Future Stars Camps Blog – Sports, Kids, Camp!

Cosmopolitan shares valuable life lessons spending your summer as a camp counselor will teach you, that you may not learn any where else.  Running around with a dozen or so young children will most likely give you a jumpstart on these lifeskills:

Intuit Blog featured Reshma Saujani, former lawyer and founder of Girls Who Code.  After her unsuccessful run for New York’s 14th congressional district in 2010, Saujani decided to change career paths and pursue a direction that inspired her.  She felt that she could make the strongest impact in the area of coding programs for girls since there weren't any.  Saujani actually has no coding experience herself but the single mission of Girls Who Code is
to close the gender gap in technology .

With Valentine's Day in three days, STEAM Powered Family shares some fun activities centered around heart themes and some of them include how-to videos.  Here are a sample of fun activities that you and your children can  work together on Valentine's day, or any day after:

Janis Meredith of Raising Champion Families has an interesting take on the importance of body language.  Janis shares that, "In 1971, psychologist Albert Mehrabian published 'Silent Messages', which included his pioneering research on nonverbal communication. When it comes to credibility, Mehrabian found that we assign 55% of the weight to body language, 38% to tone, and 7% to actual words (Whisper, Mark Batterson)."

John O'Sullivan of Changing the Game Projects shares, "There is a lot of research emerging about the importance and performance enhancement caused by positive self-talk."  So how can parents channel self-affirming energy?  Here are some messages that athletes consistently need to hear to help them develop inner talk that is healthy:

Inspirational Basketball shares one youth coach's opinion of zone defense.  Coach is using the definition that in zone defense each defender guards a specified area while in man-to-man defense each defender guards one opponent throughout the game.  This coach says that zone defense should not have a large presence in youth basketball.  Here are some of the reasons and explanations why coach feels this way:

The Hoops Geek shared a review on the 7 best basketball hoops for kids and toddlers.  Here are some things to consider when making a purchase:

So you read about an audition for a play that you can see yourself in.  You know that you have what it takes, so you decide that you are going to audition for a part.  An Onstage Blogger who is also a director shares her tips on how to prepare for an audition:

Children are attracted to acting for various reasons.  And not all kids interested in drama are ready to get out there and perform on stage in front of a number of strangers.  So how do you draw out the children that are interested but a tad reserved?  Drama Notebook, an organization with a 14 year world’s largest collection of drama games, lesson plans, scripts and drama activities for kids and teens, has some thoughts on how draw children into the world of acting. Here are some tips to consider:

As parents, it is important to know when to stay out of a "situation" and allow your child to work out and resolve a problem and when it is appropriate to step in and advocate for your child.  Parenting Aces shares a situation where a rule or an official’s interpretation of a rule did not work in the best interest of children.