How to Combine Professional Sports and Schooling

Usually the better a child’s athletic performance, the worse his performance in school. In a busy schedule of trainings, training camps and competitions, it is difficult to combine school and sports. Sooner or later, the parents of a future champion face the following question: should they quit professional sports or forget about their child’s education?

Nursing essay writers have prepared  some tips on how to combine professional sports and schooling.

Physical activity helps students learn better

Spanish researchers conducted a study which showed that the performance of teenagers who play sports is better than their peers. According to the results of the experiment, young athletes tend to score higher on achievement tests.

Achievement among teenagers is a concern for teachers, parents, and researchers. More and more children, because of sedentary lifestyles, are becoming prone to cardiorespiratory ailments and illnesses common in adults. In adolescence, there is a mass abandonment of sports. The main reason is thought to be the lack of time and the alleged inability to combine sports and studies.

The study, conducted by lecturer Ana Ceder of the University of Jaime Primero in Spain, involved 313 teenagers, 124 of whom were athletes (with at least 10 hours of training per week) and 189 who were not athletes. All subjects completed two questionnaires, one identifying the adolescents’ academic knowledge and the other identifying their physical activity. In addition, the questionnaires were completed by the subjects’ parents, and the study also took into account the children’s grades in school.

It turned out that those students who played competitive sports performed better in all subjects, were more motivated and spent more time on active leisure activities.

Why is it not worth getting hung up on sports?

1. Broadening of horizons. When your sphere of interest is limited to sports, it is difficult to make friends outside the gym. You should develop a child’s general erudition so that he can easily communicate with people on any topic.
2. Not everyone becomes a champion. The world of sports is tough and sometimes brutal. A sports career can be ruined by a ridiculous injury. It’s important for a child to have the knowledge and skills with which to find a new path in life.
3. The “fishbowl syndrome.” Many athletes’ biographies end in oblivion. They can’t find themselves after sports, because they spent their childhood and youth like in an aquarium – only training and performances, no family, no school. A kid should have a backup plan, so he doesn’t get depressed when he quits sports.

How to combine sports and study

Alternative forms of education are becoming more and more popular. Correspondence and family education are optimal for child athletes.

But correspondence school has a great disadvantage: a child is in the contingent of the school and must obey its rules. For example, he must attend the school’s meetings or attend consultations on strictly defined dates. A family education gives more freedom, so let’s consider this way of combining professional sports and studies in more detail.

Step 1: Transferring Your Child to a Family Education

The law allows children to study outside of educational institutions. It is possible not to go to school, and study at home and combine sports and studies as much as possible.

To do this, notify the local education department and attach yourself to the school of your choice for the midterm evaluations. 

Step 2: Organizing your child’s education at home

It is difficult to teach children on your own. Not everyone has the time or patience. Only a family education enthusiast will be able to immerse themselves in the state educational standards, study the programs, select techniques and regularly engage with the child, so that they don’t have to choose between sports and studying.

It is more reasonable to entrust the organization of the educational process for an athlete to professionals: hire tutors, connect an online school, or use a cheap essay writing service  for academic help. To pick the best one,  check write my essays review.

Another problem with educating athletes (more seriously than money) is that it’s hard to find a teacher willing to adjust to a young athlete’s schedule. Online schools are more flexible. At Foxford Externship, for example, you can review classes and do your homework at any convenient time, and there are apps to study on the go.

Step 3: Create a schedule that combines studies and sports

To succeed both in sports and in school, you can not do without time management. The child should clearly know when it is time to train, when it is time for classes and homework, and when it is time to rest.

It is necessary to make a detailed plan with dates, timings and tasks, and then explain to the child how to work with it, so that sports do not interfere with studies and vice versa. You can do this yourself, but it is better to spare your nerves and time and entrust the planning to a personal tutor. This is a specialist who accompanies the learning process and helps children to distribute the load, and parents – to monitor progress.

Step 4: Keeping track of your regimen

Young athletes usually have no discipline problems. But sometimes fatigue and teenage laziness take over.

You should not forbid training because of bad grades. Such punishment can kill the desire for knowledge. On the contrary, try to boost your child’s motivation, and even praise him for a little progress in learning.

When a child starts to forget about lessons, and it starts to seem that sports interfere with learning, stories of famous athletes work well.

Step 5: Don’t forget about childhood

A child’s daily routine should necessarily include time for games, walks and hobbies. After all, he is first of all a child, and then an athlete and a student. To go to the goal without breakdowns, you need to regularly restore physical strength and “reset” the brain.