Janis B. Meredith's Blog: JBM Thinks Sportsparenting, page 74

9 Things No One Likes About Playing Youth Sports…and One of Them Really Sucks!

You and I both know that playing youth sports is not all fun and games. You probably wouldn’t be reading my blog if it was that easy. There’s a lot to enjoy, of course, but there’s also plenty that is very frustrating. This list is not meant to discourage turn you against youth sports. I […]

4 Steps to Teaching Your Child Respect for Opponents

Does your child have respect for opponents when he plays youth sports? Perhaps you see way too much disdain, badmouthing, and disrespect in youth sports as your child competes. When I watched the Olympics, I saw competitive respect exemplified in the lives of many Olympic athletes. I often saw athletes congratulating opponents even after they themselves […]

Family Priorities Vs Youth Sports: Who Wins this Tug of War?

Clashes between family priorities and youth sports are inevitable. It is a tug-of-war that causes conflict in many homes and on many teams. Things crop up: dentist appointments, family vacations, family emergencies. And sometimes it’s just the conflict of a double-booked calendar forcing parents to choose what gets the boot: youth sports or the event? […]

How Well Do You Know Your Child?

Do you really know your child? We all think we know our kids; after all we live in the same house, we’ve raised them and cared for them. That automatically means we know them, right? I once heard a story about a pro basketball player who found out one day when talking with a friend […]

15 Facts About Youth Sports That You Should Know

Do you know the facts about youth sports? Youth sports is big business. It is so huge that we can only guess at how large it has grown. I’ve seen estimates of over 21 million all the way to 35 million for kids ages 5-18. You may not even care about the numbers because you […]

5 Ways to Build Team Unity in Youth Sports

Team unity in youth sports does not just happen by chance. If your child has played for a team that had good chemistry, you know how important it is. Team unity can determine the success of your child’s team. If your child’s team has great talent, it won’t matter if they can’t get along and […]

Your Parenting Self Worth: Not Your Child’s Responsibility!

Is your parenting self worth based on the performance of your kids? Whether we mean to or not, we often attach our success as a parent–our self worth as a parent or person–to how awesome our kids are. Who doesn’t love being known as that amazing kid “Johnny’s mom” or that talented athlete “Susie’s dad”? […]

Two Words that Can Drive Sports Parents Crazy

Sports parents, you are your own worst enemy. Believe me, I know. After 21 years of parenting 3 athletes from pee-wee through college, I see clearly now that it was not the coach, or the teammates, or the other parents that did me in, it was two little words that haunted me before games, during […]

4 Tips for Helping Busy Sports Parents to Stay Sane

Busy sports parents will tell you that the true cost of being the parent of an athlete is not the money you spend on equipment or uniforms or shoes, it’s the one thing you can’t buy…. TIME. If you let them, youth sports can suck the free right out of your “free time.” For example, if […]

A Sportsparent’s Guide to Gaining Margin and Avoiding Overload

Margin? What busy sports parent has time for margin in his life?  Richard Swenson, author of Margin, says that margin is.. The space between our load and our limits. It is the amount allowed beyond that which is needed. It is something held in reserve for contingencies or unanticipated situations. Margin is the gap between […]