By Eli Buenaventura
For Variety

THIS is one question that I always heared from my fellow parents. My answer is if you have teaching experience, understand the mechanics of the game, and are well informed about the latest in the sport, it is better that you teach your kids by yourselves. The benefits of a parent-kid teaching partnership are enormous. However, if you don’t have those credentials, I recommend you send your kids to tennis class. If you want some justifications, you may consider the 10 reasons I enrolled my kids to tennis class instead of teaching them by myself.
1. Learn the game correctly. I want my kids to learn the game during the early stages of their strokes development, the proper grips, rackets selection, and develop good court habits under the watchful eye of a certified tennis professional. Also, because their mental desktop still has many free bytes and their bones are quite bendable, absorbing instructions are a lot faster than when they are older.
2. Kids behave better in another place. My kids, for some reasons, are at their best behavior when they are with other people. Maybe they are tired of my daily boring litany and want to hear something that rocks the car. Whatever are in their minds, I am happy to see them behaving well during the class. .
3. I am not a tennis teacher. With my decent tennis credentials (two-time member of the CNMI Micro Games tennis team), I could have taught my kids how to play the game. But I still decided to send them to a pro because I don’t have teaching experience to guide them. I always respect credentials. And besides, a player and a teacher are two different species. Maybe had I decided to handle my kids during their early development, their strokes would not have been as sound as they are today.
4. They like interaction with peers. I grew up in an environment in which kids have littered literally on the streets. Finding playmates was not a problem. This is not, however, common in our place. I want my kids to grow up naturally. In tennis class, kids are grouped with kids of their age and they enjoy hanging around with them.
5. Tennis class is more than a school. I view tennis class as the place to start to love the game and embrace it for life. I know that my kids’ capabilities can only reach a certain level. But I want them to have a good foundation for a sporting family life when they settle someday. My kids had spent more than 8 years in tennis class until my eldest went to college while I had to pull my other son from tennis for disciplinary reason. I think I get what I wanted them to achieve.
6. My kids’ values are reinforced. Learning tennis is not always fun. It also requires hard work, dedication, and discipline to learn the game and to eventually excel. Tennis is a physical sport and requires physical and mental fitness regardless of ranking. I believe that tennis class has reinforced these important values to my kids.
7. My parenting is put on hold. I have tendencies to up the ante of my parenting every time my kids don’t follow my instructions on the court. Fortunately, I find the tennis class as a hospital to keep these tendencies under check. I was born in the fifties where the rule of the thumb in raising kids was either you shut up or be flogged. Although I was spanked many times without any complaint, I have never put my hand on my kids, not even once. And I want to keep that record unscathed.
8. It is not that expensive. As compared to individual lessons, tennis class is more affordable. Individual lessons will cost you $30 per hour and instruction is on short-term basis. Tennis class is year-round and will only cost you from $30 to $ 80 for 12 hours of instruction per month, depending on your kids’ level of play.
9. Tennis class helps find friends and hitting partners. One of the challenges for a new tennis student is to find hitting partners. Because tennis class has an average group of 10 for each class, developing friendship and finding hitting partners are easy.
10. Character building. You may have probably heard that kids, who go to tennis class, don’t develop faster as far as their game is concerned. This may be true , but I put my kids to tennis class not only to excel overnight and learn the basic skills of the game properly, but also to develop self-discipline, be honest, internalize competitive spirit under the sphere of friendship and camaraderie, and be humble in victory and gracious in defeat.
If these reasons are enough to convince you, one thing is certain about tennis class: Your kids will learn tennis correctly with a lot of fun, just like the kids who had been there before.