Judy Murray Shares Fun Activities for Kids at Home During Current Shutdown

Former British Fed Cup captain Judy Murray has been sharing several tips on how to keep kids engaged in fun activities at home during the current lockdown period. Murray has shared her own experiences with her children, Andy and Jamie, when they were younger in order to help other parents during the new normal.

Speaking to the Tennis365 website, Murray says, "I’m a huge believer that we can help develop the skills when kids are at a young age because if you develop then and build confidence at whatever sport you are interested in, it will serve them well for the rest of their lives. You need to make it fun first and then everything else can come after that and while you can have elements of competitiveness in games, you want to make sure they enjoy it can come back for more. The key for anyone working with kids in sport is to keep the kids engaged in the coaching lesson because we want them to stay in our sport. That means the challenges we set them need to be doable and challenging in equal measure and hopefully we find that balance. I did a lot of games with my boys that evolved around tennis as it has always been my sport, but you could look to do lots of games that will keep kids amused and hopefully get them off the computer consoles and social media channels that are such a distraction these days. My coaching programmes have lots of games with balloons, soft balls and movement and the main aim is to bring fun into their day and hope that they will look forward to their next lesson.”

Murray, whose sons Andy and Jamie went on to become World No. 1 in singles and doubles respectively, also gave examples of some of the games that she used with her Andy and Jamie when they were young.

Balloon tennis - "The first time Jamie and Andy had a rally would have been with a balloon and the sofa would have been the net. It is safe to play indoors and if it does get competitive, as it tended to do with my boys, nothing gets broken!" Cereal box tennis - "We did this one a lot. Two biscuit tin lids and a ping pong ball. Use your hand to it the ball and to make it work, the hand needs to be in front of you, which is also what you need when you play tennis. Hitting the ball out in front a key component of the game." Beanbags - "I use this one a lot in my coaching sessions with junior players. Use beanbags and try to get them to throw them into hula hoops. This encourages kids to get a feel for how far they need to throw and also gives them hand-eye coordination."

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/3apityo