Tennis on the Road: 6 Tips for Traveling with Your Child

As we head into the summer national travel season, here is a great article with a unique perspective from Susan Sloane, “6 Tips for Traveling with Your Child”. The dynamic of the rigorous travel and competition is challenging for anyone but can be especially difficult for mothers and daughters during the teenage years.

Susan and her mother, Pat Sloane, traveled all over the world together as Susan reached a career-high WTA Tour ranking of #18 in the world as a teenager. The two of them moved to Bradenton, Florida for her to train at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy (now IMG Academies) while the rest of the family stayed in Lexington, Kentucky. It wasn’t an ideal family situation, but they made it work with Susan’s older siblings in college and her father, Jim, able to travel periodically. I met Susan, her mother, and her coach, Fritz Nau, during this time and we became close friends over the years we shared on the WTA Tour.

I have such fond memories of “Mama Sloane”, as many of our WTA Tour peers have of Pat Sloane. As she traveled the world with her daughter, she looked out for all of us traveling without our families. She was the mom in the player’s lounge who greeted everyone with a huge gregarious smile, a genuine cheer of joy after a big win, or a hug after a tough match. She was a role model to all the mothers by being supportive of all the players competing against her child. I remember being sick at the Virginia Slims of Chicago and there was Pat Sloane, at my hotel door with all kinds of over the counter medicine to get me through a match the next day. Susan and her mom had a unique relationship, in which all of us on tour were beneficiaries. If I have not said it before, “Many thanks, Mama Sloane.”

So, here are Susan’s tips for traveling successfully with your child.

Tennis on the Road: 6 Tips for Traveling with Your Child
By Susan Sloane

To say the first half of my life was unusual is an understatement. Traveling the world with my Mom to play tennis was my “norm”. Week after week, year after year, spent in hotel rooms and on airplanes was most of my existence. I was fortunate that my Mom and I got along so well.

Though my Dad stayed largely at home, they both did what they could to make sure I had a normal, teenage life when I was back at home. I was always aware and appreciative of this. I think this is what enabled us to do this craziness year after year.

People have asked me many times how a teenage girl and her mother could coexist so well in such stressful circumstances. I don’t have an exact answer, but I do have some tips that made our journey through competitive tennis much easier.

Here are “My 6 Tips for Traveling with Your Child”. I hope these tips help you and your child to have the same success my mom and I had in my tennis years.

1. Make time for “normal” activities when you are on the road.

Traveling at the elite junior and professional level is not a normal lifestyle, and there is nothing easy about it. Just because your child shows maturity and promise at a young age, doesn’t mean they aren’t still a child. Kids need an outlet, and it can’t always be business as usual. Make time for shopping, sightseeing, going to the movies, and enjoying a beach day when possible.

2. Be there for each other.

The tennis lifestyle, or travel at the elite level of any sport, is challenging for everyone involved: parent and the child! Be there for each other. There will tense times about practice, results, and performances of course, as well as loneliness, being away from home and family, but if you are there for each other to get through those tough times, the lifestyle is much less excruciating.

3. Take time for yourself.

The days are long, tedious, and revolve around your child’s practice and match schedule. Make sure you get in a workout, free time or anything that you need to do for yourself each day. Become friends with the other mothers, so you have a social network for yourself and friends to look forward to seeing at tournaments. If you don’t take care of yourself, you will soon resent the tennis lifestyle.

4. Allow other siblings to pursue their own goals and interests.

The tennis can be all-consuming for a family. Make sure other siblings’ interests are not playing second to the tennis, and they have successes in their activities. This will help avoid a lot of resentment down the road!

5. Encourage a “normal” teenage life when your child is home.

Make sure they spend time with non-tennis playing friends, family and taking care of their academics. The life on the road is easier when you have a life outside of tennis at home!

6. Have continuity in your child’s coaching to add stability to the lifestyle.

The coaching relationship can be challenging at times and almost like a third parent in the family, but it is an important piece of the tennis development. Constantly changing coaches can put too much pressure on the parent to manage the tennis and therefore on the parent/child relationship.

All in all, I wouldn’t change anything about my tennis years. They were challenging, and rewarding, and made me the person I am today. I am eternally grateful for their sacrifices and still extremely close to my parents, as are my two children, living just two doors down from them on the same street where I grew up. I think that speaks volumes about our relationship many years past the crazy tennis life.

Susan Sloane Bio:

Susan Sloane won seven national titles and three Kentucky state championships as a junior player. As a teenager, she and her mother moved to Bradenton, Florida to train at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy. She turned professional in 1986 at the age of 15 after playing her first US Open at the age of 14. In 1988, she won the Virginia Slims of Nashville and was runner-up at the same tournament in 1990. She achieved a career-high WTA ranking of #18 in 1989. She retired in 1993 and is a member of the Kentucky Tennis Hall of Fame.

Susan lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with her two teenage children, Chas and Mia. She is the former owner of the Kentucky Tennis Academy from 1994 to 2002, now a tennis coach at the Top Seed Tennis Club, and a realtor with United Real Estate in Lexington.