by Lawrence Sanchez

Created on: July 18, 2010

In today's world the last thing we want to teach our children is how to strike another child. We also do not want to instill a level of aggression that can be conducive to our children practicing their new acquired skills on other kids. I am sorry to say that many of the martial arts styles though great for discipline, physical fitness, and self confidence do create these positives while increasing the students aggressive behavior in order to expose that inner Dragon or Tiger that are so idealized. Before you pick a martial arts style for your son or daughter you really have to think about what specific benefit you are looking to give your child.Think of it this way why on earth would you send a child who is extremely aggressive, who has issues with fighting to a place where they can improve their ability to injure another person. Sure martial arts teach discipline, but here in the USA ,I have seen that it is not the first priority in most of these all about the money schools. The traditional schools that teach the whole package are far and few in between.

Martial Arts is not just a training vessel for self defense but a lifestyle that one who studies it has to respect enough to only use it when all else fails. Children have to be supervised while they study the arts. Children that are not properly supervised can use their newly acquired skills inappropriately causing negative repercussions in many cases, such as a sibling with a broken nose or busted lip.Traditional schools that teach the history and reinforce the traditional values of their perspective art forms are a much better pick then some of these overly commercialized schools that litter shopping centers.

We as parents know what happens when our kids even pretend to play fight in school now a days. The schools do not full around anymore. Your children are prosecuted for hitting other kids and they are sent to the Principal's office for play fighting. Schools do not take aggressive behavior lightly even if its just two kids clowning around. I remember when I was a kid and watched those old third rate Kung Fu movies on Saturdays. The first thing I would do is start trying some of those moves on my friends and them on me. Let me tell you we hurt each other many times. The best thing is that we used to bring it to school to practice on our other friends. If this is not a recipe for disaster I don't know what is. Back then the teacher would tell us to knock it off, but today they would call the cops . Sounds funny but this is the world we now live in.

The recommendation I have for parents is the Martial Art, Aikido. This martial art has no attack positions. Aikido is strictly defensive and very deep in tradition and self control. Let me make this clear you do not learn how strike anyone in traditional Aikido. Aikido uses the aggressive foward motion of the attacker to redirect and control the attacker into a submission hold in most cases. Aikido takes years of study and belts are not given out as easily like in some of the other martial art types. Respect of life, the instructor, your fellow students and yourself are Paramount in the study of Aikido.

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