Busy with sports....every weekend of their lives???
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Anonymous
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Not sure if this is parenting or sports related but I think it goes here...
10-year-old just started playing a travel sport (late add to a team) and we've been doing tournaments most every weekend. They're "local" but involve an hour or so drive. Kid loves it, and I love watching kid play...but I began to wonder if they're able to keep this up year after year after year. Don't the kids..and the parents..go insane with this kind of schedule? We have friends whose kids started at age 8. How do they keep it up for 10 years??? |
Anonymous
They live vicariously through their unathletic kids |
Anonymous
| Most kids’ sports careers end long before senior year in HS |
Anonymous
| They burn out and stop doing it well before that usually. The kids stops wanting to do it. A lot of them burn out late middle school/early high school. |
Anonymous
You act like it would be justifiable if the kids were athletic. It's insanity at any level, at that young age. |
Anonymous
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I think the answer is yes, it drives many crazy (and some have a lot of fun as part of it too! it's not either or). and while most kids have fun with plenty of it, the other things that travel sports leave little time for should be considered as you continue to decide what makes sense for your kid and family. Slow time at home as a family, engagement/development of other communities and other sports, unstructured play time with friends, etc. It is intense and is at the expense of other things. It also has wonderful benefits like great exercise, friendships, pushing out of comfort zones, being on a team, but some of those things can be gotten without the intensity. So yeah just a balance you should keep assessing though once started it iwll be hard to pull back if your kid is into it. Usually it has to be kind of a this isn't the path our family is taking because we value time at home, etc.
If you go on the soccer threads you can see many parents counting down the days til their kid is done with high school so they will be done with travel sports. There are a couple threads on it. And on there you will also see parents that LOVE IT. |
Anonymous
| Haha! Yep, I just started travel softball this year. It eats up about 4 days a week with non-stop running around. Thank God my eldest is unathletic. I would die otherwise. |
Anonymous
| My kid's sport eats up one weekend a month and it nearly drives us insane. It's about half a day for each day and never more than an hour drive. But still. |
Anonymous
| Travel sport parent here and yes, kid and I do love it. But the schedule you are referring to is only during the main season. Even when you play a sport year round, that tournament schedule isn’t maintained throughout. The intense period for my son’s club sport is less than two months and then he switches to other sports (he plays three) where it’s local school team games and maybe a couple tournaments per season for club. |
Anonymous
| Soccer has its own forum on here. That's how involved and drama filled it is |
Anonymous
It sounds like OP is either softball/baseball or basketball and those schedules can be crazy with tournaments every weekend in season. Fall and winter tend to be optional because kids, parents, and coaches get burned out by the end of a season |
Anonymous
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Teen parent here. The kids love it and we had our periods of loving and hating it for both kids. It’s not every weekend all year, both of my kids had really busy times of the year and off season. Off season still had practices but not games and tournaments.
How we managed- we didn’t both go to everything. We carpooled and sometimes neither of us went to a game. We said no yo joining some teams where the travel or practices were too much for us. As others have said, one of mine stopped all sports in high school. The other cut back by middle school because her social life became more important to her. |
Anonymous
| DS is 10 and while not in a travel sports, has 2 individual sports that keep us busy many weekends between practices and competitions, which can be anywhere from 30 minutes away to across the country. He's an only child and we don't mind at all, I know this is just a blip in time. Plus if he ever wanted to stop we would. I make sure though DS gets plenty of "downtime" during off season. |
Anonymous
| Travel sports are terrible for so many reasons including this one. |
Anonymous
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Some families/kids thrive on that kind of commitment and intensity. It's just who they are.
You'll find that same kind of fervor in all areas of elite sports - cheer, dance, football, lax, swim, etc. Even in the adult world you'll see people who seemingly don't mind be all-consumed with XYZ. My former boss is a work-aholic. |