Tips for Parents
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Mini Tennis is the best way for children to learn tennis. Research shows that it is essential for children up to the age of 10 years to learn the physical skills of running, jumping, balance, co-ordination, throwing and catching as well as basic tennis skills if they are to reach their full sporting potential . Expect to see lots of these activities in Mini Tennis lessons.
- Allow your children to play in the Mini Tennis colour stage that is appropriate to them. This will ensure they enjoy playing the game and gain confidence.
- Purchase balls and rackets, which match the stage that your child is in.
Encourage
- Play with your children whether in the park, the garden, or on holiday. Any ball games, running activities or tennis on appropriate courts will be beneficial. Encourage them to play other sports too.
- Be patient. Children will rarely progress steadily but more often progress in peaks and plateaus.
- Encourage your children to take part in competitions at the club. These will be relaxed and varied plus there will be a strong emphasis on team and multi sport activities.
- Familiarise yourself with tiebreak scoring, offer assistance when needed but avoid scoring your own child’s matches.
Respect
- As a spectator always be generous in your applause for both players in a match. Don’t tolerate bad behaviour, cheating or bad manners from your child. Help your child to understandthat showing respect for the rules, opponents and officials is all part of tennis.
- During coaching sessions respect the fact that the coach is there to deliver the session, it is not appropriate for parents to get involved in coaching from the sidelines.
- Mini tennis is played in the same way as tennis and therefore the rules are the same of those applying to the full size game. For coaching and teaching purposes and for some competitions, the rules can be adapted according to the ability of the children involved.
Teach your Child
Parents play a crucial role in both the introduction to tennis and the earlier stages of development. Research indicates that most children get their first tennis experience from a parent.
Parents can play an introductory role even with young children (ages 3-6). These children should be introduced to striking and receiving skills, and objects such as balloons, bean bags and foam balls are ideal for throwing, bouncing, balancing and catching.
After throwing and catching skills are acquired, children can learn to rally. Start with foam balls and short racquets; children can learn to rally with a parent in a driveway or car park. Simply rallying a foam ball over a line and graduating to a low net (using a string or caution tape) is great fun for both children and parents.
As the child develops rallying skills, a tennis court could be used so the rally goes over the net with the service line counting as the baseline.
Moving from a foam ball to a low compression tennis ball is the next step. It is relatively easy to keep the ball in play using a ¾ sized court and the low compression ball