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Keeping Your Balance with a Crazy Calendar

As seen in Sports Illustrated August 23, 2004

Posted: Wednesday March 30, 2005

Several years ago, my son played on a hockey team with the son of Marcel Dionne, the Hall of Fame scorer for the Red Wings, Kings and Rangers. Toward the end of the season, parents were discussing whether their kids would be signing up for a spring hockey league. The grinding schedule had lasted from mid-September through mid-March, and I wasn't sure that a spring session on the ice made sense for my son. So I asked Dionne how much hockey he played as a kid when he was growing up in Canada. "It wasn't too complicated," he told me. "We played hockey in the winter, baseball in the spring and soccer in the fall."

I kept that in mind as I encouraged my kids to play a variety of sports, but times have changed dramatically. These days, for many athletes (and their parents), the seasons don't stop. Kids play soccer on teams in fall, winter and spring, and then they go off to soccer camp in the summer. Just about any sport has year-round options, so they all overlap and often overextend kids who try to find time to compete in every sport they enjoy.

This isn't likely to change. In fact, it's up to you to help your family negotiate the nonstop sports calendar. Your kids can't lose sight of more important priorities, and the whole family shouldn't feel consumed by running from game to game, practice to practice, sport to sport.

During the critical developmental years when kids start playing sports more seriously, parents must try to teach their young athletes to maintain a sense of balance. While it's great that your kids enjoy athletics, it's essential that they, as NBA forward Grant Hill has said, "pack two parachutes in life." Hill's parents taught him the importance of varied interests. He excelled in school and learned to play piano. If basketball hadn't worked out for him, he would have had diverse experiences to draw from. Help your children prioritize their time among athletics, schoolwork and other activities. The good news is that kids who play sports generally manage time better, but they need parental support to learn this balancing act. Sit with them to map out all of their games and practices on the family calendar. It gives them a feel for the busy days and months ahead and what they must do to accomplish everything.

Taking this time with the calendar in advance can be as helpful for you as it is for your athlete. You can grasp how demanding the sports schedule is going to be on the rest of the family. Getting your son to and from practices and games can be a daunting enough task when he's just playing one sport at a time. Throw in a couple of other sports and perhaps another child with games of her own, and it can get downright chaotic. Unfortunately, too many parents don't think enough about how complicated these logistics can be. Preseason parental planning should involve everything from transportation (setting up carpools with teammates) to communication lines in case of emergencies or inclement weather. Organizing ahead of time can save you a lot of physical and emotional wear and tear later on.

Even if you do get organized, you'll still need a break eventually. So will your child, and you should encourage him to take one. Many young athletes think they need to play their sport (or sports) throughout the year to keep up with other players, but that's not the case. They should never feel pressured to take on so much that sports become more of an obligation than a fun activity. They will need some vacation time or simply a chance to step away and enjoy all the other aspects of being a kid. It will prevent burnout, and it will also refresh them for the seasons ahead.

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