Best Martial Arts For Kids – A Guide For Parents

As a parent, knowing your child is confident and capable of defending themselves is a priority. Hence so many parents put their children into Martial Arts. Confidence and discipline will often keep children on the straight and narrow while allowing them to thrive in whichever field they pursue.

However, knowing which Martial Art to sign your child up for can be daunting. The primary concern for most parents is safety which makes options like Boxing and Muay Thai quite daunting. This often leads parents to sign their children up for non-combat training like Taekwondo or Karate, where a 55-year-old retired nurse teaches the class.

The Issue with this is that it creates an illusion for many children. Karate and TDK are incredible martial arts but they are nearly never taught properly to both children and adults. This results in people feeling confident and prepared but in reality being just as defenseless.

Below we’ve compiled a list of Martial Arts that are actually functional and easy for children to practice:

Wrestling

Wrestling is one of the best sports for self-defense and it is particularly good for children as there is no striking to the head. Children will learn control, weight distribution, strategic positioning, and so much more with wrestling. There are many different forms of wrestling but I think the best for self-defense is freestyle grappling with submissions instead of just point scoring.

A great example of someone from a freestyle wrestling background is former UFC Lightweight Champion; Khabib Nurmagamedov. Khabib was one of the most dominant fighters during his career and went his entire career undefeated. This is partially due to the incredible grappling skills he honed since he was a child.

Children are typically not powerful enough to use very explosive throws or takedowns which can sometimes hurt. Also, when wrestling with other children, they will get an excellent understanding of their strengths and how to direct them. The only other thing to consider are ear guards as constant rubbing of the ears can cause cauliflower ear.

Wrestling will allow your child to learn how to defend themselves and give them great confidence as well as discipline and respect.

Brazilian Jui-Jitsu – BJJ

Like Wrestling, Brazilian Jui-Jitsu is a great grappling discipline for everyone. But it becomes beneficial in regard to children because it isn’t nearly as violent as something like Boxing or Kickboxing while still being very effective. BJJ is still grappling but quite different from wrestling as it focuses more on the conflict on the ground that starts from the ground.

It also is exemplary when it comes to displaying the insignificance of size providing you know the proper technique. This means that whether your child is smaller or larger for their age, they will know how to use their weight to their advantage. BJJ has so many creative submissions; if you spend a few years practicing BJJ, you can become extremely effective, dangerous on the ground, and capable of self-defense. On top of that, you’ll never get physically hurt, at least intentionally, like you would with combat sports that involve striking.

Judo

Judo is one of the all-time great martial arts but it does encompass a lot of throws. While wrestling and BJJ involve some takedowns, Judo is very heavily reliant on throws and sometimes they can be quite violent. Most times they will be instructed to grapple carefully and children don’t usually have the strength to execute a throw powerful enough to cause genuine pain. Also, there will definitely be some padded floors when practicing Judo. But this is something to consider when deciding whether you think your child will enjoy this kind of training.

What also makes Judo so great for self-defense is that its ethos is about using your opponent’s aggression and weight against themselves. It translates incredibly well into real-life pushing and scuffles that kids experience growing up.

Boxing

Boxing is a great sport for cardiovascular endurance and building strength. However, while boxing training is incredibly beneficial to children, sparring and fighting are completely different. Parents should be informed about the risks that are implicated in the sport of Boxing, particularly in competition. Any physician will tell you that the human head, especially one with a young developing brain, is not meant to be hit. While there are many precautions you can take, the bottom line is that any striking martial art incurs this risk and I personally don’t think that children should be sparring/fighting each other until they can competently defend themselves and are mature enough to decide to enter a match and understand the implications of that. But as far as boxing training goes, like hitting the bag or pads, I think is very beneficial for children and adults alike.

In terms of self-defense, Boxing is phenomenal. I think in most real-world self-defense situations, its massively beneficial and will almost always be useful. Knowing how to properly punch is a great skill, but only when cornered with no other option. Respect and discipline are also important principles in Boxing and the importance of these principles is often instilled into the students by coaches to ensure they know to to conduct themselves in an appropriate manner in and outside the ring.

Muay Thai

As is the case with boxing, training Muay Thai is great for kids. While there isn’t so much emphasis on boxing finesse, Muay Thai techniques revolve around violence and hurting your opponent. Not just scoring points. This means that the sport is generally seen as more violent and the practitioners are among the most dangerous martial artists in the world. The leg kicks of Muay Thai are particularly brutal.

However, any good Muay Thai school will ease children into these techniques in a way they feel comfortable and safe. But as is the case with Boxing, sparring and fighting are dangerous for everyone and that still applies to children. In my opinion, Muay Thai is much more violent than pure boxing and you have to be incredibly tough to ever compete. So while it is a good discipline to learn, it may not be ideal if your child wants to compete in martial arts.

That being said, knowing Muay Thai is an excellent form of self-defense and would greatly help with building confidence.

Karate

The issue with Karate is that there are a lot of classes that are a little bit optimistic with their techniques. This means that often children will attend these classes, learn some basic forms, and will then be under the impression that they can defend themselves. All this means is that you have to be selective with where you decide to sign your child up for Karate lessons.

At the end of the day, learning something useful that will genuinely make them better is more important than them feeling great but being unable to defend themselves. Karate striking can be highly effective and an excellent form of exercise both mentally and physically. However, this depends on the coaches, you need someone who is going to teach striking fundamentals properly. Not just fancy spins and twirls, someone who will demonstrate how to develop the proper technique to throw strong and purposeful punches and kicks. Anything that involves holding forms and going through routines is usually useless.