Thing is, my son and the boys in the neighborhood (all boys, too, except my daughter the dancer) have all cut down on their extra sports. Most of them play whichever intramural sport is in season (right now it is track) for an hour after school. In the evenings, they congregate in my backyard, dubbed Poremba Field.
Our backyard is huge, flat, and unencumbered by trees or gardens or swing sets. It is also fenced in. The fence is not only perfect for judging homeruns, but setting the goal lines for football or a backstop for soccer balls that miss the goal.
Our driveway and our next door neighbor's driveway are two feet apart. When they bought their basketball hoop, they set it up opposite of ours, so now we have Madison Street Court. Sometimes the soccer goals turn into street hockey goals.
Each night I'll find a group of boys playing a pick-up game of something, either in the front or the back of the house, sometimes both.
In various parents' forums, I hear talk that neighborhood games are a dinosaur because kids are so involved with youth (fill-in-the-sport). I suppose this is true. There were no ball games in my backyard when all the neighborhood boys played Little League or youth soccer.
I'm not saying to give up the organized activities, but I do believe in giving kids a break for a season. Or, if that's not possible, as family game nights become more popular, how about neighborhood game nights. Invite the kids to play, with instructions that all the games will be outside. At our house, we have bins filled with bats and balls and racquets and flags for flag football. Nobody ever asks what there is to do.
My fondest memories of childhood were the neighborhood kickball games on our street and the huge family wiffle ball games at my grandmother's house. It was important to me to give the chance for those types of memories to my son.
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