11 year old new to sports

[Anonymous]

Our 10 yo DD played soccer this year and didn’t love it. Shes not a super fast runner and she’s deff not skilled but she enjoyed just being social - she doesn’t think she wants to continue soccer though. She’s done tennis camps in the past and doesn’t want to try again. She likes swimming but not in winter. She will try some basketball camps this summer. Problem is she’s not aggressive and doesn’t get competitive on a sports field/court. Am I forcing sports on her (I want her to be physically active - I know she isn’t a gifted athlete) or will a sport eventually click? Should we juts keep trying different things? She never showed any interest in sports until she was in 4th grade summer.

Any sport suggestions?

[Anonymous]

Sorry 11 year old. Not 10.

[Anonymous]

If she's not into sports, maybe that's ok. It's not everyone's thing.

But as a kid who wasn't aggressive or competitive, I enjoyed middle distance track, and I wish i would have joined cross-country.

[Anonymous]

I was like that, and as a young adult I got into yoga, partnered dance, and horse back riding. I think I would have also liked martial arts -any activity where the competition element was minimized or absent.

But there's also golf. my non-athletic daughter (age 9) tolerates golf. Which is a great social sport. And crew. That's fun.

[Anonymous]

As long as she is enjoying them, I don’t think it matters if she isn’t competitive or one of the best. She can play simply to get physical activity in and enjoy the socializing/camaraderie

[Anonymous]

How about volleyball? She’d be on the earlier side with starting that sport.

[Anonymous]

My 10yo sounds similar--she has never been good at or much enjoyed any ball sports. She loves being in the water and swims decently but isn't on a swim team (and her form isn't great so she's not that fast anyway.)

She loves rock climbing though. She joined the rec team at our closest climbing gym this year and is loving it. It's non competitive, so it's basically just getting to climb a few hours a week with the other kids on the "team." She's also really interested in trying crew in another year when she's old enough.

[Anonymous]

She sounds fine!

A lot of girls pick up volleyball and softball around this age. My DD was/is much like yours, and started softball around age 11 (mostly because a friend was playing). She is still playing at 13 and having fun.

[Anonymous]

I wasn’t aggressive and really liked softball and volleyball. I liked that there are really specific places to be and set plays that don’t involve marking another player. The idea of going head to head with another person to fight for a ball was weird to me. Lacrosse and soccer were fun for me but I was terrible at figuring out where to be on the field and when and why. It never clicked for me and it got to the point that I couldn’t outrun my lack of field sense. It sounds like your daughter might be similar.

(I didn’t articulate this to myself until adulthood; my script as a kid was just that I was extra sucky at those sports)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 10yo sounds similar--she has never been good at or much enjoyed any ball sports. She loves being in the water and swims decently but isn't on a swim team (and her form isn't great so she's not that fast anyway.)

She loves rock climbing though. She joined the rec team at our closest climbing gym this year and is loving it. It's non competitive, so it's basically just getting to climb a few hours a week with the other kids on the "team." She's also really interested in trying crew in another year when she's old enough.

Was also going to suggest rock climbing. One of my kids loves it.

[Anonymous]

Another vote for softball! My DD started at this age, and it was fine.

[Anonymous]

I think she’s still young enough to try new things. In addition to crew, track, martial arts and rock climbing as already mentioned, I’ll add fencing - a lot of kids don’t get started in fencing until middle school so she wouldn’t be the only beginner.

[Anonymous]

Agree that if you want a team sport, softball is good for non-aggressive kids--both of my kids are like this and are very good at baseball and softball. But I do think it could be tough to start at this age just because the pitching is pretty fast at this point and it is so much easier if you are starting with coach pitch (or even tee) and then slow girl pitchers and then continue to improve batting at the girl pitchers get faster and faster. But worth a try for sure.

[Anonymous]

There are also solo activities like dance and tae Kwon do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are also solo activities like dance and tae Kwon do.

Kids start dance early. An 11 year old doing something like ballet for the first time would be very behind.