P
Parker512
Guest
I was wondering what people thought of a 13 year old teaching tennis lessons to little kids. I would only charge 10 dollers and it would be at a local court for begginers
Go for it. Sometimes other kids have better communication skills with little kids than some adults. Make sure you keep it fun and get them started with the right fundamentals.
It isn't soliciting in an illegal sense either. If he advertises through flyers and word of mouth and charges his price and the parents know his age he is fine. The market will speak....if he is good the parents will come back, if it is obvious he stinks at it the parents will pull their kids. That dynamic works at a multi million dollar club or a 13 year old at the local park.
Ignore the blowhards that dominate this forum.
Wow,these comments are beyond dumb. The kid is going to invite little kids to a local park court, with their parents right there I am sure. He is going to have some foam balls and little racquets and have the little ones do some basic games of catch and then teach them the basic strokes.
Liability? Geez could he find the one parent in 2000000000 who would sue him or his parents if their kid fell down? Yeah, and he could get struck by lightening also....while holding the winning Powerball ticket.
The only thing that blows hard is your judgement. Get off your high horse, crazy.
Wow,these comments are beyond dumb. The kid is going to invite little kids to a local park court, with their parents right there I am sure. He is going to have some foam balls and little racquets and have the little ones do some basic games of catch and then teach them the basic strokes.
Liability? Geez could he find the one parent in 2000000000 who would sue him or his parents if their kid fell down? Yeah, and he could get struck by lightening also....while holding the winning Powerball ticket. Heck we let our kids babysit without a liability insurance policy...and thats with the parents gone.
It isn't soliciting in an illegal sense either. If he advertises through flyers and word of mouth and charges his price and the parents know his age he is fine. The market will speak....if he is good the parents will come back, if it is obvious he stinks at it the parents will pull their kids. That dynamic works at a multi million dollar club or a 13 year old at the local park.
There are tons of empty courts around and the chances of him getting in trouble for not pulling a permit are also slim to none.
Go for it kid....warm the kids up with some light exercise first, have them play some fun catch games, then show them some forehands with foam balls.
Ignore the blowhards that dominate this forum.
What you could do is give them first 3 lessons free... This will invite a lot more parents to bring their kids to try out, this also means that the amount of people you're able to keep will be higher than otherwise.
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5.Would i need a permit to use public outdoor courts?
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No! As 'CoachFLA' said, let the market set the hourly rate bar.Thanks I appreciate it do you think i should charge less?
How much was the membership?
Finally, I would highly recommend that if you are playing on a high school team, take the time to work with some of the beginners or younger kids. You will learn a lot in a large group setting. It may not help you in terms of becoming a better player, (although, sometimes through teaching you actually can learn yourself!), but you will gain valuable experience.
The number of reasons to not do this outweigh the reasons to do it by a factor of at least 10. They've already been listed, so I'll just say this: you may be a coach, but you clearly aren't anywhere near being a teenager. If you asked Andy Roddick to give you a tennis lesson at 17 with hope to actually learn something useful vs. going to a USPTA pro, you'd be incredibly disappointed. Why? Because no matter how good you are in tournaments and in competition, it takes years of experience to be able to teach the craft to someone else. The same can be said for university professors: there are kids in class who get straight A's because they're just that smart and don't have to study hard. Those kids will NEVER understand why someone struggles just to get C's because they cannot relate. They only know their own experience and cannot extrapolate far enough to gain the perspective of those who might not be as quick learning. The same applies to tennis: even if this kid is the best 14s player in his state, he's still nowhere near qualified enough to teach as he's only good because it comes naturally to him. He doesn't spend time studying the basic mechanics of tennis because he doesn't have to. He doesn't spend time learning how to teach someone the different grips because he doesn't have to. He doesn't spend time studying different playing styles because he doesn't have to. It takes many years of playing experience, level regardless, to have a full appreciation of the game and to be able to teach it to someone who most likely will never be at your level anyway. That's why he should wait at least until mid-late high school to start teaching the most beginning of beginners since it's not possible for him to have played long enough to relate to those who are still struggling with the fundamentals.Wow,these comments are beyond dumb. The kid is going to invite little kids to a local park court, with their parents right there I am sure. He is going to have some foam balls and little racquets and have the little ones do some basic games of catch and then teach them the basic strokes.
Liability? Geez could he find the one parent in 2000000000 who would sue him or his parents if their kid fell down? Yeah, and he could get struck by lightening also....while holding the winning Powerball ticket. Heck we let our kids babysit without a liability insurance policy...and thats with the parents gone.
It isn't soliciting in an illegal sense either. If he advertises through flyers and word of mouth and charges his price and the parents know his age he is fine. The market will speak....if he is good the parents will come back, if it is obvious he stinks at it the parents will pull their kids. That dynamic works at a multi million dollar club or a 13 year old at the local park.
There are tons of empty courts around and the chances of him getting in trouble for not pulling a permit are also slim to none.
Go for it kid....warm the kids up with some light exercise first, have them play some fun catch games, then show them some forehands with foam balls.
Ignore the blowhards that dominate this forum.
