s and a private league for boys began in 1939 for 30 players. Little League grew to become the world's largest organized youth athletic program in 2010, with almost 200,000 teams in all 50 states and in over 80 countries.

Professional Recommendations

The National Association for Sport and Physical Education, NASPE, recommends that children under age 15 participate in multiple sports and informal activities rather than specializing in just one sport. The NASPE cites research showing that children experience more harm than good physically, psychologically and socially from involvement in only one sport. NASPE encourages parents to expose their children to a variety of different physical activities --- including competitive and adventurous, team and individual --- to minimize injuries and allow children to discover their own preferences.

According to the American Council on Exercise, school physical education departments are beginning to follow the NASPE advice. The ACE reported in 2010 that some PE departments emphasize participation over competition. Schools have not given up completely on traditional athletic games, but they also introduce children to activities such as rock-climbing, self-defense and even circus skills such as juggling and stilt-walking.