Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Home Schooling in Cheerleading

     As young children become more serious about sports more quickly the number of students that are being home-schooled in order to spend more time focused on their sport is rapidly increasing.  I don't think that home-schooling for a sport like cheerleading is something that parents should be exposing their children to.
     I understand that athletes with high levels of potential often give up school to focus on training.  However, cheerleading seems to me to be a dead end.  I hate saying it, but how far can you go? Sure, you can eventually cheer in college and maybe even get a scholarship.  Is that worth giving up crucial social interaction at a young age? And that's assuming that even happens.  More often than not, injuries occur.  In a sport that's so dangerous, one injury can change everything.  Cheerleading and tumbling is not something that is meant to be done over and over again, all day every day.  It's detrimental to your body.
     An education is something that will benefit you for the rest of your life.  Although there are many amazing lessons one can take away from cheerleading, it's simply not comparable to what you learn in school, both academically and socially.  After college, there is no such thing as professional 'cheerleading'.  Cheerleading teams such as the well known Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders are more like dance teams, so the skills aren't even applicable.
     To be blunt, I think that parents who pull their young daughters from school in order to improve their standings in the cheer world need to get their priorities straight.  Although it may be fun to see your daughter rise in the ranks in the world of cheerleading, it won't feel the same when they are in college and thrown into a world that socially, they are not ready for.

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