Kids in Sports | Character Building | JBM Thinks

According to Prevent Blindness America, 40,000 eye injuries related to sports and recreation occur every year, and over 90% of them can be prevented with the proper use of sports eyewear. Baseball and basketball make up the majority of youth sports eye injuries. For children ages 5 to 14, baseball is the No. 1 cause [...]

Sports nutrition is just as important to your child’s game as practice. You can help your child be prepared for his games by feeding him the right foods to boost his energy. For many athletes, it may seem like a good idea to have an energy drink or  something caffeinated before going to practice or [...]

Today’s guest post is about one of the most common injuries in youth sports: ankle sprains. Michelle Meier from Ektio writes about how to help prevent ankle sprains. Sooner or later, your young athlete will suffer from one. These tips are simple and may seem rather obvious to you, but I have a feeling that many [...]

If your child has played for a team that suffered through youth sports coaching drama, then you know just how frustrating it can be. Any of these sound familiar? The coaches don’t get along with each other The head coach fires assistants who know more about the sport than he does The coaches have no [...]

There’s much discussion among the youth sports pundits about whether travel ball is good for young athletes. But from what I can tell, it’s not going away any time soon. If your child is entrenched in the world of travel sports, then your weekends are not your own and there is a very good chance [...]

There’s a lot of discussion going on about what athletes should drink.  I decided to do some research and discover for myself what experts agree on as the 6 best sports drinks for kids. Here’s what I learned: Water Our bodies are made up of  70-percent water and when you sweat you lose water concentration. [...]

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 [...]

We have gone very techie with our picture taking, snapping away with our phones or digital cameras at our kids’ youth sports events. Putting those pics on Facebook or Instagram is a fun and quick way to share, but sometimes you just gotta have the real thing. That’s why Groovebook is so awesome. This free [...]

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 [...]