.Martial arts classes can do a lot for your child. Children who study the martial arts learn key skills that will help them throughout their lives. One of the most important things they learn is discipline.

Discipline is a skill that can help kids face challenges that arise at any stage of life. Martial arts teaches that discipline is the key to success in any endeavor. Here’s what you need to know about discipline, your child, and the martial arts.

How Do Martial Arts Classes Teach Discipline?

Let’s start with the basics. In any martial arts class, discipline is essential. To master any movement, a student must have enough discipline to heed their teacher’s instructions, copy their movements, and repeat the movement until they have mastered it.

Without focus and discipline, earning a new belt would be impossible. A martial arts class is a group setting but children are tested on their individual progress. It requires discipline to control behavior, emotions, and movements.

The topic of discipline is one that might not be enticing to most kids, but the benefit of learning about it in our classes is that they get to apply discipline to something they want to do. If they want to develop the skills necessary to do cool things like breaking a board, they must apply discipline.

The Benefits of Discipline for Your Child

Young kids often struggle with self-control. They may not move with confidence or respect the people around them. Such behavior is normal in early childhood development and it illustrates the need for training and support. In our martial arts classes, we meet kids where they are developmentally. As they learn the five tenets of martial arts, they will learn the importance of self-control, self-discipline, and mutual respect.

Let’s look at the ways that learning discipline in our martial arts classes can help your child.

• When your child goes to school, discipline is what will help them pay attention in class, ignore distractions, and get their school assignments done on time. 

• Within your family, discipline is what will allow your child to fulfill their household obligations, getting chores done on time and being a good family citizen.

• As discipline increases, so do self-confidence and respect. To behave with discipline is to behave with dignity and treat others with courtesy – and that means your child will be welcome wherever they go.

• In school and beyond, discipline is something that will help your child achieve their short-term and long-term goals. Whether their goal is to graduate at the top of their class, get into a top college, excel at a trade, or compete in sports, a disciplined child is far more likely to succeed than a child who never learned discipline. 

• Discipline is the key to self-improvement. As your child prepares for belt testing, they’ll be learning the benefits of discipline and perseverance, both of which can help them attain their goals in life.

Your child’s instructor will begin teaching your child about discipline from the moment they step into their first martial arts class. We find that the kids in our martial arts programs look up to their instructors — and one reason that they do is because they can see for themselves the way that discipline can help them on their journey.

Whether your child chooses to continue martial arts training into adulthood or not, learning self-control and self-discipline as a child will help them at every stage of life. We believe that martial arts instruction teaches kids to be good students, good citizens, and good people. Discipline plays an important role in those lessons.