Travel teams in elementary (3rd grade)

[Anonymous]

Can you speak to your experience having your DC on a travel team at this stage? Growing up, I don't even know if we had travel since I grew up in a small town and my parents certainly wouldn't have paid for it. Are they too much training, pressure, or time commitment for this age? Or were you still able to have your DC enjoy other weekly or twice weekly activities? Were they exhausted all the time? DC has a classmate who started travel in kindergarten or 1st grade, but I don't think he does any other activities.

[Anonymous]

OP, the sport and league really matters to answer this question. I don’t know what club teams accept kinders…please give some details here to get good responses!

[Anonymous]

DC started travel soccer in third grade and loved it. They did have to drop one of the rec sports that they had done the previous spring at the same time as rec soccer. Also had to make an adjustment to another activity to accommodate the soccer schedule. But soccer is their favorite so it makes sense to schedule other things around it. It is not the path I would have chosen for my child, but we are following their lead. It will be harder as their younger sibling gets older and maybe wants to do their own activities in a more serious way. We will cross that bridge when we get there. For now the younger sibling has fun playing with other siblings on the sidelines during games.

[Anonymous]

Depends on the sport. Some, like certain baseball/softball programs, will require them to also do the house league. Kids definitely do multiple sports at that age -- say there's soccer 3x a week, they also do lacrosse on Sundays.
As for whether it's too much-- only you can answer that. Is your child begging to play the sport as much as they can, and are they in the backyard practicing by themselves? If so they're probably ready. If you are the one who heard about the league without them asking, maybe not.
Also, most travel leagues, especially at that age, don't actually "travel" much. You'll go outside your community but likely won't go more than 1.5 hours at any given time. Just for planning. Tell us the sport and we can give more guidance.

[Anonymous]

DD and a lot of kids we knew started travel soccer in second grade. She was not exhausted from it and still did other activities but she’s always been a high energy kid. We made the choice to give her more practices each week and because it was not a financial strain.

She decided not to continue the following year because she wanted to try other activities. We always gave her options of what we could handle with driving. She had some friends stay in travel and others go back to rec. Our daughter wanted to try other sports and things like dance and theater.

Now in 7th grade, she’s still playing rec soccer (never stopped) and on a club team for a different sport.

For any of these sports, don’t go into this thinking it’s the ticket to a high school team or a college scholarship. It should be fun for your kid, what you can afford and what you are willing to drive to and watch in your free time.

[Anonymous]

As others have said, it depends on the sport/league.

My kids started travel soccer in 3rd and 4th and no, it wasn’t too intense because as PP said, actual travel was minimal (1.5 hour drive maybe 3x per season for either games or tournaments). Practices 3x week, so still time for something like scouts. Some teammates did/do a second sport, but found it challenging and that’s more than I’m willing to deal with.

In our experience, pressure and travel didn’t start until middle school. And fwiw, expecting nothing from it beyond exercise, friendships and learning to work at something.

[Anonymous]

I’ve had different kids in travel sports at that age for hockey, softball and soccer. The time commitment can vary greatly in the program. For us hockey was 3x 1 hour practices a week, softball and soccer was 2x week for 1.5 or 2 hour practices. Out of town games were about once a month (smaller town traveling to the same big metro area).

The ability to do other activities became challenging as some teams would switch or add practice times at the last minute. We encouraged participation in other rec sports or activities (choir/individual sports) and tried to fit them in whenever possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the sport. Some, like certain baseball/softball programs, will require them to also do the house league. Kids definitely do multiple sports at that age -- say there's soccer 3x a week, they also do lacrosse on Sundays.
As for whether it's too much-- only you can answer that. Is your child begging to play the sport as much as they can, and are they in the backyard practicing by themselves? If so they're probably ready. If you are the one who heard about the league without them asking, maybe not.
Also, most travel leagues, especially at that age, don't actually "travel" much. You'll go outside your community but likely won't go more than 1.5 hours at any given time. Just for planning. Tell us the sport and we can give more guidance.

This is a good synopsis. My DS plays travel baseball and started in 8U (most of team was in 2nd grade). It was roughly 3x a week in the fall, and 5x a week in the spring, since players have to also play local little league.

In fall a few boys play a second sport, and in winter probably half the team plays basketball. There’s usually 1x a week indoor winter practice after a break in November-December.

Frequency of tournaments and distance traveled varies widely by club, and even by team. Right now we do 1-2 tournaments per season, and mostly local. I expect that to gradually increase in number and intensity over time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the sport. Some, like certain baseball/softball programs, will require them to also do the house league. Kids definitely do multiple sports at that age -- say there's soccer 3x a week, they also do lacrosse on Sundays.
As for whether it's too much-- only you can answer that. Is your child begging to play the sport as much as they can, and are they in the backyard practicing by themselves? If so they're probably ready. If you are the one who heard about the league without them asking, maybe not.
Also, most travel leagues, especially at that age, don't actually "travel" much. You'll go outside your community but likely won't go more than 1.5 hours at any given time. Just for planning. Tell us the sport and we can give more guidance.

