Are you living vicariously through your child?
Extracurricular sports seem to be all around us. Kids are enrolled in soccer
teams, baseball leagues and gymnastics. The more nimble and able to
play the sport the child is, the more expensive additional classes,
equipment and availability of competitions becomes.
Is it possible to enjoy your
your kids being involved in sports? Yes!
- Sign them up for the
right reasons. If you are trying to resurrect your failed
cheerleading career through your pint-sized gymnast, you are asking for
trouble. (The same is true when dad is vicariously living through junior
on the football field.) Sports are supposed to be healthy methods of
having fun. If the kids are not having fun, you're not doing it right.
Either the child is participating in the wrong type of sport, or there
is too much pressure for healthy fun to occur.
- Encourage the friendships. Take the
opportunities for the team parties and post-game snacks seriously. Do
not live on such a tight schedule that your child cannot participate.
Rather, plan on being there at least 30 minutes after the end of
practice to eat, hang out with friends or help clean up. Encourage your
child to have friendships with other athletes who are participating in
the sport.
- Pick a sport and stick with
it. When the kids are little, you will have to try out several
sports before you find the one that's it. Our daughter had to
test-drive gymnastics, swimming, tennis, ballet and ice-skating before
realizing that her gifts, skills and interest really lay with
gymnastics. During the early exploration period, keep it to one sport
per season for your sanity and to keep the driving and hectic hassle to
a minimum.
- Beware the peer pressure.
I\'m talking about parental peer pressure here. While the kids are
having fun on the soccer field, the moms are discussing the latest
soccer shoes, the optional soccer camps over the summer and of course
the coach on the other team who just seems to be so much better. Do not
get sucked into the vortex of spending money you do not have on
activities your schedule cannot accommodate. Remember that you are there
because you want your child to have fun learning a sport, learning good
sportsmanship and making good friends in the process. You are not there
to crank out the next Beckenbauer. Yet peer pressure sneaks up on you.
Be on the lookout!
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