whether to continue with travel

[Anonymous]

DS has played travel soccer for 4 years. Next year he enters middle school and intends to play on the school team - and wants to play other team sports in other seasons. He loves playing soccer but he's not a super star and is interested in other things. I can tell he could get overwhelmed navigating this. I guess my question is to what extent do you factor in school sports when making the decision about sticking with travel soccer.

[Anonymous]

I would let him play on the middle school team with kids he’ll be with for seven years.

[Anonymous]

Not at all. My only rule is they have to play something every season. Don’t care if it’s club, school or rec.

[Anonymous]

When they hit HS, it is very competitive to make the team so playing club soccer is almost a requirement. What county are you in? In MCPS soccer is a spring sport for middle school. DS’s middle school practice was immediately after school and the season was super short. Maybe 6 weeks. It was also only a few day a week commitment so there weren’t many scheduling conflicts. If he had school practice/game before club practice, sometimes he missed club. His club coach recognized a lot of kids played middle school soccer so was reasonable about missing. When they hit HS, MCPS has a fall season and most clubs in MD take a break knowing kids will be playing.

[Anonymous]

Where you go to school totally matters for this question.

But it sounds like you started him in travel soccer in 1st grade? I didn’t even know they had travel that young. And she still isn’t totally into it? I would let him find his passion. It doesn’t seem like it’s soccer. It might be debate or science Olympiad or crew or something. Travel soccer will suck the time away from that and the injuries also start to really rack up.

[Anonymous]

What other sports is he interested in? My son had a horrible coach in middle school and quit for two years. His buddies convinced him go out for JV- he played a position they needed- and he got back into it and played through college. Along the way he tried basketball and freshman football in HS. In the end he preferred soccer but we let him make the decision.