Are kids still doing it all? Rise of travel sports and scheduled kids.

[Anonymous]

When I was growing up in the 90s, kids around me did an instrument plus orchestra or band, maybe math or other tutoring, and sports. But these were rec sports. If you were particularly athletic, you'd maybe do two sports per season. Even for middle and high school, I don't remember kids really going off for travel teams. When did travel sports really take off?

I have an elementary schooler now and am really surprised at the number of kids on travel teams. Are these kids just leaning hard into that one sport? They haven't hit puberty yet. What if things don't work out... do they just go back to rec for that sport? And how do they balance that with other commitments? Even with kids who aren't particularly athletic, 7-8 year olds are signing up for basketball drill classes for 2 or 3 seasons, doing travel soccer, travel hockey, in the school's music program... Are these kids still able to do it all? How? Are they skipping some of their commitments?

How is high school different in terms of activities? Are seniors in high school applying for college as the 2 sport superstar who also learned 2 languages and plays in the regional youth orchestra, while maintaining an above 4 point GPA and setting up their own charity? And then getting rejected from all the Ivys? I'm getting sort of depressed about all the early pressure around me, and college apps are still a decade away!

[Anonymous]

Yeah it's still a high thing, but at least in my circle it's dying out, and kids/teens are happier actually. Nothing wrong at all wrong with activities just overscheduling. When my sibling and I were growing up in the 80s amd 90s kids seemed to have a really good balance of all the things. Lots of free time with neighborhood friends too, in ES throughout MS too.

[Anonymous]

I don't get why so many parents are signing their youth kids up for travel. Are rec and local teams terrible from 2nd grade and on? Does every halfway decent kid have to join a travel team if they want to play?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't get why so many parents are signing their youth kids up for travel. Are rec and local teams terrible from 2nd grade and on? Does every halfway decent kid have to join a travel team if they want to play?

As a parent heavily involved in our rec league and with 3 kids playing rec, the answer is yes. When everyone good leaves for travel, it's hard on the kids who legitimately care and want to play who stay in rec for whatever reason. You find a unicorn team where the players are really working and the coaching is good, but so often it's something parents seem to view as extra babysitting. They aren't fun to sit on the sidelines with because they aren't even there, they don't help out with much (leading to burnout for the few volunteers who do step up), and they don't care if their kids don't care and take the whole team down with a bad attitude. Joy.

[Anonymous]

Travel sports became a big cash cow industry. Around here - anyone can pay to have their kid on a travel team and it doesn’t mean that their kid is a spectacularly good athlete. I’m not sure that answers your question but I think you just have to kind of not worry about what everyone else is doing.

Ivy admissions are a lottery these days and no one should realistically plan their childhood around that as a goal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get why so many parents are signing their youth kids up for travel. Are rec and local teams terrible from 2nd grade and on? Does every halfway decent kid have to join a travel team if they want to play?

As a parent heavily involved in our rec league and with 3 kids playing rec, the answer is yes. When everyone good leaves for travel, it's hard on the kids who legitimately care and want to play who stay in rec for whatever reason. You find a unicorn team where the players are really working and the coaching is good, but so often it's something parents seem to view as extra babysitting. They aren't fun to sit on the sidelines with because they aren't even there, they don't help out with much (leading to burnout for the few volunteers who do step up), and they don't care if their kids don't care and take the whole team down with a bad attitude. Joy.

This is true.

DD is "pretty good" at basketball. But we keep her in rec because of other activities (band & theater).

But its tough for her, bc she will sometimes get frustrated with the level of play. And what's worse is that we know so many families that have been "sucked" into the mystique of travel ball, when the girls would be better served in rec (by more playing time, more fun, etc.).

it's tough

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't get why so many parents are signing their youth kids up for travel. Are rec and local teams terrible from 2nd grade and on? Does every halfway decent kid have to join a travel team if they want to play?

We stopped doing rec because the coaches were terrible. They were parents who favored their untalented kids, screamed and cussed from the sidelines, and had no clue how to teach the basics. They were all about a snack sign up genius too. I'm happy to play for a travel/club baseball team with quality coaches who are former MLB, have no kids on the team, seem to know what they are doing, and don't have a snack sign up. You get what you pay for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't get why so many parents are signing their youth kids up for travel. Are rec and local teams terrible from 2nd grade and on? Does every halfway decent kid have to join a travel team if they want to play?

Development is typically better with travel, which is why it is more expensive. It's hard to catch up if you miss out on skill development in the early years. Personally, I would love it if our travel program was 3 weekly practices, a couple travel tournaments, and the rest of the season the competition is local. We're in it for the development, not the travel, and haven't found a better option than travel for development. Maybe in some sports it works out to start travel later, but not in the ones my kids play.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get why so many parents are signing their youth kids up for travel. Are rec and local teams terrible from 2nd grade and on? Does every halfway decent kid have to join a travel team if they want to play?

As a parent heavily involved in our rec league and with 3 kids playing rec, the answer is yes. When everyone good leaves for travel, it's hard on the kids who legitimately care and want to play who stay in rec for whatever reason. You find a unicorn team where the players are really working and the coaching is good, but

so often it's something parents seem to view as extra babysitting. They aren't fun to sit on the sidelines with because they aren't even there, they don't help out with much (leading to burnout for the few volunteers who do step up), and they don't care if their kids don't care and take the whole team down with a bad attitude.

