Many families are sadly watching another summer fade away. The good news is that for those have who been scrambling to have their children’s time occupied with various activities, the start of school is very near. Until the school bells ring, however, what are some options for families to keep children busy and not just logging long hours on Netflix Instant? Perhaps at the last minute you enrolled your child in a sport camp. Sport camps are great for children who have a shown a particular interest in a sport, or would like to be exposed to a sport in a short amount of time without having to sign up for a whole season with a team or league.

Some sport campers will find their natural gifts to excel in a sport, but simply everyone is expecting to have fun and to improve. Some have aspirations of making the varsity team in 9th grade, others are trying to be selected to the travel team, or others have longer term goals of becoming an Olympian or a professional sports star. Regardless of one’s own goals and talents, the chief purpose of these camps is to celebrate the fun of sport.

But when one is trying to develop faster than he/she is able, there can be the inevitable growing pains, and the sport stops being fun. Other times children just want to play, and not be told to be in this position, execute this play, or over-intellectualize the game. Sport camps should be fun, but oftentimes kids can feel discouraged and find it not so fun.  The reality is that  all camps involve practice and repetition. Read the rest of this entry »