You’re a parent of a child that wants to play paintball and you have a lot of questions. As a parent, let me help you find your answers.
First, a little about me so that you know who is giving you this advice. I have a completed post secondary education in Outdoor Recreation Management, I love being outdoors kayaking, backcountry trekking, skiing…and paintball.
So why would a guy like me love paintball to the point of using my personal free time to promote the sport. That’s because I have discovered that paintball is one of the most misunderstood sports by parents, yet offers children the opportunity to learn important life skills.
The first question that you, the parent, will have about paintball has to do with safety. This is a very important part of paintball so I have devoted an entire article to paintball and safety.
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The second question that you will have may be a simple one and that is: “what is paintball?” It’s not a quick answer, so I have written another article that answers that question for you.
When you first visit a field you will hear a lot of players yelling; that’s because paintball is a team sport and players have to communicate with each other. For my son, I have noticed how this has improved his public speaking skills and his confidence in talking with others.
As adults, we understand the stresses of life: solving stressful situations at work, and staying focused on the tasks at hand. Since paintball provides short and intense periods of game play, children learn how to work through the adrenaline and stresses in a game and focus as a team player to complete an objective.
I too have found that the skills I have learned through paintball have translated into me being more productive at work and in my personal life.
Here is another thing to think about. In my first year of playing paintball I lost 45 lbs. According to the CDC over 1/3 of children are overweight or obese. When the average child is spending 5 to 7 hours a day in front of a screen, it kind of makes sense.
The average person will burn around 420 calories in an hour of playing paintball. So we can let our kids stay at home playing videos games, drinking pop and eating junk food or we can let them go outside and have a blast running around on a paintball field.
One last thing, as I stated at the start, I love to play paintball. That’s right, even at the age of 43…or older…you can learn to play paintball.
Paintball is a sport that I can play with my child in a competitive manner…either on the same team or against each other. The bond that is created between parent and child while playing paintball is strong. I can’t think of any other sport that builds a bond between parent and child like paintball.
Why? Think about it for a moment. We have to communicate and work together to succeed in our teams objective or we have to challenge each other in a controlled environment.
Then add the effects of the positive intensity of paintball, we both learn to trust each other.
There is more that I can help you with, so please keep reading through the other articles and come back for more as I will keep updating the Family Section of Social Paintball.