Benefits of Climbing for Kids

Rock climbing is an excellent way for kids to move their bodies, but it can be more than that. The vast, colorful, and exciting playground that is a climbing gym is the perfect spot to help kids get active, work on motor skills, overcome their fears, and more. There is nothing better than watching a kid overcome an obstacle that, moments ago, they were confident they could not get past. Not to mention, nothing brings a kid tired and ready for bed early like rock climbing!

Did you know that climbing can also help build essential life skills? Life skills learned through climbing include problem-solving, patience, and confidence, which help develop social skills! 

Children are recommended to spend at least an hour a day doing moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, and climbing is a perfect way to get a kid moving. It is fun to scale a wall like Spiderman, and the sense of accomplishment and applying a new skill build their confidence to try new things in other areas of their life!

Physical Activity

Rock climbing is an excellent way for kids to stay active while having fun! Pulling and pushing their little bodies up climbing walls, they’re experiencing a full-body workout without knowing it. While great for strengthening muscles and developing flexibility, climbing also improves endurance. It doesn’t look like a cardiovascular exercise, but climbing requires a lot of oxygen and blood flow. 

This activity can be as demanding as they want, as well. By joining a team or taking a climbing lesson, kids can learn to push themselves to climb more challenging routes, or they can climb their little hearts out around on the boulders and focus on having fun!

Motor Skills

We probably don’t remember learning how to move our bodies when we were younger, but we had to learn at some point, right? Climbing is an excellent way for kids to learn how to move their bodies and develop fine motor skills intentionally! It takes great focus to accurately reach out for the next handhold or shift their hips to step on that next foothold. By developing fine motor skills, kids learn body awareness, in other words, how to move.

Improves Confidence

As a child (even as an adult), it is vital to develop confidence when tackling new life obstacles. By overcoming a challenging climbing problem, kids learn that they will have to believe in themselves and try to reach their goals. We’ll never make it off the ground if we don’t try! This translates to everyday life because they are learning that it takes confidence to try something new without even knowing it.

Problem-Solving Skills

Another skill fostered by climbing is the ability to problem-solve. When kids are tasked with climbing a wall, they must figure out how to do it to work for their bodies. This could be reaching up with their other hand, stepping onto that further foothold first, or turning their body ever so slightly to stay on the wall.

These small but significant acts work to develop children’s problem-solving skills. When we think of new ways to accomplish a task, such as a climbing wall, we think of new ways to accomplish other things. As a bonus, experiencing the efforts of their problem-solving skills helps develop their confidence. This then cycles back and forth, providing them with the confidence to problem-solve any situation in life.

Social Aspect

Climbing is an excellent way for kids to learn social skills by interacting with other climbers. Whether they join a team or climb around the gym, they can build a community of folks who share the same interest. 

The bouldering mats are an excellent place for this.

Have you ever entered a gym only to see climbers sitting on the big mats near the bouldering walls, not climbing? Bouldering requires a lot of physical exertion, so oftentimes, you’ll find people resting or discussing beta together. This can be an excellent place for kids to interact with others and build their social repository.

Being Okay with Failure

In climbing, one must be okay with failing. A climber will inevitably go through their whole climbing life and never fall. Failure in itself isn’t a bad thing. Alternatively, it can push us to try to succeed even more. If every climber who fell off a problem stopped climbing, no climbers would be left! When a child climbs a wall and doesn’t reach the top, they are forced to quit or try again. This ‘try again’ stage strengthens their problem-solving skills by making them look for a different way to finish a climb.

Rock climbing is a great way to keep kids active, strengthen their problem-solving and motor skills, improve their confidence and social skills, and is a great teacher of failure. The benefits of climbing for kids can be seen far from the climbing wall!

Sign up your kids for summer camp today!