Set4Sport – making sport fun and easy

I’m handing over to my lovely tennis mad husband for this post.

Today I had the absolute pleasure of meeting someone for whom I have a great deal of respect and for an initiative that strikes a huge chord with me.  Set4Sport sponsored by RBS and fronted by Judy Murray is aimed at bringing parents and their children a lot closer together through active play.

We attended a workshop with Judy and her team.  The kids (especially Z) were very excited.  Given Judy’s credentials (raising 2 awesome kids who also happen to be world class tennis players) you might think that this initiative might be a high pressure vehicle for developing sports talent.  You would be very wrong, and this is why this appeals so much to our family.

With three kids, I feel there is a huge weight of responsibility on our shoulders to present them with all the opportunities they deserve (and that we might have missed out on).  There are so many things that they may enjoy to do but time and most certainly in our case budgets are limited.  It seems that the trend is to send them to all kinds of clubs, little kickers, rugby tots, athletics, swimming, street dance…the list goes on.  But wait!

What is it we’re really trying to achieve here?  Don’t get me wrong, I think that all of these reputable organisations are brilliant.  The staff are generally very motivated and very good at what they do.  However, I want to see the smiles and progress my kids make…selfish?  Maybe, but I think my kids are so keen to be part of our lives too…step in Set4Sport.

Judy has pulled together her vast experience of playing with her own children and created an amazing set of fun activities that anyone (and I mean anyone, any budget, any ability) can use to be fully involved with their children’s physical development.

I said this struck a chord with us.  We do try to encourage our children and enable them to take part in activities with their friends, but we can’t actually manage the finances or logistics of sending them to all of the activities that seem to be the rage these days.  So we realised that the core set of skills that these clubs share can be done at home.  We were limiting ourselves to catching and throwing in very basic and (if I am honest slightly boring format).  Judy however has done an immense amount of work creating a very large range of fun and focused games to play with our kids (and for them to play with each other).  They cost next to nothing and get you front row seats to your children’s development.

We made a tennis court, played “biscuit tin lid” table tennis, “double trouble” throwing and catching and finished it all by making a game of tidying everything up. Everything is a game and learning without realising it are the corner stone of Set4Sport.  But the best bit?  You are playing with your kids, and they love that, they really do!

 Do you think I should hand my blog over to him more often? I’ll be blogging in more detail about some of the games we played over the coming weeks so make sure you come back. 

Thanks to the Set4Sport team and London Zoo for giving us a great day out.