All Articles by Brooke de Lench

Setting Boundaries Preventing Abuse And Harassment: At A Pre-Season Meeting

The benefits of setting boundaries - physical, social, and sexual - at the pre-season meeting are numerous, say experts.

Pre-Season Youth Sports Meeting: Essential Topics and Questions to Ask

There are twenty-one topics that should be covered at the pre-season meeting of coaches, parents, and players.  If they are not, here are some suggested questions for parents to ask.

Eight Tips for a Successful Youth Sports Season

The most successful sports seasons are the ones that begin with a preseason meeting for parents and players. A preseason meeting sets a positive tone for the season by opening the lines of communication early so that everyone, parents, athletes, and coaches, understands and agrees on what they expect from one another.

Asthma Shouldn't Rule Out Kids From Sports

Nearly 5 million children in this country suffer from asthma. Without immediate treatment to keep a child's airways from constricting, asthma can be fatal.
Despite the risks, asthma
shouldn't keep your child out of sports. With proper precautions, they
can play, as long as parents follow safety tips.

Buying Mouth Guards

Mouth guards or "mouth pieces" not only protect the wearer's teeth, tongue and lips, but help protect against head injuries such as concussions. Depending on specific regulations, the mouth pieces should be worn at all times during play. The mouthpiece must be a highly visible color and is mandatory.

Preventing Injuries in Youth Baseball

Of the nearly 500,000 youth baseball injuries treated in hospitals, doctors' offices, clinics, ambulatory surgery centers and hospital emergency rooms each year, many are preventable or could be reduced in severity if simple steps are taken.

Selecting All-Star Teams: A Better, Fairer Way

Ever see a picture in your local paper of a summer "all-star" baseball team of 10 and 11 year olds and find it odd that nearly every kid in the picture is either the son or daughter of one of the coaches or of one of the coaches of a team during the regular season or the best friend of the coaches kid?

All-Star Team Selection: A Better, Fairer Way?

To say that politics and favoritism are often involved in the selection of all-star teams in youth sports would be an understatement, but making the selection process fairer is easier said than done.

Fighting For Change in a Local Soccer Club: A Letter to the Club's President About the Effect of Cutting

Several years ago, my triplet sons tried out for the travel soccer club in our town. Two of my sons were wait-listed for no apparent reason, along with over sixty other boys who had previously been in the program.