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3 reasons to get your children into rock climbing
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Indoor climbing has physical, mental and social benefits for kids ages 3 and up. - photo by Jon Vickers
Kids are natural climbers. They climb trees, fences and just about anything they can grab hold of.

Unlike adults, children do not have self-imposed limits and they have fewer preconceived notions about what their bodies can and cant do. With its skittle-colored handholds, an indoor climbing gym is the ideal jungle gym for kids.

Beyond the non-stop fun, indoor climbing offers kids valuable and lasting physical, mental and social benefits.

Physical

What makes climbing a unique physical activity is the multitude of movements that are utilized to ascend walls at different angles with a variety of holds. Instinctually, when a child learns to climb, he or she starts to discover their body mechanics as they build strength, increase balance, flexibility and power. This low-impact activity keeps kids burning energy while they rise to the challenge of pulling, pushing, twisting and stretching their body in a healthy way.

Mental

While most people think of climbing as purely physical, it actually requires a variety of mental abilities. Climbing can easily be compared to solving a vertical puzzle. It is an exercise in problem-solving and decision-making. A child must decipher the correct sequence of movements to link a particular set of holds in order to reach the top. This problem-solving aspect makes climbing a fun lesson for learning to create solutions to lifes future challenges.

In addition, climbing offers children an opportunity to learn long-term goal setting, which contrasts todays culture of instant gratification. To complete longer climbs, children must develop traits such as concentration, discipline, and focus traits that are easily transferable to school or later in the workplace. Its no accident that top-level climbers tend to be high achievers in life.

Lastly, climbing allows kids to move outside of their comfort zone in a controlled environment. When a child conquers one climbing challenge, there is another waiting, and they can learn something new from each one. Breaking through these barriers builds a childs confidence and teaches them to overcome fears in a productive way.

Social

While climbing is considered an individual sport, there are plenty of opportunities for one to develop communication skills, trust and friendship. Its common to see kids encouraging each other. Sharing climbs and solving challenges together allow young climbers to push each other constructively and build close friendships.

Although climbing can be casual and social, filled with physical or adventurous challenges, or provide a growth opportunity when pushing through mental barriers, the reality is most people climb because it is fun.
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From the book 'Outliers' comes proof that good health is more than just genetics
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Friends Jim Young, left, Mike Natale, Jeff Natale and Ryan Kiernan were on Greenwich High School football team together and Jim and Mike were captains. Jim, who was the youngest in Sherry Young's family, was welcome in the homes of the other three boys who still had siblings around and grandparents near. - photo by Sherry Young
As I look back on my life and the lives of others, both personally and in the reading I have done, I am convinced of the necessity of positive human contact in our lives. We are doubly blessed when we are able to make good friends or are a part of a family where we are accepted and loved.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers tells of a time in the 1950s when Dr. Stewart Wolf met a physician who practiced in the area of Roseto, Pennsylvania. Roseto was settled by a group of Italian families from Roseto, Italy, who re-created their life again in America.

This was in the 1950s before drugs and measures to prevent heart disease became important. In their conversation the physician said, You know, Ive been practicing for 17 years. I get patients from all over, and I rarely find anyone from Roseto under the age of 65 with heart disease.

Wolf was surprised by these words as, It was impossible to be a doctor, common sense said, and not see heart disease.

Wolf enlisted the aid of a sociologist and friend John Bruhn to help him. They found, There was no suicide, no alcoholism, no drug addiction, and very little crime. They didnt have anyone on welfare. Then we looked at peptic ulcers. They didnt have any of those either. These people were dying of old age. Thats it.

They checked into diet, genetics and possibilities of something in the foothills of eastern Pennsylvania but nothing made sense.

What they found was that Rosetans visited one another, stopping to chat in Italian on the street, say, or cooking for one another in their backyards. (Researchers) learned about the extended family clans that underlay the towns social structure. They saw how many homes had three generations living under one roof and how much respect grandparents commanded. They went to Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and saw the unifying and calming effect of the church. They counted 22 separate civic organizations in a town of just under 2,000 people. They picked up on the particular egalitarian ethos of the community, which discouraged the wealthy from flaunting their success and helped the unsuccessful obscure their failures.

What they found eventually convinced the medical establishment to look beyond the individual and understand the culture people are part of their friends, families and town they came from. They determined that the people we surround ourselves with and the values of the world we inhabit have a profound effect on who we are.

Likely, this study could have been done with other ethnicities. However, my family's experiences with the Italian families in Connecticut ring true to the study. Our hungry and growing sons, especially our youngest son, Jim, who was left home alone with two beady-eyed parents, all had some memorable experiences being fed and loved in the Cos Cob multigenerational families. Proof of the African proverb, It takes a village to raise a child.

We live in an age when the contact we have with people often is on the internet, and many of us live among strangers. Unless we make the effort to reach out, we will become isolated, especially as we age. The Rosetan study is proof that reaching out and communicating may be good for our health.
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