As of right now, being a great skateboarder will not help with your child’s college resume. And chances are the soccer or baseball coach will frown upon your child skateboarding. It’s not an Olympic sport yet, but there is a powerful group of people trying to get it into the 2010 or 2016 Games. That will go a long way to giving it its rightful place as a real sport but, truth is, many skateboarders want to keep it out of the Olympics. The skateboard culture is about freedom and the Olympics come with rules and regulation. In an interview for “Time Magazine,” Tony Hawk said, “At this point, the Olympics needs skateboarding more than skateboarding needs the Olympics. They desperately need a cool factor and younger viewers. Skateboarding has all the makings of an Olympic sport and has more participants than many of them.” Yes, skateboarding is a sport.

But whether skateboarding is brought into the Olympic Games or not, there is no doubt that it is one of the toughest sports to master. Physically it demands core and leg strength, amazing balance and agility and coordination. Remember a skater just rides on top of the deck, not strapped onto the board. And all the tricks require the skater to land back on the board. It’s very complex with myriad variations of moves, and most of them intentional. The vocabulary is funny, silly and impossible to learn unless you really really pay attention.

Skateboarding as a spectator sport has really ramped up the viewership of the X Games. The summer X games feature six disciplines of skateboarding competitions: Big Air, Women Street, Men Street, Men Vert and Women Vert. Competing at this level takes years of training and practice. so think about Ryan Sheckler being 13 when he won a gold medal in street skating. But your child will start out slowly and build leg strength and balance with stronger core muscles. The great thing is that kids have fun right from the start and it’s one of the few sports you can do without a ton of equipment or having to gather a team. A skater can skate for 10 minutes in the driveway (or kitchen!) or skate for hours at the park. And even though its tough to learn, it’s almost always fun.