Parenting

Parent Involvement: How Much Is Too Much?

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4 days ago
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Lately, I’ve really been struggling even more than usual with how much interaction and involvement I should have in my son’s tennis life.  He’s 16 1/2 now, driving a car that we provide him, with 24/7 access to a computer and iPhone.  That means he can get himself to the courts and take care of any scheduling or planning that needs to happen related to his tennis.  That also means, theoretically, that I can take a step back and let go, let him handle any tennis things with his coach, simply serve as a funding source and chauffeur for the out-of-town tournaments (and, of course, as a sounding board, too, when he needs it).  The problem is that he’s a boy, and, like many teenage boys, falls a bit short in the communication department, More >

Happy Mother’s Day

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1 week ago
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Those three kiddos in the photo above belong to me and have taught me more about life than I ever thought I could learn. 

This morning, I read the following in an email from Janis Meredith of JBMThinks and wanted to share it with y’all.  I think she does a great job of recognizing the challenges of parenting!

Happy Mother’s Day!

I hope you moms feel loved and I hope you dads make sure Mom feels loved.

But even in the midst of being appreciated, moms and dads can feel overwhelmed with the parenting job, and you may ever wonder if you will get this parenting thing figured out.

You might be thinking with all the rest of us, I’ll probably get the hang of it the day my my kids leave home!

My youngest turns 20 in a couple of weeks. I should More >

Share the Love

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2 weeks ago
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If you listened to this week’s ParentingAces Radio Show, you may recall Sol Schwartz of Holabird Sports talking about one of his ideas for raising money to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy, especially those in the tennis community.  If you’re not aware of the damage done to our tennis compatriots in the Northeast, take a look at this video:

   

Sol’s fundraiser is a simple one to implement and goes something like this:

When your child registers to play a junior tennis tournament, have him or her contact the Tournament Director to ask if it would be okay to place a jar at the Tournament Check-In Desk.  That jar would be a collection point for whatever spare change players and their parents would like to contribute to the Junior Tennis More >

USTA Online Sportsmanship Guide

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3 weeks ago
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I just received the following email from USTA South Carolina due to the fact that my son will be playing in a tournament there this weekend:

Prior to your child’s participation in an the upcoming Bullfrog Designated tournament, please take the time to view the Sportsmanship Guide linked below.  Please note that this is being sent to all entrants of the upcoming tournament via blind-copy on this e-mail. Junior tennis should be a fun and rewarding experience for our children. Character building lessons such as hard work, discipline, good sportsmanship, and endurance of adversity are regularly on display. Parents of junior players should also enjoy the time spent with their children, watching them develop not just into better tennis players More >

Too Much Generalizing, In General

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3 weeks ago
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I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m getting awfully tired of reading and hearing all the sweeping generalizations made about junior tennis players and their parents.  Not all junior players are spoiled, entitled brats.  Not all tennis parents are pushy, overbearing brutes.  There are plenty of sweet, well-grounded, hard-working, focused kids out there with parents who support and encourage those positive traits.

Yes, I know the bad ones rear their ugly heads from time to time – we all have our War Stories to share in this regard – but why all the generalizations?

I was talking with a good friend of mine recently, and she flat out told me that she encouraged her daughter to quit tennis and to play a different sport because “tennis More >

Another Giant Step

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1 month ago
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This past weekend was another giant step in my Tennis Parent Journey.  My son drove himself to a tournament.  Out of town.  About 2 hours from home.  While my husband and I were at a family reunion out of state.

Now, before you start thinking I am totally out of my mind, please know that I enlisted the support of a Fellow Tennis Mom to be on call for my son.  She and her son were staying at the same hotel as my kid.  She was in charge of checking my son into his room and making sure he had his key.  Her son was playing in the same age division as my kid.  And the boys go to school together.  (And I now owe her a very nice bottle of wine!)

As my husband and I left our house and headed to the airport, I made a mental list . . . Had I More >

The New Kid

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2 months ago
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It’s been a very long time since I’ve been the New Kid on a tennis team.

For those of you who don’t live in the Atlanta area, you may not be familiar with ALTA, the Atlanta Lawn Tennis Association, the largest tennis league in the country.  For those of you who do live here (or have lived here in recent years), you understand the importance of ALTA and how your team may or may not define you as a player (yes, I’m exaggerating a bit here, but . . .).

Anyway, this season, I have decided to try my hand on a new team.  For the past several years, I’ve played on the ladies A team in my neighborhood.  We have a great group of players, and it’s really the one social thing I do with my neighbors.  I’ve made several close friends as a result – More >

The Curse of Passion

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2 months ago
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For the past several weeks, my son has decided to become a Full-Fledged Teenager.  Those of you who have been-there-done-that know exactly what I mean . . . snarky attitude, disinterested facial expression, limited eye contact.  And, it’s mostly been directed at me.  I guess because I’m the one around him the majority of the time.

I’ve been through the Snarky Teenager thing twice before, so you’d think I’d have it down pat.  You’d be wrong.

When you have a passionate personality, your passion doesn’t just limit itself to the things where it can be beneficial.  Oh no!  Your passion permeates pretty much everything you do, including your child-rearing methods.  It would be so much easier on ALL of us if I could just chalk my son’s sass (can More >

My Dilemma

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2 months ago
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Lately, I’ve been really torn between covering the 2014 junior competition changes for everyone versus writing about the things that are really important to me personally, like my day-to-day experiences with my son – which is the reason behind this blog to begin with.  I’m hoping that the 2014 stuff will be resolved soon so I can get back to what I really want to share with y’all . . . my tennis journey with my own child.

But, I feel like as long as the 2014 changes have a chance of being revamped or paused or (dare I say it?) overturned, I need to keep writing about them and keeping y’all informed so we can all take whatever action is necessary to create the best competitive tennis environment for our children.  I wish USTA were doing a More >

Blast from the Past

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3 months ago
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This past weekend, we had one of the Regional Segment tournaments in Atlanta.  My son didn’t play, but one of his good friends from North Carolina did.  And we invited him and his dad to stay with us.

My son met Danny (and I met Danny’s mom) about 3 years ago when they were both playing a tournament in Augusta.  The boys hit it off right away and have stayed friends ever since.  While they don’t get to see each other as often as they would like, they communicate daily and are a strong presence in each other’s lives.

I swear, having Danny and his dad, Steve, at our house made me feel like I had gone back in time to when I was playing tournaments as a kid!  My family always had kids staying with us during tournaments, and my favorite events More >

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