With a father that loves golf, and a granddad that enjoys tennis, it seems rather natural that an active and energetic child like Kyle will have a natural inclination towards sports.
I have toyed with the idea of sending him to speech and drama, since he is quite a drama king. And even art classes, as he has been asking for it. However, we have a limited enrichment budget and since I don't plan to over-schedule activities in a week for him, hb and I have decided on swimming and golf lessons. It seems quite common to send a child for formalised lessons as young as 2, but I have delayed lessons till this year, as I think that it is important that he shows interest, has the attention span and is able to follow instructions.
He enjoys swimming tremendously, and he is doing well in lessons with group instruction. He just had his first test from the swimming school, and despite the crowd of children having the tests the same day, he was game to go through it.
As for golf, we have justed started lessons last week and he is having loads of fun. He was able to tell me that his teacher taught him 'putting' and 'chipping' and even loudly exclaimed during his lessons to his coach, "Why I am only learning half swing?", when the rest of his other two classmates who joined earlier were doing full swings. No rush, my dear boy…one step at a time!
I have read this article that claims that it is too soon to think of sports for a 4 year old. I will agree with some of the points that the article mentioned, but I think physical and mental skills development required to learn a sport varies from child to child. Also since most sports require learning or playing in a group, the child needs to be ready to 'perform' in front of people. Looking at how outgoing and 'showy' Kyle can be at times, facing that pressure to 'perform' in a group/crowd does not seem to be a problem, in fact I always find that he needs to be reminded often to tone down his boisterousness.
Learning sports have been advantageous for us so far, as it has been effective to wear out his energy. Often he is like this 'energiser bunny' with the energy that never seems to tire out. On top of that, his appetite seems to have improved, and mealtimes are less of a chore 
These days, he tells me that he wants to be a sportsman when he grows up, "To be a sportsman, I don't need to go to school and study right?"
Nice try, my little sporty guy.
*hehe* Even at Sports School, they need to study! ;D Ah…swimming is important. Don’t know when we’d get our little one started on that. So sian to go looking for coach/lessons all over again!
.-= sam´s last blog ..Road to Reading =-.
There are pretty good swim schools out there these days with very affordable fees…just try not to go for the popular ones that all the moms flock to send their kids to. Heard that they have long wait list for those.