Batter up! Introducing sports for the first time to your child.

So many parenting experts, including myself, believe that involvement in youth sports is critical in developing a plethora of important skills for your child. From team work, gross motor development, processing group instructions, and teaching work ethic, youth athletics, no matter the sport, can help your child to flourish. With that being said, it can be quite overwhelming to decide which activity to start with your child.

You can start an organized sports as young as three years old depending on your child. As a youth sports coach for soccer and baseball for over ten years, there is so much variation in pre-school aged children. Some children start to demonstrate coordination and the cognitive ability to start a sport, where other children still need a more unstructured type of setting until they are a little older.

For those children that are ready, I highly recommend such organizations as i9sports. This is a great first start for your child because it is only once a week instead of the 3-4 days (practice and games) that many organized sports require. The children are given a uniform and each weekly session includes 30 minutes of practice followed immediately by a 30 minute game. It’s also a wonderful first taste of organized sporting activity for parents as well. Even if you were a former athlete, being a sports parent is a different world. The time commitments, driving to practices and games, and constantly changing family schedules are just some of the things that a new sports parent should be ready for.

I also suggest looking into programs at your local YMCA for a beginning sports experience that is low commitment for parents. We started off our oldest child (now 11 years old) in various sports programs at our YMCA, including soccer, flag football, and basketball. Each of those sessions were 45-60 minutes long, once a week, and only for about a month each time. It was a fantastic way for our son to test out which sports he showed a higher interest in joining. And just like i9sports, we were not too worried about him not “liking” the activity and being committed to 3-4 months of the sport. We knew that after a month, we could just choose something else for him.

Besides the typical baseball and soccer that many parents use as a beginning sport, I also recommend such activities as dance and martial arts for your child. Other traditional sporting activities usually require the use of volunteer coaches (like myself) who may or may not have experience in coaching younger children. If you have an extremely shy child or one that does not yet respond well to instructions in a group, you may want to try dance or martial arts (e.g., MMA, karate, Brazilian Jujitsu) where you will most likely have an expert instead of a parent volunteer. The classes are usually more structured, the teacher understands how to work with youth, and they usually have better behavior management skills than a parent coach.

The last thing that I would advise is to try to be as positive as possible with your child! You might have 15 years experience as a soccer player, but this is your child’s very first experience navigating the sport. It can be scary, intimidating, and physically demanding, even at the youngest of levels. It’s so important that your child has a pleasant first experience with organized sports in order for them to continue to want to play. Encourage them to talk about their first practice (e.g., “What was the hardest part about today? What was the most fun thing you did today?”) and avoid asking questions that they can answer with a simple “yes” or “no” response. It’s great to try and work outside of practices and games with your child at home, but try to avoid overwhelming them with too many drills, complex instructions, or by forcing them to play with you. Making things fun and turning drills into games is the best strategy to use!

Good luck!