Who should read this chapter? Parents who encourage their children to participate in youth sports.

Summary: As adults, opportunities to participate in organized sports still remain. As parents, we have the choice of participating in adult sports activities ourselves, or instead, spending this time developing the athletic skills of our children in their youth sports. The former choice helps only the parent, while the latter choice benefits parent and child. The former choice ignores your child, while the latter choice spends time with your child. As an adult "athlete" myself, I'm washed up and have little potential for improvement. It is much more fun helping children along in their sports. The progressive improvement that you will witness will make you proud.

Now that I am getting older, I don't play as much sports as I used to. It would be fun to go out golfing with my friends. It would be fun to join an adult tennis team league and play tennis twice a week or join an adult softball or baseball league and play an organized game on a big field again. It would be fun to join a volleyball league and play volleyball twice a week. It would be fun to join a club and play racquetball. It would be fun to play basketball on the weekend and get back into some kind of regular sport again. I have friends who do all of these things and I have been asked to participate in many of these adult sports. It would be fun, but there is one problem. A parent's time is limited. The more time I spend playing a sport, the less time I have to spend with my children.

Instead, it might be preferable to spend time developing your kids in their sports. For myself, I'm "washed up" when it comes to sports. I will not get much better than I am in most sports. Perhaps I could slow my rate of deterioration by playing more, but what good would that do. I would definitely have fun playing, but I have lots of fun coaching my children and watching them play. Instead of spending time playing my own sports, I'd rather spend time working on my children's sports.

The kids who do well in sports are those who are naturally athletically talented or those who practice at home a lot. The natural abilities of our children are harder to modify. By spending time with their practicing, parents can increase their skill level in any sport. What can you do? To a large degree, this is common sense when they are little. Focus on repetition. The more they do something, the better they get. For soccer, they should run a lot, dribble, and kick with both feet. Whatever they do in the game, they should practice. For baseball, throwing with them improves their catching and throwing skills. For basketball, they should be dribbling and shooting. For volleyball, they should be serving, bumping, setting and hitting. For golf, take them to the driving range to hit balls. For tennis, throw balls at them in the garage and let them hit and they can practice serving by marking an area in the yard or on the driveway for them to aim the ball at.

I get lots of exercise working with them. It is very rewarding to see their progress in the sport. I remember my oldest daughter used to hide in Kindergarten during organized outdoor games because she couldn't run fast enough to catch anyone. When I found out about this, I tried to improve her running skills by teaching her to push harder and to get up on her toes once she picked up enough speed. This worked quite well and she stopped hiding during these outdoor games since she could now catch most of the other children. When we first started her in soccer, she would run up and down the field, but she would never touch the ball. We gave her a modest goal of at least touching the ball once or twice during a game. I worked with her on this and after several seasons of soccer, she became the best player on the team. It's rewarding to see this kind of improvement and it's more fun than playing a sport myself as an adult.

As I mentioned in a separate chapter (Be a Coach), coaching a team is very rewarding. I have a very important job at the hospital. When I'm at work, I am in charge of the emergency department. But when I am coaching, I feel even more important. I don't know why this is, but I think it's because I feel like a parent to so many kids on the team. I get lots of respect from them and can see them all improving which makes me feel very good. I get a lot of exercise. Our teams have lots of parent assistant coaches. I've encouraged this and even a few moms have volunteered as coaches. Many parents help out when they can and it feels good to see the whole team working together for the sake of the children.

I must give some credit to some of my friends who have children older than my own. I really never thought that I would ever be a coach for kid sports. But I had observed some of my friends coaching their children's teams before my children became old enough to participate. This gave me a lot of encouragement and confidence because I figured that if my friends could coach, then I could coach too. I'm sure I'm not as good a coach as they are, but I think I do OK and all the kids on my teams tell me that they are having fun.

I have other friends who are quite athletic. They still play in organized leagues in various sports. They don't seem to spend much time with their kids and I don't see their kids excelling athletically. Some parents would rather play a sport on their own than play the sport with their children. I think it's more rewarding to play the sport with your child. You can spend more time with your children this way, you still get some exercise and your children will be better athletes and your parent/child relationship will grow stronger.

My son tells me that I'm his favorite coach. My daughter tells me that of all the soccer coaches she had, I was her favorite. This feels good now and I'm sure it will help in our future relationships when they become teenagers.