With the Holidays coming right around the corner, I figured this would be a good time for this article.
Having had three sons (all grown up now) that went through a myriad of sports each season during their growing up years, I feel like I have plenty of experience on this one.
Example Scenario: "Hey, Mom, Joey's parents are giving him tennis lessons and he's already got a Junior Wilson Racket that costs $90! I want lessons, too, and Joey's Mom says she'll bring us both to lessons so you don't have to travel!"
Ok, parents, can be feel me on this one? Oh, boy, oh, boy, kids really do know how to tighten the screws.
As a parent, you want to give your kids every opportunity to succeed and be happy in life; be it learning, sports, music, you name it. You really do want your kids to be happy. And learning is never a waste, right?
Well, the learning is never a waste, but purchasing expensive sports equipment before your child has gotten past the excitement of a new sport and being thought "cool" CAN be a waste of money. Some of these sports can be very expensive to start up and some of them are even more expensive to maintain.
The sensible option might be to "borrow" a racquet from a family member, maybe a friend or a neighbor. There is nothing wrong with going on an auction site and purchasing a good secondhand racquet to start your junior off in the sport. Now I am not saying to get any old racquet just to start them off, if they are juniors, they really do need to have junior racquets, not an adult racquet that won't fit them well and will not give them a good chance to see if they can do well because it doesn't fit them.
I'm just saying that unless they have gotten past that first critical month without any waning of excitement or commitment to the sport, it may not be in your best interest to "buy the best", shall we say. If your junior is still psyched about their lessons and are practicing every minute they have free after being in the sport for at least a month, then you have a good chance that your junior is going to stick to the sport.
That's when you reward them by upgrading to a better tennis racquet, maybe better tennis shoes, and the list goes on and on.
I'll share a little bit about myself and tell you that my third son got involved with some sports and music growing up; the normal soccer, baseball, football, trombone, drums, and then guitar.
Well, none of them lasted long, but because he was the youngest of three and had friends who were in sports and music, he wanted to join stuff. And joining stuff always meant Mom and Dad had to fork out money.
By the time he got to the guitar stage, we were REALLY smart on this buying stuff. He got a very inexpensive acoustic guitar borrowed from a friend's child who had outgrown it. He practiced and he practiced and he practiced. It wasn't long before we could actually tell what song he was playing, and that was something new. He'd never lasted at anything long enough for that to happen!
He started writing his own music and saving up his own money to buy equipment, so we upgraded the guitar, still not the best, but a better one, after a few months. By the end of that year, we had upgraded his guitar to something that he was very proud to play and he started his own band.
To this day, and he is 20 now, he is the lead guitarist of his own local band, writes all their music, and lives for practicing songs on his guitar. He found what he really loves, but only AFTER going through approximately 8 sports and music phases where he really, really, really wanted equipment or instruments until the passion wore off and he got bored with the sport.
Don't let that happen to you. Because when your child "does" find his or her passion, when they find what's right for them, that's when you want to be able to help them upgrade and purchase what they need to excel at what they love.
If you keep buying equipment, keep buying instruments every time your junior gets a "bug" to try something new, it's like the boy who cried "wolf" and you won't want to listen anymore.
Make sure you limit the budget to what is manageable so when you see your junior finally feel passion for that one thing they are good at, YOU feel good about helping them learn and grow.
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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michelle Lacroix Toro
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