With all due respect, you're making comparisons that aren't relevant. Your babysitter isn't teaching your kids anything, and a swimming instructor is essentially just teaching someone how to survive should they fall into the water. Anyone with the simplest of abilities would be able to do either just under careful guidance. Teaching someone a sport which requires incredibly precise hand-eye coordination, hundreds of different terms for strokes, spins, movements, court placements, line names, etc. is vastly different. A more relevant example is teaching someone to read. Unless you have studied and trained in the field, then you wouldn't be able to since it comes naturally to you. The same goes for highly coordinated sports like tennis: there are so many fine components that if you have not studied those components for that purpose alone, then you wouldn't be able to teach since you wouldn't even realize that you are omitting them.I'm a parent. I have a 13 year old son. And of course, my three kids were once little.
Would I have paid a 13 year old kid $10 teach my kid at age 5-7 at a public park?
Of course.
I would hire a teen to watch my kid unsupervised in my home for $10 an hour. Why wouldn't I allow this to be done in a public park? In fact, the public park setting is better because my kid would be getting some exercise instead of being parked in front of the TV, and the public setting assures no hanky panky.
My kids have belonged to a community swimming pool for years, and they have been on a swim team. When swimmers become 15 and have been on the team a while, they hang up fliers at the pool offering to give swim lessons to kids. Now, these swimmers don't know the first thing about teaching a 5 year old kid to swim. They get hired plenty.
Go for it, OP. Keep things as safe and fun as you can, 'kay?
I've read this post with much interest and it took me awhile to come up with my opinion. I've been in and dealt with situations the OP will face. I'm 15 years old (just turned) and I am a tennis instructor. I'm a pretty decent player and I can handle myself pretty well both mentally and socially.
Before I go into giving my opinion let me tell you these are purely my own views and are based on personal experience.
Ok first of all its going to be very hard giving lessons by yourself is very tough. You have no backup if you run into trouble or anything goes wrong. You are solely responsible for everything. You will have to deal with parents, the kids and sometimes that could be overwhelming. But being by yourself is also a really good thing. You are your own boss and you make all the money. just don't lose interest halfway through the session or after 4 out of the 8 planned lessons.
Something that I would recommend and find much more enjoyable is to go to the local community center or club and offer to teach. In fact that is what I'm doing right now. This way you still gain valuable experience and can learn from the more experienced instructors. It also makes things alot easier on yourself. The students come to you in which you can offer them private lessons in the future. Also teaching with other tennis players like you is always alot of fun and you get to meet alot of keen guys or girls who you can hook up with later. (Both ways xD)
Pick the choice best for you.
I'm not in high school yet!
With all due respect, you're making comparisons that aren't relevant. Your babysitter isn't teaching your kids anything, and a swimming instructor is essentially just teaching someone how to survive should they fall into the water. Anyone with the simplest of abilities would be able to do either just under careful guidance. Teaching someone a sport which requires incredibly precise hand-eye coordination, hundreds of different terms for strokes, spins, movements, court placements, line names, etc. is vastly different. A more relevant example is teaching someone to read. Unless you have studied and trained in the field, then you wouldn't be able to since it comes naturally to you. The same goes for highly coordinated sports like tennis: there are so many fine components that if you have not studied those components for that purpose alone, then you wouldn't be able to teach since you wouldn't even realize that you are omitting them.
What do you do insurance wise?
One more thing to mull:
Now that my kids are older, I understand a bit better how they felt about things when they were younger. Most "activities" for kids these days involve the kid being shuttled to a place to participate in "instruction" with a bunch of other kids they have never met, led by an adult they have never met.
This may look like fun and we adults think it is appropriate and safe and well-conceived, but it is really quite different from what many of us grew up with. Remember, we used to just get on our bikes and take off. Or play baseball with as many friends as we could round up. Today's activities for kids are really quite structured in comparison, aren't they?
Looking back on it now, I think my kids would have preferred being taught by someone who is more of a peer, someone they could relate to better. Someone like OP. It would perhaps have been less structured, more free-flowing, more on their level, more *fun.*
Yeah, you might not get your kid the most precise instruction on the proper grip and take-back for her BH. But she might come away thinking that tennis is fun rather than tennis is just another form of "instruction."
JMHO, of course.
I would make the parents sign waiver forms. Or say ahead of time i was'nt liable for injuries.
This thread is good b/c it lays out a lot of things to think about when starting any kind of business. That should be useful whether you go forward with this particular venture or not. I'm not going to tell you whether to do it or not b/c I don't know you. I will say I let my kids and their friends sell lemonade out front sometimes on hot days. The laundry list of things that could go wrong and are "illegal" about that is fairly long too if one really thinks about it. Believe me, I have thought about it and I've made my decision based on what I believe are the overall pros and cons. I guess its kind of like "percentage tennis" only the stakes are higher!
I see what you're saying, I just would like to point out that there is a significant difference in responsibility between selling lemonade, and being the temporary guardian of children. Both involve risks, but risks on very different scales imho.
Ps. I'm impressed to know that people actually do setup lemonade stalls. Here's me thinking it was just business-school-101-training