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| Kids Golf |
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| LEARNING VS. BEING TAUGHT (George Connor) | |||
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How to Help Your Child Enjoy the Game We Love Before I begin, perform this short exercise. Remember hidden dreams, visions and aspirations of your childhood. Ask yourself, what if I would have had nothing but encouragement and affirmation that I would manifest my dream-how would my life have been different? True play is that environment in which everything is possible. We can be anyone, do anything, go anywhere and have it all without limits. As adults, we tend to forget what it was like to be able to play and absorb ourselves completely in the game. Dr. David Chamberlains video, Babies Know More Than You Think, is very informative and one that should be seen by all parents. In the video he reveals that a newborn child comes into this world compelled to learn through interaction. At first, we adults don't recognize our babies in a state of play. Initially, we see a bundle of reflexive activities. Arms and Legs wiggle and jolt sporadically. There is reaching, grabbing, staring and searching. These activities develop the reflex systems of the body. The infants first job in the first year of play is to learn bodily control. Getting into Everything is a phrase often heard, and often used to describe my 15-month-old daughter. The more they get into, the more they can connect and expand. Doing is learning. Without assimilating it, the infant is learning the world is infinite and humans have infinite possibilities. There has been much research on how a young child learns. It is known that in the first seven years, every activity and event goes directly to the brain and body where it is registered and stored. Neurons connect, and neuron fields connect to neuron fields by the billions. Each event is pure learning. Therefore, a "reason" to play and to interact, and to learn by doing so, would be ridiculous to a child. That young person is compelled to interact. Play is learning. Learning is play. Kids don't care about the names and types of play. Kids just play. Adults may find it useful to identify types of play, perhaps feeling more encouraged to play if the activity is perceived to have utility. Play can be categorized intellectually into various varieties which serve functions for developing systems. Each form of play interacts with other forms and, as these different designs and purposes mingle, they complete the interactions, which we call intelligence- the fundamental basis of future athletic performance. Imitative Play. Children imitate actions of their adult models within the childs perceptive field. All learning is based on the model. Simply stated, we all need a model in order to learn that thing. To learn to write the letter A, we need a model we can imitate. When a child plays dress up to look like mom or dad, the child is imitating the model. When he or she picks up a stick and makes a golf swing motion like the one seen on television, it is imitative play. Creative Play. With a multitude of models to imitate, children synthesize the characteristics of each and come up with the best. A child will see one player putt one way and another use a different style. Left to his own devices, the youngster will try both styles and create yet a third style, which is a composite of both models. This creative play is the very foundation of invention and evolvement Given time the child will develop the ability to achieve the goal. They will gravitate to the pleasure gained from the ball going in the hole and away from the activity, which does not offer that reward. Role-Playing. Role-playing is very similar to imitative play. When a child is exposed to lots of successful models, he or she will choose one or more successful golfers to emulate. In the childs imagination, he or she becomes that person/model, pretending to be the great player. Role-playing is essential for the athletic development of a child. The young athlete witnesses the performance of an admired performer and then pretends to be that player in every nuance of technique and mannerism. It is important to note that role-playing can also take on a limiting affect. Throwing clubs, pouting and fits of anger on a golf course are also learned behavior. You may find that a child never exhibited these traits until they play with adults. Remember this rule; The human brain does not care what it learns; it just learns the models put before its receptive senses. Visualization Play. Visualization is a very common form of play. Virtually all people have a movie playing in their brain at all times. So pervasive are these movies that the adults have long since ceased to notice the screen is occupied with some image or another. For example: What did you do yesterday? Tell me about your tee shot on number seven. The projection of these activities means you play a movie in your head. The down side to this is that other people can edit your movie. Likewise, adults tend to edit the child's movie by giving unsolicited advice to the junior golfer. An infant or toddler taken to the range to watch mom and dad hit balls will be imprinting golf pictures even though the child may seem uninterested. It takes just a few glances by the infant to make an internal photo of what mom and dad are engaged in doing. Incidentally, as a Teacher, I can sometimes know what set of parents a child belongs to just by seeing their swing. The child's swing often resembles closely that of the parents, for good or for bad. Symbolic
Play.
This
is
imagination
in
its
truest
form.
A
child
pretending
that
a
shovel
in
the
sandbox
is
a
bulldozer,
the
bathtub
is
the
ocean.
A
child
does
not
need
a
golf
club
to
play
and
experience
golf.
Adults
need
the
child
to
have
a
club
and
a
ball.
A
young
child
can
use
a
stick
for
a
club,
a
dandelion
for
a
ball
and
the
backyard
becomes
Augusta
National.
Keep
in
mind
that
the
child
is
not
pretending,
rather,
it
is
real. |
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