[b] Joy.

This is something that I've already encountered and I'm so annoyed by it as a parent. DS is only 7 so I'm sure people will just say I need to relax, but it's so disappointing to put him on a team only to have half the team skip most of the practices. The team photo only had 3 kids in it! I assumed they were skipping because they have other sports to go to, or have conflicts with siblings' activities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get why so many parents are signing their youth kids up for travel. Are rec and local teams terrible from 2nd grade and on? Does every halfway decent kid have to join a travel team if they want to play?

As a parent heavily involved in our rec league and with 3 kids playing rec, the answer is yes. When everyone good leaves for travel, it's hard on the kids who legitimately care and want to play who stay in rec for whatever reason. You find a unicorn team where the players are really working and the coaching is good, but so often it's something parents seem to view as extra babysitting. They aren't fun to sit on the sidelines with because they aren't even there, they don't help out with much (leading to burnout for the few volunteers who do step up), and they don't care if their kids don't care and take the whole team down with a bad attitude. Joy.

This is so accurate.

Travel (“travel”- they don’t actually go far) in our town is so close and so accessible in terms of distance, abilities accepted, and cost that almost everyone does it. Rec is just a few dedicated families who have always been coaches/volunteers in our town and some diehard crunchy families who are really gung-ho about community sports leagues. The rest of the people are:

-executive functioning-challenged parents- would never be able to commit to travel and rarely figure out the rec schedule. Their kids show up infrequently and often missing key items…like cleats and game jerseys. Everyone bends over backwards to make it work for the kids but the parents never improve

-parents who are really introverted/isolated and don’t want to carpool, volunteer, do snacks, etc. Rec is the outer limits of their ability to participate in community activities.

-parents who don’t want their kid to do the sport and their kid doesn’t want to do the sport, but they have other kids and need to have them in x place at y time, so the rec sport is easy babysitting.

[Anonymous]

I've just fully given up on any long term plan and will let my kids follow interests wherever and not specialize in anything.

What pushed me over the edge was my reasonably athletic 4yo taking a baseball skills class (which was fun and great and i loved for him). At the same location there were 5 year olds taking private batting lessons and nailing pitched balls while my 4yo was working on hitting off a tee. My kid would never be able to compete with those kids - he likes too many different things to focus on his energy on one thing, he's not getting private batting lessons at 5, we both work and don't have time to play catch with him for an hour every evening etc etc etc. The intensity now at early ages is crazy. At first I worried about him being left behind if we didn't do things "soon enough" but when I see what it takes now, we're opting out of the race entirely and will never be "elite" at a sport and instead will have the option of pursuing a variety of hobbies

If he was consumed with passion for baseball i might feel differently, but he's not

[Anonymous]

I pulled my kids from rec after seeing the worst parent behavior I’ve ever seen in rec teams. Travel is much better for parent behavior.

[Anonymous]

I played travel sports in the 1980s and 90s, as did my siblings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get why so many parents are signing their youth kids up for travel. Are rec and local teams terrible from 2nd grade and on? Does every halfway decent kid have to join a travel team if they want to play?

As a parent heavily involved in our rec league and with 3 kids playing rec, the answer is yes. When everyone good leaves for travel, it's hard on the kids who legitimately care and want to play who stay in rec for whatever reason. You find a unicorn team where the players are really working and the coaching is good, but so often it's something parents seem to view as extra babysitting. They aren't fun to sit on the sidelines with because they aren't even there, they don't help out with much (leading to burnout for the few volunteers who do step up), and they don't care if their kids don't care and take the whole team down with a bad attitude. Joy.

This is so accurate.

Travel (“travel”- they don’t actually go far) in our town is so close and so accessible in terms of distance, abilities accepted, and cost that almost everyone does it. Rec is just a few dedicated families who have always been coaches/volunteers in our town and some diehard crunchy families who are really gung-ho about community sports leagues. The rest of the people are:

-executive functioning-challenged parents- would never be able to commit to travel and rarely figure out the rec schedule. Their kids show up infrequently and often missing key items…like cleats and game jerseys. Everyone bends over backwards to make it work for the kids but the parents never improve

-parents who are really introverted/isolated and don’t want to carpool, volunteer, do snacks, etc. Rec is the outer limits of their ability to participate in community activities.

-parents who don’t want their kid to do the sport and their kid doesn’t want to do the sport, but they have other kids and need to have them in x place at y time, so the rec sport is easy babysitting.

I would add one more tier of people who play rec:

-parents of kids who play another sport on a travel team, but everyone is telling them early specialization is bad and it's important to play multiple sports when their kids are young, and their kids show an interest in the rec sport, even though their primary sport is their travel sport. They will compete hard when they show up, but will only attend practices and games that do not conflict with their primary sport. Some of them are great athletes and it may annoy the other kids/parents who show up consistently that the more talented players on the team aren't reliable or that they still get playing time in games despite their many absences.

[Anonymous]

Soccer was pretty popular where I grew up, and I remember there being three primary levels:

- "house" soccer, AKA rec
- "select" - a bump up from house but games were still in the metro area, not as expensive as travel
- "travel"- was competitive and only the really good kids made the team

My kid is still young and on the rec team, but I hope there is some middle ground like the above.