How do you balance competing interests and overlapping sports' schedules?

[Anonymous]

My son is in early elementary. He is the epitome of a joiner. He prefers club/travel sports to rec because of the structure. Right now, he is playing basketball, soccer, lacrosse and swimming. For awhile, we tried to limit one sport per season. But now swim, soccer, and lacrosse are year round. We thought DS would get sick of a sport or get cut from a team. Some nights he has back to back practices. Most of the sports practice 2-3x a week. How did you balance competing interests and overlapping sports? How do you deal with sports that require year round participation, like travel soccer? We have two other children and our DD is starting to do soccer and gymnastics year round and just joined summer swim team, which has an easy schedule of Sunday practices. But it's a lot. And it is too much even with carpools. When did sports go from being seasonal to year round for first and fourth graders?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son is in early elementary. He is the epitome of a joiner. He prefers club/travel sports to rec because of the structure. Right now, he is playing basketball, soccer, lacrosse and swimming. For awhile, we tried to limit one sport per season. But now swim, soccer, and lacrosse are year round. We thought DS would get sick of a sport or get cut from a team. Some nights he has back to back practices. Most of the sports practice 2-3x a week. How did you balance competing interests and overlapping sports? How do you deal with sports that require year round participation, like travel soccer? We have two other children and our DD is starting to do soccer and gymnastics year round and just joined summer swim team, which has an easy schedule of Sunday practices. But it's a lot. And it is too much even with carpools. When did sports go from being seasonal to year round for first and fourth graders?

It is what you make it or otherwise indulge them in.

I would pick one of the soccer, swim or lacrosse to be primary and go back to seasonal/rec for the others... in the DMV swim lends itself better to year around and lacrosse and soccer have decent opportunities for seasonal play so that's what I might try to steer them to but ultimately it would be up to them - pick one for focus and we'll do seasonal on the others. At some point school homework will pick up and your current pace probably won't be sustainable.

[Anonymous]

This sounds like way too much to be doing all at the travel/club level. My child does club swim 1-2 days per week with travel soccer. Added in rec basketball in the winter when soccer training was scaled back. I have no idea how they would fit in another sport like lacrosse or year round basketball. There would be a ton on conflicts between soccer and lacrosse in particular. I can imagine coaches are happy to hear about your child’s schedule. They encourage other sports but not like what you are describing. Kids need downtime too.

[Anonymous]

My kid is similar and in high school now. Our rule was one year of travel overlap and then they have to choose. When there are no conflicts, they had to both choose and tell the coach that they were missing. It worked well enough, they ended up with one year round travel sport plus rec swimming in the summer, soccer and volleyball fall and spring and travel basketball year round. They play three sports in high school

[Anonymous]

My spouse and I divide and conquer and we also do carpools. We have 3 kids. It is tough and I don’t force kids to do any activities. I am not fighting with anyone to go to anything. If they really want to do something without complaining- I do make it work.

[Anonymous]

We have three as well. All three do a year round travel sport or activity. Each season, they also do a rec-level sport. My daughter also has non-sports/physical activity interests and has a couple of music lessons. We deliberately choice activities that are close to us to cut down time and also in a pinch, are metro or bus accessible. We also divide and conquer.

If I were you, I'd see which sport he is more dedicated to and where he has the most talent (likely where he gets the most playing time) and ask him to drop one of them to a rec level. If he gets lots of playing time at all, all the more reason to encourage him to take it down a notch. Not necessarily burnout, but because of injuries. My kid did not play more than one sport at a time at at travel level, but he has had at least one injury due to overuse - he's very good and rostered on a few teams in different age groups so while practice was the same 2-3 a week, he was playing a few games on the weekends.

Finally, is he getting down time, time to do something that is not scheduled, playing with friends, not missing bday parties, time spent in boredom? I think parents should be mindful about giving kids an opportunity to develop a life or personality out of sports and/or scheduled activities. The risk of injury is high in general for youth athletes and kids need to be able to deal with extra time on their hands when they can't play.

[Anonymous]

We are only doing private training for DD's three sports so we can set it up as a schedule that works for us. She guest plays in tournaments where possible for soccer, basketball and field hockey but we won't have her join any of the teams until late middle/early high school when it's time to get recruited in the two that she likes best that also don't overlap seasons in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are only doing private training for DD's three sports so we can set it up as a schedule that works for us. She guest plays in tournaments where possible for soccer, basketball and field hockey but we won't have her join any of the teams until late middle/early high school when it's time to get recruited in the two that she likes best that also don't overlap seasons in college.

