Many parents know about how valuable extracurricular activities are on college applications, but some of these activities also have far-reaching effects that can benefit children long into adulthood. Some of the best extracurricular activities are team sports like soccer, football, and baseball. Sports are classic recreational activities, and they do more than just teach players how to hit balls and run fast. They also give them life-long skills and teach core concepts about teamwork and success. If you are considering enrolling your high-school-aged child in a sports club, a high school baseball club is a great option for the following reasons.

Frequent Workouts

Baseball is a classic sport for a reason: it relies on a variety of physical skills. Unlike soccer, which promotes mostly lower-body exercise, baseball is an upper- and lower-body workout. Your child will not only have to run, but he or she will also have to swing bats and throw and catch baseballs. With an intense whole-body workout on a regular basis, your child will enjoy many health benefits, including improved endurance and physical fitness. If your child has depression or ADHD, frequent exercise as part of a team could help them develop healthy coping behaviors, too. With a coach guiding their exercise, they won't get distracted or discouraged, so they can really reap the full benefits of their frequent workouts.

Team Socialization

Making friends is hard for anyone, but high-school-aged children often suffer from loneliness or isolation if they don't have planned group activities. The rigid structure of a baseball team is the perfect environment for encouraging socialization. In a high school baseball club, your child will learn to work with others to achieve a shared goal and will bond with their peers through his or her work. He or she will also learn how to be a supportive and valuable member of a team, which is a useful skill in most career paths. On a baseball team, specifically, players rotate through different roles during games and practice sessions. They learn how to perform well under pressure while being watched by their teammates and how to support nervous teammates. These skills will support them as they work on teams in the future.

Confidence From Success

Every baseball team has a mix of successes and failures, but when a team works together to overcome their challenges and manages to succeed, that experience stays with the players throughout their lives. As your child works with their team to meet group goals, he or she will learn how to build skills and use them to support others. As your child sees his or her skills translate into success on the field, he or she will develop a sense of confidence. Overall, a baseball club is a great environment to support your child's growth into a skilled, confident adult.