Why Climbing is Good for Children
1. Climbing teaches critical problem solving and decision-making skills.
Climbing a climbing route is very much like putting together a puzzle. Each move requires steady, decision making, such as where to go and how best to get there. Over and over again. Learning the process of problem solving and making good decisions are skills that are missing in today’s educational environment, where the focus is on memorization and recitation for exam purposes.
2. Climbing develops bravery and the ability to adapt to and overcome difficult conditions.
Overcoming your fear is a life skill as well as an integral component of success. Whether it’s fear of the unknown, fear of starting something or fear of failure. All successful people, have learned from a young age to overcome their fears and not let fear be a brake on moving forward in life to achieve their goals. Encourage your children to let go of their “comfort zone”, more commonly known in psychology terminology as a “comfort zone” to face their fears and constantly strive to become better! This will build them strong character and bravery. Their reward will be to seize the opportunities that present themselves, they will learn to overcome nervousness and not shy away from pushing their limits to become better.
3. Climbing promotes healthy lifestyle choices.
Have you ever seen an obese climber? Have you ever seen a climber smoking two-packs of cigarettes a day? Maybe once… People who rock climb love agility, flexibility, muscular strength and endurance. They hate obesity, laziness and weakness. Climbers are usually very healthy people, eat healthy and are interested in all kinds of fitness, from cycling, yoga or surfing. To be successful climbers, they need to eat well, drink water, and build lean muscle. Being fit and having strong mental clarity goes a long way to enable success on the slope. If you bring your kids to climbing, we will give them a reason to trade the various unhealthy snacks for fruit, gaming consoles for a bike, and build a love of activities.
4. Climbing is an adventure sport for your child that can be learned at low risk in a very controlled environment.
For better or worse, climbing has a reputation as an extreme sport. While this is certainly true for elite professionals in the sport, climbing is actually less extreme. Beginning climbers train by being tied to a rope (the rope runs through an anchor over the climbing route). When you are tied to a rope in a controlled environment such as an enclosed area with artificial walls and a special layer of protection, there is virtually zero danger! Mountain biking, kayaking, skiing, surfing, etc. are all much more dangerous activities than climbing. This makes climbing truly unique among the world’s adventure sports, and you can train yourself without the risk of serious injury.
5. Climbing teaches discipline and concentration.
It is widely accepted that self-discipline and the ability to concentrate are the traits associated with the most successful people worldwide. Climbing is an excellent way to impart the fundamentals of discipline because it requires your full concentration to achieve your goal. Your children will quickly learn that climbing narrows the world into a single line up the rock. No matter what is going on around them, smart focus on the goal, hand and foot coordination requires discipline and concentration to achieve the goal, which is none other than the top!!!
6. Climbing teaches lifelong skills such as : knot tying, route finding, rappelling, etc.
Sailing, rowing and many other sports… the skills developed through climbing are applicable to the whole range of outdoor sports. Knot tying, along with map reading and compass use are key skills developed in outdoor sports. Learning to read a vertical rock and select the basic route as well as rappelling are critical skills required in a rescue. All of these skills become through climbing skills for your children that will stay with them for a lifetime.
7. Climbing is affordable.
The cost of starting a climbing course is extremely low and there is no need to invest in equipment to begin with! Your children can train while having fun using the necessary equipment provided by our school for the purpose of the course.
8. Climbing is non-commercial.
If you too are tired of the commercialization of sport, of professional athletes who have forgotten the joy of sport and the goal is to advertise sponsors or chase big incomes then climbing is the sport you want your children to love. The world’s greatest athletes in the sport don’t make a living at it. They are driven to it by their love for the sport, for the joy of achieving the goal! The focus of climbing remains climbing. There are no performance enhancing drugs in the climbing world, so you can be sure that your children will stay away from tactics that insult the sport!
9. Climbing provides a healthy dose of humility.
All parents offer our children love, attention and positive reinforcement. However, it is vital for a child’s character development to learn that sometimes we fail in life and that this is nothing more than a stage to overcome and try again until we achieve our goal. This lesson will be easily passed on to children every time they fall off the wall from a small height onto the safety of special mattresses! They will fall they will get back up and persevere until they conquer the top of their goal.
10. Finally, climbing is super fun.
You may not be interested in a healthy lifestyle, mental exercise and skill acquisition, but you can’t overlook the fact that climbing is fun! Your kids will play, laugh, exercise through the activity and enjoy it! We all remember our little selves running around jumping around… it’s in a child’s nature to climb, fall and get back up again until they are exhausted of strength but their souls are filled with energy and beautiful images!