Are you parenting children who thrive best in athletic events and spend most of their free time outdoors? Sports camp may be a great way to engage their interests while also teaching them the values of teamwork, perseverance, and focus.

by Christina DiMartino

Kids who excel at a chosen athletic skill are prime candidates for attending summer sports camps. A sports camp will enhance such children’s sportsmanship, athleticism, and skills. The experience will also help them acquire discipline when it comes to practice.

There are sports camps for virtually every athletic interest imaginable, from baseball to wrestling to extreme sports.

Building skills and confidence

Some sports camps are sleep-away camps, while others are day camps. Most of the benefits of sports camp can be attained through either type of camp, because the benefits of a sports camp go far beyond just enabling your child to run around and burn energy for a few hours every day. The camp counselors at sports camps are more like coaches. They help children with athletic conditioning and appropriate fitness training, but they also help the campers to build teams and set long-term goals.

At sports camp, your child will be able to…

• Experience a fun, energetic environment

• Develop independence and confidence

• Develop teamwork and make friends

• Learn from role models and take on new challenges

• Receive focused sports training to take his game to the next level

Elite sports camps

Elite sports camps are those run by professional athletic associations, such as universities or professional sports teams. The facilities at elite camps are often top-notch, and the coaches are sometimes world-class. Camps like these offer all of the benefits of ordinary sports camps, but with a few premium bonuses.

For instance, if your child plays Little League softball, sending her to an elite softball camp may give her the opportunity to meet recruiters and scouts. Exposing your child to the environment of collegiate or professional athletics may also inspire her to play sports in college, establishing a life goal far beyond a single summer.

Immersion for success

Adults know all too well how easy it is to lose passion for the activities we used to enjoy. How many adults continue to draw for fun, or play hopscotch, or build with Legos after childhood, unless they have a child to play with?

As children advance into adolescence, they can lose the drive and determination to practice and work at their skills or gifts. Sports camps provide the practice structure that your child may not create or stick to on her own. By immersing children in practice sessions every day, sports camps reinforce good habits for working hard that will be applied later in life for studying and work ethics.

Immersion also allows children to make deep connections with their fellow campers. Lifelong friendships are often begun at camp. Sports camps, which actively focus on teamwork and building relationships of trust and responsibility, reinforce positive social behaviors and give your child the chance to make friends who share her interests.

Good advice

Professional Sports Camps operates baseball, basketball, and soccer camps throughout the United States and abroad. It boasts that some former campers have made their town league, high school, and college teams, and some have even advanced into professional sports, including major league baseball.

It suggests that staff members of a good sports camp should have these attributes:

• Employees should be qualified, professional, experienced, and knowledgeable.

• They should work hard to help every camper improve her skills.

• They should be good role models and mentors.

• They should interact well with children.

Sports camp resources:

• Be Recruited is a resource for high school athletes to meet college coaches

• Kids Camps offers links to sports camps as well as many other special types of camps

• Olympia Sports Camp is the only residential outdoor sports camp in Canada

• Open Directory Project: Sports is a volunteer-based web directory

• Sports Kids has a comprehensive index of all sorts of sports camps

• US Sports Camps is the official website for NIKE sports camps

• U.S. Youth Soccer holds regional and national camps for high-level competition across all ages

Read on:

These novels are sure to delight sports-obsessed kids around ages 9-12 (or middle school) and may also kick-start reluctant readers, since each of these authors has written many more sports stories.

• Sports Camp, by Rich Wallace, is about a shrimpy 11-year-old trying to find his place at summer sports camp. Wallace has written sports-themed fiction for both middle schoolers and older teenagers.

• Catcher With a Glass Arm, by Matthew F. Christopher, is about a boy’s challenges on his baseball team. This novel earned the accolade of “a good dude book” from a young reviewer on Amazon.com.

• The Million Dollar Kick, by Dan Gutman. This story about a reluctant soccer player was hailed by School Library Journal as “a sharp, funny portrait of middle-school society…an exciting sports story with a compelling message about individuality and self-confidence.”

 

Christina DiMartino has been a freelance and assignment writer since 1985. She is a researcher, interviewer, writer, editor, and manuscript collaborator with a repertoire of clients from around the world.