Kids in Sports | Character Building | JBM Thinks

Last month, I talked about  the parenting  skills it takes to discern why your child may be bossy.   Hopefully, you’ve been able to spend some time thinking about it and maybe putting your finger on a reason. Now, the question is, what parenting skills can you use to help your child stop being so [...]

There’s a lot of good parenting advice available. But I think there’s one thing that often gets overlooked; it’s something we all could stand to do a little more of–Let’s do a little more dancing. Dancing is good for the spirit. You can’t dance and be despondent. Dancing is good for the mind. You can’t [...]

Kids who play youth sports spend hours and hours practicing and playing the game.  If you step back and look at life as a whole, do you see sports for kids as a waste of time? One old guy who came into my husband’s work place does. His comment to my husband in one of [...]

Have you heard about the move to do away with scoreboards in youth sports? Richard Way, the project lead for Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD) with Canadian Sport for Life, says competitive sports do nothing to build self-esteem and positive sportsmanship. He feels that if we remove the focus on winning, players will stay engaged longer. Read [...]

Today is Earth Day and a good time to remember that we can look for ways to go green in youth sports. Cut down on water bottle waste by buying a sturdy,  stainless steel reusable water bottle and refilling it. Fill up a Gatorade cooler with water and let the kids fill their bottles. If you [...]

    What do you say to a 10-year-old in youth sports if that 10-year-old is you? The makers of this video challenged people to write a letter to their 10-year-old self. Their remarks enforce the fact that hindsight is very 20/20.   If you had to write a letter to your 10-year-old self, the [...]

  Many sports parents will reluctantly agree that maybe, just maybe they are guilty of doing things to annoy their athletic children. But the truth is, the annoying doesn’t stop there. Parents do things that annoy coaches too. Continue reading to find out what they are.             Get my free [...]

In January 2013, the US Department of Education clarified schools’ obligation to provide equal opportunity for students with disabilities to participate in extracurricular activities, particularly youth sports. Although the Department seems to have spelled it out pretty clearly on paper, what will this actually look like in real life?       As a youth [...]

Blaming others for what goes wrong is a common practice in youth sports–as it is in society.  When a run scores, when a touchdown pass is dropped, when a goal is scored, it always has to be someone’s fault, right? When young athletes get sucked into the blame game, is there ever really a winner? When your [...]

Parenting your young athlete through his youth sports experience should not be done randomly.  Start now to help your child set goals. What those goals are depends solely on your child, on his desires, on his dreams, and on his skills. Combine his desires with a dose of parental realism–deeming what goals are worthy and [...]