Serious question, how will she be good enough (at least to be recruited in college) in any of those sports if she's not playing regularly? By late middle school, she is competing for spots against kids who have specialized in those sports. I don't doubt she's an amazing athlete but this area is pretty competitive at lease for two of those sports. The private training route I do think is practical. I have a friend whose sons play travel baseball but also attend practices for soccer and lacrosse (but don't play matches) because she says she wants to make sure they have the option of trying out for those teams in middle and high school and make the team. So kind of like you but only thinking about college recruiting for her boys primary sport.

[Anonymous]

That's too much! You could rationalize it a couple of different ways:

1.) At least in our town, basketball has a pretty short season. He could keep that at a rec level.

2.) He could become a summer-only swimmer.

Then maybe travel soccer and lacrosse would be manageable.

OR

1.) He picks his favorite sport for travel. Knock everything else down to rec.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is similar and in high school now. Our rule was one year of travel overlap and then they have to choose. When there are no conflicts, they had to both choose and tell the coach that they were missing. It worked well enough, they ended up with one year round travel sport plus rec swimming in the summer, soccer and volleyball fall and spring and travel basketball year round. They play three sports in high school

How did the rec-level coaches handle it? We allow my son one travel sport and they compete about 9 months a year, which means we often have to miss rec-level games, and the coach and other parents seem annoyed. I really love the idea of multisport athletes but I feel ashamed to show my face at the rec-level games we can attend lately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are only doing private training for DD's three sports so we can set it up as a schedule that works for us. She guest plays in tournaments where possible for soccer, basketball and field hockey but we won't have her join any of the teams until late middle/early high school when it's time to get recruited in the two that she likes best that also don't overlap seasons in college.

Serious question, how will she be good enough (at least to be recruited in college) in any of those sports if she's not playing regularly? By late middle school, she is competing for spots against kids who have specialized in those sports. I don't doubt she's an amazing athlete but this area is pretty competitive at lease for two of those sports. The private training route I do think is practical. I have a friend whose sons play travel baseball but also attend practices for soccer and lacrosse (but don't play matches) because she says she wants to make sure they have the option of trying out for those teams in middle and high school and make the team. So kind of like you but only thinking about college recruiting for her boys primary sport.

I'm not PP, but for basketball at least, if the girls is 5'10 or taller and a skilled player then she can play for a EYBL or 3SB team and get recruited. If she's shorter and has never played on a team at a high level, she's going to have more trouble

[Anonymous]

We balance it by only letting our kids do one travel sport and the rest rec. That schedule is not healthy for a kid that age. They need time to hang out - not to mention overuse injuries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have three as well. All three do a year round travel sport or activity. Each season, they also do a rec-level sport. My daughter also has non-sports/physical activity interests and has a couple of music lessons. We deliberately choice activities that are close to us to cut down time and also in a pinch, are metro or bus accessible. We also divide and conquer.

If I were you, I'd see which sport he is more dedicated to and where he has the most talent (likely where he gets the most playing time) and ask him to drop one of them to a rec level. If he gets lots of playing time at all, all the more reason to encourage him to take it down a notch. Not necessarily burnout, but because of injuries. My kid did not play more than one sport at a time at at travel level, but he has had at least one injury due to overuse - he's very good and rostered on a few teams in different age groups so while practice was the same 2-3 a week, he was playing a few games on the weekends.

Finally, is he getting down time, time to do something that is not scheduled, playing with friends, not missing bday parties, time spent in boredom? I think parents should be mindful about giving kids an opportunity to develop a life or personality out of sports and/or scheduled activities. The risk of injury is high in general for youth athletes and kids need to be able to deal with extra time on their hands when they can't play.

+1

Same here. We have 3 kids and all are allowed one year round/travel sport. They can also play rec sports seasonally. None have ever done more than 2 sports at a time - we can barely manage as it is!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are only doing private training for DD's three sports so we can set it up as a schedule that works for us. She guest plays in tournaments where possible for soccer, basketball and field hockey but we won't have her join any of the teams until late middle/early high school when it's time to get recruited in the two that she likes best that also don't overlap seasons in college.

This is sick

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We balance it by only letting our kids do one travel sport and the rest rec. That schedule is not healthy for a kid that age. They need time to hang out - not to mention overuse injuries.

Especially since we are talking about "early elementary" which reads like 2nd or 3rd grade.