Faith Family Fitness Freedom

How is today’s culture impacting the identity of our youth. How is the acceptance of radical, woke ideals influencing the dynamic of adolescent development. All this in relation to Erickson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development on this episode.

Stage 3: Initiative Versus Guilt 3-5 years old

Stage 4: Industry Versus Inferiority 5-12 years old

The UK BioBank has just announced that it will release over 500,000 genome sequences to researchers, allowing for different universities and research centers to find links amongst the given population for things such as disease, health, and medical innovation.

Plenty of news will report on the groundbreaking nature of such release and praise the work of these researchers, but is there more to this. Could this release of half a million peoples medical records and genome sequences be a world wide security threat if placed in the hands of bad actors. Can databases truly be secure enough to prevent breaches directly linking medical records to the individual participants. Will this information be acquired and used in gain of function research.

You will have to make a decision for yourself when asked to participate in these types of studies, and they are most likely already carrying out this type of research and data gathering in your own state. They are in Colorado.

Find Out More:

https://www.faithfamilyfit.org/post/possible-global-threat-the-contrarian-views-on-release-of-500-000-genome-sequences-from-uk-biobank

Late Bloomer Resource Center

Often times the goals of a coach align with the nature for competitiveness and a will to succeed. A successful team may often times be built around a couple of highly successful core athletes. In the pursuit to create elite athletes, those with the most perceived potential are often given more playing time and more coaches attention.

In a study by Horn and Lox cited in Children’s Organized Sport: A Developmental Perspective, they found “Early maturers benefit from positive reinforcement and encouragement, while late bloomers- due to their lack of skill, size or experience- receive markedly less social support and reinforcement” (Brady, 2004, p. 38). In the same article, Brady (2004), cites Matsudo stating that people often predict future athletic success on general physical fitness which favors early maturing athletes.

The extra attention given to those early maturers or athletes, who display early talents, may discourage those late bloomers and could quite possibly lead to dropout from sport. This “all eggs in one basket” approach of providing more attention to those who show early signs of athleticism leaves out a chunk of those youth that could be benefiting from sport. Furthermore it may be advantageous to not rule out those late bloomers as many studies presented will show that early signs of athleticism does not imply future success and that those late bloomers could very well take over those showing early signs of talent.

As a coach, it is hard to see those who are developmentally behind cope with performance values that are behind their peers. This research has been a core focus of mine for the last 8 years. Six years ago one of my athletes, a developmentally delayed twelve year old was competing against two developmentally ahead nine year olds. Although the athlete had a phenomenal race and showed improvement based on past results, he was distraught and almost in tears because he was beat out by both nine year olds by a large margin. His stature and build was no different than those of his competitors, and he was significantly smaller than his peers. He was one of the hardest working kids and has significantly improved (19.47% over the course of one season).

Many coaches may have written this kid off as having no talent, however there was no doubt in my mind that he would outperform his peers in a couple of years. This young man grew up to become the captain of his high school swim team, surpassed his peers in height and build and became one of the fastest kids in the state just 4 years later.

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The reason why this research matters so much, is we have a wealth of young boys quitting sports because they perceive their abilities as less that their peers. We have a large chunk of the youth population who are dis-serviced by the need to perform well in competition rather than given the opportunity to receive quality coaching and experience the joy of competing, learning teamwork and gaining friendships.

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I hope that if you are a parent, you utilize this information to educate your son, that he will catch up to his peers. I hope that if you are a coach, you utilize this information to encourage your athletes, ditch the all eggs in one basket approach and be patient for the time will come that your late bloomers will be a dominant force!

Related Article.

It's no surprise to many when I write that over the last 15 years I have been coaching I have seen a decline in some of the most basic skills in my novice athletes. Coordination, balance, hand eyes coordination and gross motor skills have fallen to the wayside.

We can most likely blame it on a decrease in recess time and activity availability, removal of true physical education from our schools and the increased prevalence of electronics in the home. While the youth of these upcoming generations are becoming far more advanced in electronics and computers than most adults by the age of 10, there is a tradeoff.

We find that many youth, have no throwing mechanics, can hardly jump or move and are utterly afraid of catching a ball. This is due to a couple things: lack of hand eye coordination, proprioception, and basic movement.

While it is easy to sometimes write off these things because your child isn't interested in sports, development of the eyes and learning depth perception and hand eye coordination is critical to your child's education and their ability to read and write. The eyes are linked to proprioception, vestibular, visual processing and sensory-motor abilities.

Even as far back as 1972, researchers were evaluating the links between the eyes and proprioception and the ability for a child to read. Jean Ayres, PhD, in her book Sensory Integrative Dysfunction states, “Integration of vestibular and proprioceptive inputs gives the child control over his eye movements. Without the guidance of these sensations, it is difficult for the child to focus on an object or follow it as it moves. Later on it may be difficult to move the eyes along a line of print. Reading may be so exhausting that it simply isn’t worth the effort.”

When the skill required for a given task is non-existent, an individual may become discouraged and may attempt to avoid an activity. The child that may not enjoy sports may just not feel confident in their abilities to perform on the field of play. Fear that exists when a moving object is coming toward them at a high rate of speed is more often than not a fear derived because that child is unable to track the ball and judge the speed and distance. This may lead to a child being unable to move toward the ball or away from the ball, leading to a frustrating or even painful experience.

As coaches and parents, you may find it easier to just avoid a task that a child is uncomfortable with leading to a missed opportunity to really train the visual systems required for life activities.

Why Kids Fidget Article.

Creating the perfect environment for focusing on work, whether it be homework or you job, everybody is different. While some people prefer a completely quiet environment, others prefer the hustle and bustle of a busy coffee shop. Same goes with what we do with our hands while focusing. Some people click a pen, others may squeeze a stress ball or even play with some toy.Kids are not exempt from the want to create an optimal learning environment, but how do we allow students the opportunity to create that environment while also not distracting those around them. We discuss the science of fidgeting as well as the implications in the classroom on today's show.

Join us for an exciting interview with Colorado Springs Mayoral Candidate Longinos Gonzales as we talk about the critical issues surrounding Cost of Living, Utility Cost, Public Safety, Dispatch, and the Attacks on Freedom.

Natural Immunity from COVID 19 found to be just as effective if not more than the vaccine. The tough questions being asked in Palestine, Ohio after the train derailment, meat being labeled as a carcinogen and Senator Fetterman checking himself into the hospital for depression. How do all these things intermix?