This is a good synopsis. My DS plays travel baseball and started in 8U (most of team was in 2nd grade). It was roughly 3x a week in the fall, and 5x a week in the spring, since players have to also play local little league.

In fall a few boys play a second sport, and in winter probably half the team plays basketball. There’s usually 1x a week indoor winter practice after a break in November-December.

Frequency of tournaments and distance traveled varies widely by club, and even by team. Right now we do 1-2 tournaments per season, and mostly local. I expect that to gradually increase in number and intensity over time.

I freely admit this is probably a stupid question. What, in this context, is a tournament? Do they spend a whole weekend playing a game each day for 3 days in a row? Or is it like 2 weeks of games 2-3x a week against different teams in a bracket?

[Anonymous]

My DS started travel soccer in 3rd. He didn’t have a lot of homework so he could have play dates for an hour before practice or a few hours on no practice days. Soccer was typically 2 practices a week and 1 game a weekend. Games at that age were within an hour drive so tied up maybe half a weekend day except for tournaments (which were local at that age). Occasionally there was a weekend with no game or a weekend with 2 but it all evened out. He had time for a rec sport each season too. The one thing he had to give up was sleepovers because at that age his games were often early morning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the sport. Some, like certain baseball/softball programs, will require them to also do the house league. Kids definitely do multiple sports at that age -- say there's soccer 3x a week, they also do lacrosse on Sundays.
As for whether it's too much-- only you can answer that. Is your child begging to play the sport as much as they can, and are they in the backyard practicing by themselves? If so they're probably ready. If you are the one who heard about the league without them asking, maybe not.
Also, most travel leagues, especially at that age, don't actually "travel" much. You'll go outside your community but likely won't go more than 1.5 hours at any given time. Just for planning. Tell us the sport and we can give more guidance.

This is a good synopsis. My DS plays travel baseball and started in 8U (most of team was in 2nd grade). It was roughly 3x a week in the fall, and 5x a week in the spring, since players have to also play local little league.

In fall a few boys play a second sport, and in winter probably half the team plays basketball. There’s usually 1x a week indoor winter practice after a break in November-December.

Frequency of tournaments and distance traveled varies widely by club, and even by team. Right now we do 1-2 tournaments per season, and mostly local. I expect that to gradually increase in number and intensity over time.

Our exact experience with travel baseball. Maybe we are on the same team haha

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As others have said, it depends on the sport/league.

My kids started travel soccer in 3rd and 4th and no, it wasn’t too intense because as PP said, actual travel was minimal (1.5 hour drive maybe 3x per season for either games or tournaments). Practices 3x week, so still time for something like scouts. Some teammates did/do a second sport, but found it challenging and that’s more than I’m willing to deal with.

In our experience, pressure and travel didn’t start until middle school. And fwiw, expecting nothing from it beyond exercise, friendships and learning to work at something.

Good to know. I certainly hope my kid decides to switch out travel for the rooty-poot no-cut soccer school team once he’s in middle school 🫣

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the sport. Some, like certain baseball/softball programs, will require them to also do the house league. Kids definitely do multiple sports at that age -- say there's soccer 3x a week, they also do lacrosse on Sundays.
As for whether it's too much-- only you can answer that. Is your child begging to play the sport as much as they can, and are they in the backyard practicing by themselves? If so they're probably ready. If you are the one who heard about the league without them asking, maybe not.
Also, most travel leagues, especially at that age, don't actually "travel" much. You'll go outside your community but likely won't go more than 1.5 hours at any given time. Just for planning. Tell us the sport and we can give more guidance.

This is a good synopsis. My DS plays travel baseball and started in 8U (most of team was in 2nd grade). It was roughly 3x a week in the fall, and 5x a week in the spring, since players have to also play local little league.

In fall a few boys play a second sport, and in winter probably half the team plays basketball. There’s usually 1x a week indoor winter practice after a break in November-December.

Frequency of tournaments and distance traveled varies widely by club, and even by team. Right now we do 1-2 tournaments per season, and mostly local. I expect that to gradually increase in number and intensity over time.

I freely admit this is probably a stupid question. What, in this context, is a tournament? Do they spend a whole weekend playing a game each day for 3 days in a row? Or is it like 2 weeks of games 2-3x a week against different teams in a bracket?

Tournament are weekend affairs with usually are a couple games Saturday and Sunday. For soccer, depending on the size/structure of the tournament, my child would usually play two games Saturday and depending on how they did either play 1 consolation game Sunday or a semifinal and final if they advanced.

For softball/baseball, it was 2 “pool play” games Saturday that fed into bracket play on Sunday. Sunday could be up to 3 games if they made it to the finals.

Local teams sometimes have Friday night games scheduled. The schedules bleed into Friday as they get older and more advanced. Hockey starts with Friday games for all age groups.

[Anonymous]

It’s crazy to spend so much time driving for a kid to play a sport, in my opinion. It’s also environmentally a problem for so much car travel. The time spent traveling could be spent on so many other things, like playing in the yard or just having downtime. As a psychologist, I think this kind of thing is contributing to overall mental health struggles as kids grow.

[Anonymous]

It would have to fit in *very* easily with the entire family's schedule. I can't see that happening. Maybe if there was only one child and the parents had light careers.