Hoppy
04-23-2008, 10:06 AM
From www.screamfree.com
Quote of the Day: "I think Little League is wonderful. It keeps the kids out of the house. "
— Yogi Berra (1925 - )
http://www.screamfree.com/resources/partners/template/images/hal_runkel.jpg Hal's Take: Did you know that you can now watch the Little League world series in HighDefinition? Yep. Each year, ESPN covers the extravaganza for two weeks. They do background stories on all of the top players and they interview the families who have traveled thousands of miles and sacrificed thousands of dollars to watch their kids play ball. I wonder what Yogi thinks of this Little League tradition. No longer is youth baseball just for kids; it now keeps the whole family out of the house each and every weekend as kids as young as 7 join travel ball teams and take additional hitting lessons between practices. We have become a society obsessed with excellence and excess. And in the effort to provide the best opportunities for our kids, we often steer them straight into physical therapy and burnout before they even hit puberty. There is great value in slowing down a little and letting our kids simply go outside and play without constant adult supervision. There, they have a chance to figure out who they are apart from you. In short, they have a chance to play ball without having to worry about how their pimples look in HDTV.
Hal Runkel, LMFT, author of ScreamFree Parenting:
Raising Your Kids by Keeping Your Cool.
Quote of the Day: "I think Little League is wonderful. It keeps the kids out of the house. "
— Yogi Berra (1925 - )
http://www.screamfree.com/resources/partners/template/images/hal_runkel.jpg Hal's Take: Did you know that you can now watch the Little League world series in HighDefinition? Yep. Each year, ESPN covers the extravaganza for two weeks. They do background stories on all of the top players and they interview the families who have traveled thousands of miles and sacrificed thousands of dollars to watch their kids play ball. I wonder what Yogi thinks of this Little League tradition. No longer is youth baseball just for kids; it now keeps the whole family out of the house each and every weekend as kids as young as 7 join travel ball teams and take additional hitting lessons between practices. We have become a society obsessed with excellence and excess. And in the effort to provide the best opportunities for our kids, we often steer them straight into physical therapy and burnout before they even hit puberty. There is great value in slowing down a little and letting our kids simply go outside and play without constant adult supervision. There, they have a chance to figure out who they are apart from you. In short, they have a chance to play ball without having to worry about how their pimples look in HDTV.
Hal Runkel, LMFT, author of ScreamFree Parenting:
Raising Your Kids by Keeping Your Cool.