Family Practice Policy

This memo is in response to a memo we received from our sons high school with regards to sporting events practice and game policies. I in turn re-wrote it to express our concerns over "Family Practices."

If you plan on practicing or playing in a sporting event during a family vacation or holiday, subsequently bailing (“bailing on your team” is the terminology the AD/coach used in his memo to the parents) on your family, including your Papa, Nana, Uncles, Aunts and Cousins, which by the way, you do not see very often, please keep this in mind.

Given our work schedules, combined with our limited company’s vacation plans, schoolwork, school holiday schedules and sporting events; it has become increasingly difficult to find the time to Practice Family. Both your Father and Mother work very hard and need to take a vacation when time permits. Therefore if you choose to attend a sporting practice or event during a planed vacation; consequently bailing on everything that is really important, you will lose out on the following:

Jumping off the top of Diana and Rainbow Falls, swimming at the Dam, riding the quads, playing baseball and football with all your Uncles, Aunts, and Cousins, sleeping outside, hiking to the gold mind, shooting the pellet gun, driving without a license, sitting down to eat with forty people who love you very much. Playing card games, building forts, chasing wild pigs and making the biggest Bonn-fires you’ll ever see. Also, keep in mind. Unlike your school sport programs, during family vacations you are guaranteed unlimited playtime irrespective of your athletic ability. However, on occasion it will be required to collect wood for the fire, to keep Uncle Greg warm throughout the night.

If you should choose to attend a sporting event instead of a “Family practice”, you will NOT lose our respect or your standing within the family. We love you and understand how difficult it is to choose between your coach, teammates and family. We do; however, feel that it is unfortunate that time could not be set-aside for both - after all that’s why we have Holidays. I have always said, “My greatest memories as a child, my most vivid recollections are not those of practices and or games, but rather vacations I spent with family and friends.

Student Athlete signature: _______________________________________

Parents: _______________________________________

I’ve been-there and done-that. When a policy is written such that it forces our child to choose between his Family and his Sport; it puts our son between a rock and a hard place. Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to acknowledge that family is important, and recognize this value within your policy and not schedule practice for the day after Thanks giving?