What Type of All-Star Parent are You?

Embassy Suites conducted a Fall Sports survey, and found that parents of kids in school or community sports leagues travel more than 1,000 miles to away games and tournaments, and spend more than $1,400 in one season. Talk about dedication!

Kids’ fall sports schedules take away time from family weekend togetherness, and Embassy Suites threw out some statistics from the study –

– 93 percent of parents surveyed have delayed or skipped buying something for themselves to pay for their child’s sports travel.
– 92 percent are willing to give up activities for their children’s sports travel such as: family vacations (36%), social functions and family gatherings (45%) or another child’s event (27%).
– 64 percent have taken time off of work in order to accommodate their child’s sports team travel schedule.
– 94 percent agree that choosing the right hotel can make a difference in a long, sports-filled weekend.
– 51 percent claimed that free breakfast is something they look for, and 31 percent cited extra space as a perk.

Why do parents subject themselves to crazy weekend schedules?

– 68 percent do it to show their children they love and support them, 60% say it keeps them motivated, fosters family bonding (55%), gives the kids a chance to live out a dream parents could not (30%) and helps children get a scholarship (28%).
– 95 percent of those surveyed have used an out-of-town game as a reason to extend their trip into a family getaway.

In honor of all the devoted sports parents, Embassy Suites is asking family friends and other parents to nominate “All-Star Parents†.

Here are the different types –

Do you recognize yourself or someone you know?

From now through October 7, Embassy Suites is running a Facebook contest where there are weekly winners drawn each Wednesday. Winning nominators also get prizes for recognizing the All-Stars.

Here’s a link to enter.

Additionally, the weekly winners will be entered into a drawing for a grand prize. The Grand Prize winner will receive a VIP getaway for two at any Embassy Suites in the US and their kids’ entire travel team will get a free stay at an Embassy Suites on a future trip. Embassy Suites will also be reading social media comments and randomly surprise traveling parents during the fall sports season.

Brook Burke-Charvet will host a one-hour Twitter chat for parents interested in talking more about parents that are just as decided to the team as their kids. The conversation will be Thursday, September 18, 2014 at 8pm ET using hashtag #AllStarParents.

I think I’ll be nominating a guy at my work named Jack Fitzgerald. He’s got four teenagers (ok one is 12) that are all heavy into sports. This fall the three younger ones will be in Soccer (the oldest is now in college). I’m amazed at how he and his wife coordinate all the different sports schedules and are hands-on at all the games/tournaments. It seems they are always driving in one direction or another and arranging hotel stays, helping with school projects and homework. They both work full-time, he as a Sales Engineer at a Mechanical Engineering company while she is a Director at a Nationwide Fast Food Chain. He loves reading about my trips to the Maldives or Italy and is a member of a few different hotel loyalty programs, but would be happy with just a quiet night close to home!

Are you an All-Star parent?

Notes from the fine print on the survey:

The Embassy Suites Fall Sports Survey was conducted by Wakefield Research (www.wakefieldresearch.com) among 400 parents of kids traveling overnight at least once per season for fall sports, between September 2nd and September 9th, 2014, using an email invitation and an online survey. Results of any
sample are subject to sampling variation. The magnitude of the variation is measurable and is affected by the number of interviews and the level of the percentages expressing the results. For the interviews conducted in this particular study, the chances are 95 in 100 that a survey result does not vary, plus or minus, by more than 4.9 percentage points from the result that would be obtained if interviews had been conducted with all persons in the universe represented by the sample.