Sports Dads, can we talk for a minute about your young athletes? As a coach’s wife for 3 decades and sports mom for 21 years, I’ve seen just about every kind of sports dad there is, and I know you–you are most likely very competitive, love your child, and ultimately just want him or her…
10 Negative Thoughts Holding You and Your Child Back
Negative Thoughts are hard to ignore. They affect all areas of our lives, and when it comes to youth sports, it seems parents are especially susceptible to it. Author Steven Covey says that “We are addicted to our thoughts. We cannot change anything if we cannot change our thinking.” These 12 negative thoughts could be…
Take it from a Seasoned Wife and Mom: 4 Ways to Build a Strong Family
A strong family unit is important for every child, whether it’s blood family or friends-like-family. In fact, it’s one of the four keys to your child’s youth sports success. I believe very strongly in the importance of family and so I want to take a few minutes and give you some ideas for helping your…
I have a Dream For Youth Sports
Since Today is Martin Luther King Day, I wanted to recognize his contribution by re-posting my own I have a Dream for Youth Sports article from last year. As I read over it, I couldn’t help but wonder, have we made any progress since last year? I guess realizing this dream will not be easy…
Sports Parents, You Can CHOOSE
Sports parents, I’d like to challenge you with a word for 2015. And that word is: CHOOSE. I’ve never been big on resolutions, but I can certainly keep one word in my mind and the more I dwell on what Choose means, the more I am reminded that I do indeed have a choice to make…
Beware of the Danger of Selfies
Selfies are fun and harmless, right? To a certain extent, I’d say yes. But our society is obsessed with them and that preoccupation is not particularly healthy for kids. I recently read about a study on selfies which said this: Researchers from U.S. and British universities who surveyed nearly 900 female students in the American Midwest…
4 Masks Your Child Might Be Wearing When Playing Sports
Masks are abundant on Halloween. And I believe they are also everywhere in youth sports. I’m not talking about pitching masks, or football masks or lacrosse masks or hockey masks. But emotional masks, masks that are hiding something kids don’t want their parents or coaches to know about. With 30-40 million kids playing youth sports each year, I think…
How to Raise Your Kids to Have a Strong Sense of Family
Just because your kids are raised in a family doesn’t automatically mean they will have a strong sense of family. And when I say sense of family, I mean that your kids grow up to value their family and give it a high priority in their lives. How does a strong sense of family show itself?…
7 Ways to Protect Family Time
Is there a constant battle in your home to protect family time? Or perhaps you’ve not really given it a second thought. You are so caught up in the current of busy-ness–work, kids’ activities, home management, family responsibilities–that the need to protect family time has been no more than a fleeting thought. If that is…
Parenting Tip: Don’t Focus on the Good Stuff
You probably took one look at this parenting tip and said, “Huh?” Let me explain it by beginning with a quote from Erma Bombeck, who said, quite simply: No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed. I think that we would all agree that making the bed is a good thing, however, it…