Table Tennis For Kids, Is Your Child Playing The Game?

As a parent, are you fulfilling your role in guiding your child in sporting activities? Children need to discover and explore their talent in sports. Table tennis, commonly known as ping pong, is a popular sporting activity among children. Besides being full of fun, ping pong game enhances children’s brain development.

table tennis for kids image source: playo.co

It is essential to train your children in the second-largest sport globally and let them enjoy the benefits of the game. Currently, there are table tennis training clubs and academies for children. Also, many technologies have come up with kid’s ping pong equipment. If your child isn’t playing table tennis, he or she is missing a lot!

Importance of Table Tennis for Kids

Playing table tennis has various benefits. Below are some of the essential advantages of letting your child play table tennis;

Social bonding:  In this era of technology, children often spent time online, something that affects their social life. Letting your child play ping pong builds the kid’s communication and social skills. Children players share a similar interest, bond together, and spent quality time.

Brain health: Studies show that table tennis game improves motor and strategy functions and promotes long-term memory. The game helps your kid’s young and growing brain.

Physical development: By playing table tennis, your kids stay healthy, in good shape, and have enhanced hand and eye coordination. The game also strengthens muscles and bones and promotes flexibility and agility.

It’s fun, easy to play, and inexpensive: Table tennis can be played for fun or as a career. Also, it does not matter the gender, age, or size of your child. The rules are easy to understand. Besides, it is a cheap sport.

Table tennis equipment for kids, such as tables, blades/rackets/paddles/bats, is inexpensive and long-lasting. You can let your child play at home by purchasing table tennis equipment for kids. Table tennis sneakers, tees, and shorts are cheap and available.

How to Train Your Kid for Table Tennis

You can train your child at home. If your home is spacious, you can purchase table tennis equipment for kids online. You can play with your child any time, any day.

Alternatively, you can enroll your child in a training club/academy. It exposes your child to the table tennis environment. There are various training clubs where your child will be trained by a coach and mentored all the way.

Relevant Equipment and Accessories For Kids

Ping pong Technology has come up with equipment that meets table tennis needs for kids to play the game. Below is the most popular and recommended equipment.

A suggestion of All Wood Ply Blade for Toddler

It is a request from my daughter, who is 8 years old, and she has been playing table tennis for almost a year. She has been using the Andro Super Core Cell OFF+ as her first blade, and I think it does not suit her playing stroke well.

Thus, I am looking for another ALL WOOD ply for her. She tried COPPA GOLD forehand and EURO CHALLENGE as backhand rubbers. She is a left-handed player, primarily concentrating on bringing a lot of brushing on her forehand drive.

yasaka silverline allwood

The strokes that she is currently practicing are:

  • Forehand and Backhand push
  • Forehand and Backhand counter
  • Forehand drive
  • High-toss side spin and backhand sidespin and cut serves

Develop More Muscle Strength

I am searching only for ALL WOOD ply as I don’t want to give her a carbon ply at the moment to help her gain more muscle strength on her developing muscles. Also, I think that carbon blades are not always the best option, even if they have perfected his technique.

I know that playing with an ALL WOOD blade does not mean that her muscles will grow stronger. She must practice several footwork exercises to develop her body structure.

But I know that the advantages of ALL WOOD blades against carbon ones are that they are much slower but with fantastic feeling/feedback of the ball. This feedback will give her a better understanding of the game. Another feature is that you have perfect control over your shots with ALL WOOD blades and a significant variation on how much power (speed/spin/placement) you can exert to the ball.

Some coaches believe that either you begin learning with a carbon blade or an ALL WOOD one, it is the same thing as long as you try to perfect your technique through thousand/million repetitions.

With ALL WOOD blades, it is easier to learn and perfect each stroke because of the feedback and control. Therefore, I will always suggest she goes for an ALL WOOD blade until she masters the skill and feels more comfortable with something faster. By then, it only would be the right time for her to grip the carbon one.

They are in the ‘fast’ category; according to the stats, they have a flatter trajectory. Carbon blades also tend to be OFF or OFF+ while ALL WOOD blades, although ‘slower,’ can give you a higher throw, more arc, and better feel.

Expensive One Not Necessarily The Best

However, everyone needs to bear in mind that a more expensive blade is not necessarily mean better. It still depends on how well the blade and suits your playing style.

After looking around and trying enough of ALL WOOD blades, I finally get her a Yasaka Silverline with an FL handle. She immediately falls in love with it, and I can see her overall playing style improve just after using this blade.

Another ALL WOOD blade worth considering would be the Balsa blades, which have thick in width and light. Before paying for it, the best thing for you to know is to ask your supplier, who has decades of experience on what they think about the blade.

Since my daughter is a child, I would think that she should stay a long time with a light blade. The Yasaka Silverline that she used to practice table tennis is an excellent one for her. Lightweight blades like this one offer a superb feeling along with decent speed and good spin.

First Table Tennis Rubber for Kids

We all know table tennis is an excellent sport for kids. Even if they can’t see over the edge of the table, you can volley with them on the floor. My kids love to do practice swings without even having a ball or table anywhere nearby.

When it comes time to buy a racket for kids, I think many people over-think the whole process. I have heard people talk about wanting kids to use a table tennis racket that’s powerful even if it’s hard to control, claiming it will teach them to control the ball better.

table tennis for kids
table tennis for kids

I have heard other people talk about using table tennis rubber that gives the kids more control over the ball because they can learn to add power later and try out different types of rubber as his or her style develops.

I agree with giving kids a soft rubber with better control and agree that kids can start experimenting with different rubber types as they mature. My reasoning is a little different.

I want kids to enjoy the game first. Nobody wants to spend hours every day doing something that isn’t any fun. Having to crawl under the table or chase a little bouncing ball around a room is much less fun than having a volley continue beyond five, ten, or twenty returns.

One other factor I think bears consideration is the price. As table tennis lovers, we want our kids to play the sport for a long time, but as parents, we know that kids are fickle, and you never know how long they will stick with it.

If you can find an inexpensive rubber for beginners or all types of players for a reasonable price, and it also offers good control, then I think that would be a good choice.

I am currently looking at the Yasaka Gatien Extra blade with the extra rubber, an inexpensive all-around rubber.

Conclusion

Training your kid on table tennis is one of the best gifts you can give to your child. Table tennis for kids lets them have fun, grow their socializing and communication skills. The kid also benefits from improved brainpower and motor functionality.

You can play table tennis for recreational or professional purposes. Since it does not consider age, size, or gender, you can also have fun playing with your child at home by purchasing table tennis equipment online.

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Warren Davies

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