I’ll admit that I absolutely fit into the “soccer mom” demographic. I’m a stay-at-home mom, drive an SUV, and always have orange slices or a snack in my purse. However, there is one major difference between me and the usual soccer mom–my oldest child is only 4 years old, and I’ve been a soccer mom for over two years now.
No, no, no, my daughter, Kensington, isn’t a soccer prodigy. She is enrolled in Lil’ Kickers at International Indoor Soccer Arena, here in Albuquerque and has been since she was 18 months old.
What attracted us to Lil’ Kickers in the first place was the free trial class (who doesn’t like free) and thinking about how adorable our little girl would be kicking a soccer ball. Our trial class went great! We signed her up for the Bunnies class. In fact, we signed her up for a Saturday morning class because my husband was so excited and thrilled with Lil’ Kickers and wanted to be able to attend regularly.
See, Lil’ Kickers is so much more than youth soccer. It truly is about multi-faceted child development.
Through her Lil’ Kickers classes, my daughter has gained social, verbal, gross motor, cognitive, and listening skills. I’m a big believer in play and its importance in childhood. Lil’ Kickers is a great balance of structured and unstructured activities and the classes are designed age-appropriately.
We began our Lil’ Kickers journey in the parent-child classes. These classes are a great way to play and connect with your child, but also connect with other parents. Like I mentioned above, Lil’ Kickers has had an impact on our whole family.
The weekly classes are a great opportunity to see other parents who totally get the stage of life you are in and can share those looks of support when one of your kids is just not having Red Light Green Light that day.
Our family has been lucky enough to meet two other families through Lil’ Kickers that have become wonderful friends. Our daughters (Kensington, Gabby, and Paige) were in a few of the same classes and a friendship between the girls developed that expanded to the three families.
Currently, Kensington is in the Micro class, which focuses more on soccer and includes scrimmages. She loves directing her teammates, scoring goals (doesn’t matter if its on her own side), and running up and down the field. We parents are no longer on the field with our daughters (the parent-child classes are up to age 3.5). We get to cheer from the sidelines and catch up with one another. My son just turned 18 months is ready to start Lil’ Kickers next session. He loves coming every week to watch his sister play.
If you have a toddler that is a ball full of energy or looking for an activity that is low-stress for parents and really fun for kids, I highly recommend you give Lil’ Kickers a try (take advantage of that free trial class-you won’t regret it).
We signed up our son this last season and it was such a great decision! He absolutely loves it and I have been able to connect with other parents weekly. Not to mention, I get my weekly soccer workout too! I highly recommend Lil’ Kickers!
Comments are closed.