Give your little athletes the lemonade/apple juice test
Hydration and sunblock. If you are a kid who plays sports in South Florida, you cannot avoid being lectured -- by coaches and moms and random sideliners -- about drinking plenty of water and spraying it on thick.
Alec came home from basketball camp at the University of Florida with this little tidbit: If your urine is like lemonade, you're hydrated. If it's like apple juice, you are dehydrated. Call the medics!
We are a protective generation of parents. Notice I didn't say OVER-protective. Avoiding heat stroke is a good thing. (Bad mommy confession: I once sent Erika to soccer camp without water, or lunch.)
But I tend to agree with Atlantic High coach Andre Thaddies who said, “The heat isn’t new here in South Florida. The kids are outside and living in South Florida. Their bodies adapt." By the time an athlete is in high school, he or she has been drilled on the subject for 10 years or more.
It starts at the earliest ages with the post-game snacks and drinks (don't get me started on the tyranny of that ritual!) By the time they've played a few years (soccer, football, baseball, what-have-you), these little button-pushers learn how to tap into the fear of prostration (usually it's Mommy's fear), especially if they are tired and/or having a bad game and/or losing. "Coach, I'm dehydrated, I need to sit." To which a coach is inevitably muttering that the kid is "out of shape." Funny, kids rarely want to sit when the score is in their favor or they are on a hot streak.
Erika has been practicing soccer at 8 a.m. Saturdays this summer. Her little round face is beet red and her clothes are soaked by the time practice is done at 9:30. She's wiped out. But each week she gets stronger. She's adapting.
Don't get me wrong: Running laps at 3 p.m. in 98 degree heat is no fun and probably best avoided. ESPECIALLY for those kids who are aren't in shape or have other underlying health issues.
The best we can do as parents is supply our kids with knowledge. Give your little athletes that lemonade/apple juice test so they can learn to pay attention to their own bodies. And don't forget to send them to practice with a jug of water.
Gretchen Day-Bryant has a son in high school and a daughter in middle school. She’s lived to tell about the struggles of juggling little kids and work.
Joy Oglesby has a preschooler...
Cindy Kent Fort Lauderdale mother of three. Her kids span in ages from teenager to 20s.
Rafael Olmeda and his wife welcomed their first son in Feb. 2009, and he's helping raise two teenage stepdaughters.
Lois Solomon lives in Boca Raton with her husband and three daughters.
Georgia East is the parent of a five-year-old girl, who came into the world weighing 1 pound, 13 ounces.
Brittany Wallman is the mother of Creed, 15, and Lily, 7, and is married to a journalist, Bob Norman. She covers Broward County government, which is filled with almost as much drama as the Norman household. Almost.
Chris Tiedje is the Social Media Coordinator and the father of a 7-year-old girl, and two boys ages 4 and 3.
Kyara Lomer Camarena has a 2-year-old son, Copelan, and a brand new baby. 
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