Our 12-year-old son is faced with a dilemma that’s popular this time of year: Does he head to the beach with friends for a day to close out summer vacation or attend his youth sports practice?

He’s not on a high school team yet or the decision would be an easy one as practice comes first at that level. Instead, if he does go to the beach for the day, the youth practice he would miss is one of several this month to prepare for the upcoming season.

Is the practice important? Sure, or they wouldn’t be having it. However, the predicament is whether it’s important enough to miss an annual beach day with his friends and all their moms – a tradition that was started a few years ago.

The “kid” in my son wants to go to the beach, but the “player” in him also knows practice is important. Similarly, the “dad” in me wants to encourage him to have fun and be a kid, while the “coach” in me wants to encourage him to attend practice.

Other players have and will miss the August practices due to weeklong vacations that they can’t stay home from. Therefore, with that in mind, my wife and I decided to treat this one-day trip as if it was a vacation and allow our child to miss practice for it.

Sometimes as parents we need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. In this case, that picture includes sand, waves, boogie boards and friends.

Jon Buzby has been involved in and writing about youth sports for the past 30 years with perspectives as a parent, coach and board member. Jon is an award-winning writer and his latest book, “Coaching Kids Made Easier,” is available on Amazon. Send comments or future blog topics you'd like to see to JonBuzby@hotmail.com and follow him @YouthSportsBuzz on Twitter.