Solo Sports vs Team Sports – Which to Choose?

Whether it’s you or your child, choosing between team sports and solo sports can be a decision that has pros and cons to both sides. While teamwork and community are big parts of team sports, independence and resilience are big parts of solo sports. Each is made up of different traits which build character.

So how do you differentiate between the two and make that choice? Is there one that’s better than the other? Let’s find out!

Solo Sports

Individual sports such as tennis, swimming or golf build mental strength and resilience in kids and athletes. Having the ability to rely solely on yourself and push yourself to continually improve your skills requires commitment and dedication. Some of the benefits received from team sports include:

• ResilienceOne of the most important lessons learnt in individual sports is that of resilience. You must learn how to bounce back from setbacks while developing mental strength to get you through any failures you encounter. As the burden of loss is solely on the individual, resilience is required to push through and try again.

• DisciplineWith no teammates to motivate you, you must maintain a strong sense of discipline to be able to push yourself to train and go beyond your limits – even when you don’t feel like it. If you’re in a sport like swimming that often requires very early starts, getting yourself into a habit of waking up early to get somewhere on time can be difficult – especially for a child or young adult. This discipline will become a positive character trait later in life.

• Strong sense of accomplishmentPlaying a solo sport means you’re responsible for your success and failures. When it comes to success, a strong sense of accomplishment and pride is often felt by the athlete, knowing that the success they have experienced is solely a result of their efforts. All the hard work and dedication have amounted to this success.

• Independence and self-awarenessIndividual sports give athletes a great sense of independence and self-awareness as they only have themselves to rely on. Their sport isn’t dependant on anyone else - it's just you out there, figuring it out on your own. You need to develop self-awareness and focus to pay attention to what’s happening around you and what you need to do.

Team Sports

Team sports are great environments for kids and athletes to learn how to share success and loss. With multiple people in the team, there is a dependence on each other to work together to achieve a common goal – whether that be winning a premiership game or a tournament. As with solo sports, there are many benefits to playing sport with others. These benefits include:

• Sense of community and belongingOne of the main benefits of team sports is the sense of community and belonging felt – like you’re part of a big family. Having teammates around you helps to share the feelings that come with success and failure, rather than having to endure them on your own. It provides a shared responsibility for the outcome, which means that having a bad day isn't the end of the world. Win or lose, you’ll always have your teammates. It may also help children who are a little bit shy or struggle to make friends come out of their shell as well as giving them a common interest to talk to, while feeling supported.

• Teamwork and cooperationAnother major benefit to team sports is learning teamwork and cooperation skills that can be applied in so many other life situations, such as group projects at school or work – even being in a relationship requires teamwork! From a young age, team sports instil the belief in children that no matter the individual talents of the players, you must work together and rely on your teammates to succeed. This also teaches kids how to trust and build trust.

• People skillsAs briefly mentioned earlier, team sports can help bring shyer children out of their shells. Being in a team – especially larger teams like soccer – makes for many different personalities in one place. While not everyone will get along with everyone, learning these people skills and how to deal with someone we don’t necessarily see eye to eye with will help when meeting all sorts of people in life.

• ResilienceSelf-resilience is learnt differently in team sports than it is in solo sports as you have your teammates around you to pick you up on your off days. One of the upsides of a team sport is that if one player is having an off day, the team will not necessarily fail because of it. It also gives the team an incentive to rally around someone who might be having an off day to boost them up.

• Team uniformHaving a team uniform is a sense of pride among players in a team sport. Pulling on that uniform means you’re representing your club and want to make it proud. With everyone looking the same, this fosters the sense of community and belonging to something bigger than one individual. Aside from that, it aids communication, allowing you to quickly establish who’s who on the field without having to look too hard at faces.

Team sport and solo sports both provide a range of benefits and lifelong character-building traits among children and athletes. While solo sports give athletes a strong feeling of independence and accomplishment, they often can feel down when they see a result as a failure. When it comes to team sports, having people around you promotes a great sense of community as well as celebrating victory with others. Unfortunately, athletes with strong individual talents don’t often get a chance to shine.

Although choosing between team and solo sports for your kids can feel like a difficult choice, you can be assured no matter what the choice Biz Collection Canada has your uniform sorted with a range of activewear and teamwear for men, women and youth. Head into your closest distributor today.