Young Guests Role Play to Learn Tennis at Club Med Resorts in the Americas
Club Med, renowned for its award-winning children’s programs, offers an innovative approach to teaching little ones the game of tennis with its Petit Tennis program.
Club Med’s Petit Tennis method engages children ages three to seven in role play to introduce them to the forehand, volley, serve and backhand volley. The program creates images and stories for the tennis equipment, techniques and boundaries to teach the pillars of the game. Colorful storybooks also add excitement and feed youngsters’ imaginations.
Petit Tennis is the brainchild of former tennis pros, Jean Phillipe and Sybile Fleurian. In 2001, Jean Phillipe and his wife, Sybile, founded Petit Tennis with the goal of teaching the game to young children—and actually crafted the curriculum with their two young daughters in mind.
“We saw tennis steadily declining in popularity among children in the U.S.,” remarked Mr. Fleurian,. “With daughters aged three and five years old, we felt a great urgency to pass on our love of the sport to them. So we became very creative parents and began brainstorming new training techniques.”
With the goal of nurturing a strong emotional bond to tennis at a very early age, the couple consulted sports psychologists, child development specialists and tennis trainers from the French Tennis Federation. They created a series of stories, colorful books, games, small-format courts and age-adapted equipment like large inflatable balls, lower nets, and bigger rackets.
“Children as young as three and a half wait impatiently to fly yellow ducklings over a mountain to find the mother duck. They shout in relief as their duck flies safely above the crocodile lurking at the foot of the mountain,” he explained. “And when their duckling returns, the odyssey begins again. These children are not engrossed in a Chinese fable or a high tech video game, they are playing tennis.”
“Giving young children imagination and a court and equipment a
dapted to them encourages success and keeps them from getting discouraged,” added Ms. Fleurian. “The kids we work with at Club Med excitedly return to Petit Tennis every day of their vacation.”
Club Med offers Petit Tennis five days per week at its Ixtapa Pacific, Sandpiper, Punta Cana, Cancun Yucatan, Rio das Pedras, Trancoso and Itaparica resorts at no additional cost to families. The Fleurians also offer a nine month Petit Tennis curriculum for use in schools and sports federations in more than 16 countries. They will launch Petit Tennis and Golf camps for children at Club Med Sandpiper this summer. For more information on Petit Tennis programs go to www.lepetittennis.com
Club Med offers additional programs for children ages four months to 17-years that encourage learning about local cultures, exploring nature’s beauty and practicing a variety of sports. Children are divided into small groups according to their age and interests to participate in programs such as Petit Tennis, Petit Chef, Circus School, Hip Hop Kidz and Lil’ Explorers Science Club. Additional activities include flying trapeze, golf lessons, soccer, sailing, rollerblading and archery. For more information on Club Med, visit www.clubmed.us
