From the first steps

From birth, sport can already be present in babies’ lives. Many start with swimming, which is a complete sport, improving motor coordination and posture, helping them to crawl, sit and walk faster, preventing respiratory diseases, but there is an incredible aspect to this experience: swimming increases the emotional bond between baby and parents.
The skin-to-skin contact, the exercise of trust, the gaze at the “safe haven” – this whole scenario would be difficult to replicate in any other circumstance.
And what could be more valuable than this complicity with our children?

Sport is a path where there is no such thing as “going wrong”, as many might think.
The vast majority of children dream of becoming a professional athlete one day, and these athletes are the children who haven’t given up on their dream, which is one of the reasons we admire them so much.
We know that not everyone will achieve stardom in sport, but that in no way means that others haven’t succeeded.
We dream of the result, the trophies, the podium, but we forget that there is a bittersweet process that leads there, and that the real beauty of this journey is precisely in the steps taken, and not just in the final destination.

In a world where everything is more fragile and no one knows how to lose anymore, sport teaches us every day that defeat is not a failure, it’s a stepping stone.
Whichever sport you choose, your child will learn to fight for their things, become independent, develop a personality and understand the need for organization.
Mistakes are constant in sports, they are inevitable, they are an essential part of the process, and sport teaches us to make mistakes and forgive ourselves, to make mistakes and try again, to make mistakes until we get it right, then to get it right until we can’t make any more mistakes.
Sport, which brings with it the dream of the highest place on the podium, teaches us that this dream comes with hard work, with sacrifices, with merit, there are no shortcuts, the only way to get there is by putting one foot in front of the other and walking.

Personal experiences

It may seem abstract or overrated, so I’m going to ask permission in these next few paragraphs to share my own experiences, which illustrate what I’ve written.

My eldest daughter is a volleyball player, she’s 16 and in 2023 she moved from Brasília to São Paulo after being invited by a team there.
This was a huge step in her career, which began at the age of 11, when she first told me that she wanted to be a professional player.
As a father, at that moment it was my job to believe in my daughter’s dream, but at the same time to show her that every decision you make has consequences, and that she needs to take on the responsibilities that come with it.
Her routine changed, her diet changed, she started training longer hours, started physical work, started sleeping on time, learned to have discipline, learned to study so that her school subjects wouldn’t be an issue to be resolved later, after all, it’s her dream that’s at stake.

She has always been a girl with a strong personality, often taken for being ornery or arrogant, but within a team sport, in an organic and genuine process, she has learned to listen, to share, she has learned about teamwork and humility, and she has learned to make good use of this characteristic to become a leader, a self-assured person who knows her strengths and can work on her weaknesses.
A teenager who is capable of making her own decisions in a coherent way, and who won’t act on other people’s ideas.
Anyone who has teenage children knows how much trouble this saves!

Don’t force the interaction, let it happen organically

My youngest son is 10 years old, and today he’s a basketball player.
In my opinion, his career in sport has already been a success.
He was always a more introspective child, shy, he didn’t feel comfortable around different people, he didn’t interact much.
At home he was very different, chatty, a storyteller, but when he left that circle, he disappeared.
He even took futsal lessons, but it didn’t seem to be the stimulus he needed. He did judo, changed belts, liked it a lot, an excellent judoka, but it was still individual, something was missing there.
At Christmas 2022 he got a skateboard. My skateboarding skills are climbing, walking, doing light turns and going down without falling, I’ve never done more than that, and that’s what I taught him, but he wanted more, so I took him to a public track and told him that if he wanted to learn any tricks, he’d have to talk to someone who knew what they were doing, I stood back and watched him a bit awkwardly on the track, until a skater passed by doing maneuvers, and my son approached him and interacted, asked for tips and teachings, I celebrated it as if it were a goal, it was his initiative, I didn’t force the interaction, it happened organically, what a victory!
With this experience he gained confidence, learned to interact, and today he tells jokes to his friends and to anyone in the street.

My son has always been a very tall child, and often the size difference made him cringe, he seemed to be ashamed of being tall, so he discovered basketball, a sport where he found his passion, and has been excelling, with this, he embraced the idea of height being an advantage, he became more confident, which in the aspect of sociability made a huge difference in his life, also in an organic and genuine way.
Today he has friends, makes new friends and feels good about himself.
Having self-esteem and socializing in a real way in the world we live in, where everything ends up being on screens and digital, another victory for sport!

Look for good professionals

None of this happened magically, much more than just support and encouragement, it’s important to look for committed professionals, teachers who love what they do, these heroes, who so often don’t get the recognition they deserve, people who buy into the idea that sport, much more than training athletes, first and foremost trains human beings.
This whole process may not lead to the obvious podium that was the dream that started it all, but it will certainly lead to many other victories against the world that this dreaming child will still have to face.