You find your daughter watching extreme sports. Her clothing line is coming from the latest skateboarder fashion line at a local retail store in the boys department. She’s done playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater video game and you are in search of a local skatepark. You realize you are raising an extreme daughter and you’d like to encourage her propensity towards alternative sports but you don’t know how.

Signing up for the local Little League softball is a walk in the park in comparison to finding a venue to skate. Unless you live in California, you may be hard pressed to find the perfect place to take your daughter for a try at skateboarding. All states have at least one skatepark but that is not saying much for the more than 3 million skateboarders there are in the U.S.

Should you even encourage her, isn’t skateboarding a boy’s thing? Not really, 11 percent of the nation’s skateboarders are female. There is a good reason to believe that there would be more if the current female skateboarders were recognized for their contributions to the sport.

With the growth in extreme sports in the last decade or so it should be conceivable that more girls would be participating. Unfortunately, if they are, both you and your daughter would be hard pressed to find out about it. Girls appear to be entering the sport in a trickle but perhaps it is more that they are far less likely to be accepted. The Beijing 2008 Olympics saw the addition of the BMX competition which included only one female participant.

You are more likely to find scantily clad women in extreme sports magazines than female athletes. Meanwhile sponsors are spending money for the males involved in the sports while female athletes are relegated to the sidelines in poorly-sponsored untelevised competitions on their own lucky enough to get a free pair of shoes to endorse.

As London gears up for the 2012 Summer Olympics they are in the process of building venues for the extreme sports competitions. Will we wait in hope that there will be more than one woman present to represent the BMX or skateboarding talent in the U.S. or is it more likely to be like the AST Dew Tour?

Should we accept the current culture of alternative sports as is and stand on the sidelines? Are we searching for naught to support our daughter’s interest? Kyanna Sutton interviewed Nancy Coulter-Parker, an athlete and managing editor of WomenOutdoors.com. When asked if “alternative sports empower women and girls differently than traditional team sports,” her response was “Yes, they empower women with independence, individuality and confidence…” That alone tells me our search is not in vain.

Our daughters need support in their interests. If it is not the norm, then perhaps they need a little bit more support. If your daughter in particular is looking to get into extreme sports here are some resources that may be helpful.

Girls Get On Board (GGOB)
etnies Girl X Games 14 Girls Day
Nollie Extreme Girls
SkateTheory Skatepark Directory
Skateboard camps
Curlygrrlz Girl Skates
Skateboard Directory.com
Respect for Women articles at SkateboardDirectory
Girls in Extreme Sports

A word of caution, the subculture of extreme sports may be represented in unflattering ways. Please review any sites your daughter may visit in your search for information. Some of the sites, while having a wealth of information, have forums or bulletin boards where extreme sports enthusiasts can post without disciplined moderation. While many kids are interested in extreme sports there are just as many adults who have grown up following various sports since before the beginning of the X Games.