As parents we all want to protect our children and try to shield them (or at least soften the blow) from some of the harsh lessons life throws at you while growing up. But there is a fine line between trying to help your child navigate the difficulties of life and doing all the work for them. Are you one of those sports parents that fight all your youth athlete’s battles for them (also known as a helicopter parent)? You might not be doing your child as big a favor as you thought.

SportsSignup is committed to keeping youth athletes safe from abuse of any kind. That is why we offer KidSafePlus^® coach and volunteer background checks to all our customers. While we never want to think a predator could come into our community the truth is you can never be too careful when it comes to protecting our kids. That's why we're honored to bring you the expert advice of Michelle Peterson M.Ed., of Michelle Peterson Consulting. Michelle is a national expert on child abuse and currently works with youth sport organizations on creating child abuse prevention policy and procedures. She can be reached at www.mpetersonconsulting.com 

Is your son or daughter bored with the usual summer sports? With 70% of kids quitting youth sports by the time they are 13 it’s definitely up to us parents to find new ways to keep our kids active.  If soccer and baseball just aren’t cutting it anymore here are a few new summer sports and activities to test.

It’s summertime! That means we’re all spending more time outdoors and between swim lessons in the morning and a baseball game in the afternoon a busy youth athlete is going to need to eat the right kind of food so they don’t fall asleep in the outfield! Here are a few summer sports nutrition tips and ideas to keep your youth athlete feeling full and energized.

Below you will find a few of our favorite blog posts that are related to youth sports, youth sports coaching and sports parenting from the past few weeks. Please feel free to visit each and we hope you find them as helpful as we do!

SportsSignup is a proud sponsor of the Freihofer's Junior 3K Run. This 1.86-mile road race (for 9-13 year old boys and girls) is scheduled for Saturday June 1, 2013 at the Empire State Plaza in Downtown Albany at 11:15 a.m. There is still plenty of time left to register your youth runner (and Mom can sign up for the Women’s 5k until May 31) and get a few runs under their belt before the gun goes off! But different age groups have to run a little differently, so here are few pieces of advice for youth runners and their parents.

Childhood obesity is a scary reality in this country, with approximately 17% (or 12.5 million) of children and adolescents aged 2—19 years being obese. Obviously we as parents and coaches need to help our kids make the right kind of decisions when it comes to food and to encourage a more active lifestyle. But on the opposite end of the spectrum we have those “super youth athletes” that play sports all year round and are at risk of being over-trained, especially if they only do one sport, which can lead to burnout and overuse injuries. But does it have to be all or nothing when it comes to youth sports? Can’t we help our kids find a happy middle ground between not enough activity and too much?

Recently SportsSignup had the chance to interview Janis B. Meredith, the sports mom behind the widely read and respected sportsparenting blog JBMThinks. She’s been a sports mom for 20 years, and a coach’s wife for 28, and sees life from both sides of the bench. We hope all the sports moms and dads out there take something away from her advice.

Sometimes it seems like we as sports parents are scheduling our kids (and by default ourselves!) to death. Soccer practice, swim lessons, reserved time in the batting cages, one-on-one coaching sessions—every minute of free time during the week and on the weekends is carefully planned and organized and scheduled to keep our kids busy. And while there is nothing wrong with making sure your child stays active and off the couch (especially now that the weather is finally warming up!) there is something to be said for regular old play time. You know what we’re talking about; the “unstructured” play in the backyard, on playgrounds, on the bike path or empty basketball courts and baseball fields. Maybe we, and our youth athletes, could use a little more free play.

SportsSignup’s online sports registration software is what you call “SaaS,” meaning Software-as-a-Service. It’s an approach that has helped thousands of sports organizations transform the way they do business and interact with their members. The team here at SportsSignup is committed to making the league management process even easier for administrators, sports parents, coaches and registrants, which is why we are pleased to announce two system updates for the month of April. Take a look!