Successful Parenting

Women, particularly the mothers who volunteer, are often the backbone of what makes a youth sports team work smoothly.
Unfortunately, as with dads, when it comes to their own child's sports team, a mom's greatest strengths can become weaknesses that can cause problems for her child and his/her coach. 

Youth sports organizations (YSOs) provide a valuable service: a safe way for kids to learn the fun of sports and to build physical fitness in a supervised manner. Unfortunately, youth sports can disappoint everyone involved when parents don't do enough research before signing their kids up to play a sport.

With gas prices hovering around 4 dollars a gallon, and the cost of everything, from groceries to restaurants, having a child, or two or three, playing on sports travel team is becoming a luxury many American families can no longer afford.

So what are families doing to save money on the cost of playing on a travel team or to afford playing in a tournament five hundred miles from home? We asked parents in the MomsTeam forums.

Since having fun is so essential to a successful youth sports experience, it is important to be on the lookout for signs that your child isn't enjoying herself. If you see a pattern of any of the following five behaviors emerging, it is probably because she is not having fun and, if things don't change, may end up quitting: