Take Advantage

The dog days of summer are here. Older youth athletes have summer workouts and tryouts
for high school teams and the like. What about the younger athletes, what do they do? When my boys were young we did a lot of non-specific games. We played a lot of catch with both footballs and baseballs (hand-eye-feet coordination), played hacky sack (hand-eye-feet), wiffle ball, swimming, and good old fashioned tag. Anything to keep them up and moving. Make it fun and at the same time they will be working on a skill that will benefit them later on in their sports endeavors.

Avoid burnout, no kid can practice a single sport all year and not get tired of it. If they get burnt potential doesn't matter much. Keep it simple, keep it fun, that's what summer is for. There is plenty of time for the structure of competitive youth sports, don't forget to let them have some fun!