Sailing is not hard. Sailing demands discipline and
alertness, qualities that few schools or after school activities can really teach
children today. When sailing, a child learns to appreciate and respect the
forces of nature and see how the earth really works, and understand how we, as
humans, must protect it.
Children learn to rely on and cultivate their common sense, and immediately
draw upon skills that they learned along the way: how to calculate distance,
how to read the weather, how a sailboat works, how to identify landmarks and
sea life.
Kids who learn how to sail will be developing
teamwork and decision-making skills, among others. It’s also a great way to get
them outdoors and away from the TV, tablets and video games. Sailing requires
just a medium level of fitness (to move around the boat, position the sails and
manage the ropes), but kids should know how to swim. Sailing can also be
appropriate for kids with special needs.