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vacations vs. off-season workouts
©2007 oldschoolsportsparenting.com
If your child wants to be a competitive
athlete and he misses workouts because of family outings or vacations,
you’re doing him and his team a disservice. That includes so-called
"off-season" sessions.
Like it or not, competitive sports are a
year-round enterprise. If you want your son or daughter to succeed at them,
prepare to make some sacrifices.
One of those sacrifices is scheduling your
family vacations around athletic commitments.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, because
I’m a parent, myself, and not all of my kids were competitive athletes. So,
let me nip your temper tantrum in the bud, by acknowledging that we parents
do, indeed, have every right to schedule family outings as we see fit,
regardless of what our child’s coaches think. And we have a right to do it
without fear that our kid will be punished for simply doing what his parents
told him to do.
But as a coach, I need to remind you that
practice is still going on when your kid is lounging on the beach or taking
photos with Goofy and Donald. The other players are still learning new
skills and concepts, and your kid is still missing out on all of that stuff
– possibly to the point where he’ll never catch up. What’s more, I’m not
about to stop practice just to teach your kid all of the stuff he missed
while he was away. Athletic fields are the same as classrooms, in that
regard: When a child misses a "lesson," it’s up to him to make it up on his
own time, without impacting the progress of everyone else.
If you’re the cause of him missing those
lessons, don’t expect his coaches to sympathize. It’s not that we’ll be
angry. We take vacations, too. It’s just that we can’t hold back other
players, simply to help your kid catch up. We can’t and won’t bring practice
to a screeching halt and spend 20 minutes reviewing something that everyone
already knows, just so your kid can get up to speed. No teacher would do
that. And no coach would, either.
Believe it or not, there are many kids who
miss no off-seasons workouts.
Clearly, their parents have found ways to overcome all of the normal excuses
so their kids could honor their athletic commitments.
In case you’ve forgotten those excuses,
here they are – along with the Old School answers to them.
"We have a standing hotel reservation at the shore, and we’ll lose it if we
cancel it for a few years."
The world won’t end if you lose
your place at the shore. There are other hotels and other shores. This is a
fleeting time of your child’s life. He gets four years in high school.
That’s it. If he has the potential to play competitive, varsity sports and
possibly earn a scholarship or a preferred admission to a great college – or
even if he just wants to experience 100% of the fun of playing a high school
sport -- and you want to help him realize his goals and potential, you’ll
end up sacrificing a lot more than just a week or two at the beach.
"Our family activities come before any individual."
That’s fine when your kids are 6 years old.
But if you apply that standard to their activities as they get older, you’ll
confine them to nothing but schooltime activities, because as your kids get
older, their academic, social, artistic and athletic opportunities will
involve greater and greater commitments of time and energy. And they will
almost always cut into some family activity – if not vacations, then family
visits, church or something else.
"It’s the off-season! If he can’t miss stuff now, when can he miss?"
"Off-season" doesn’t mean "less important."
From the standpoint of improving his skills and making an impression on his
coaches, the off-season is probably more important than the season, itself.
True, the off-season isn’t when they play the actual games. But it is
the time when decisions are made about who’ll get to play in the games.
Ignoring this fact sends your kid a message that his athletic commitments
have a starting and ending point. They don’t. They are perpetual.
"I can’t leave my teenage kid home alone for a week!"
OK, then shorten your vacation. Or find a
way to schedule it during "holes" in the off-season practice schedule, such
as during July 4th or Memorial Day weekends, or your school's
Spring Break, if you have one. If that’s not possible, let him stay with
neighbors, friends, relatives or teammates. Or have a grandparent or aunt
stay at your house with him. Or, just let one adult stay home while the
other takes the rest of the kids away; then plan a separate getaway,
together, at another time.
"But one parent home and one parent away ... that’s not a family vacation."
Correct. So what? Your family is together
51 weeks a year, and this single, solitary week apart will … what? … divide
you forever? Don’t be silly. Besides, the alternative is making one of the
kids (the athlete) go with the "family" against his wishes, when he’d rather
be pursuing a high-level interest and commitment of his own. How is that a
better solution?
"I don’t know the summer practice schedule in winter, when I’m planning my
vacation!"
You can probably get it from your child’s
coaches, if you take the time to call and meet with them. Don’t forget,
they’re pretty much used to scheduling year-round, too. Just because they
haven't mailed out the summer practice schedule by January, doesn’t mean
they haven’t prepared it. And if they haven’t, ask them to look at a
calendar and tell you when the most likely open dates will occur. You have a
right to expect an answer to this question if you’re asking it for the right
reasons.
"My job only allows me to take vacations at certain times of the year."
Then find other ways to spend your time
off, besides hauling your kid away from something he loves and wants to be
good at. Or spend some of the time at home, and take a mini-vacation
on the days when there's no workout. No school holds practices seven days a week.
Look, Mom and Dad, we both know you can do
this if you really want to. This issue has nothing to do with your kid and
everything to do with you. Either you understand and accept the
importance of 100% commitment to an athletic career, or you don't. And
besides, what's the worst that will happen if you spend four
family-vacation-less years while your youngster is giving his all to his
sport? You'll save a few bucks to use on other items -- like, for
example, season tickets.
(OK, just trying to lighten the mood a
bit.)
Let me close by re-emphasizing that I'm not
trying to meddle in your family decision making. I’m simply advising you of
the potential negative consequences to your child, when you ignore his or
her sports commitments in favor of "family" outings.
Nor am I suggesting that coaches will
intentionally penalize kids who miss "off-season" workouts to go on
vacation. But, likewise, we’re not going to penalize the kids who attended the
workouts, either. If that means your kid has to play catch-up … well, then
that’s for you and him to deal with.
Finally, and most important, the approach
I’ve just spelled out, like everything else on this website, is directed
at competitive athletes – those who
want to play at the varsity high school level and maybe even beyond.
Intramural and recreational athletes (and
their parents): Read at your own risk.
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