Regrets or inputs about competitive sports for elementary kids
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Anonymous
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Short story is that kiddo is in elementary school and their other parent (my ex) and I disagree about moving up to the next league which is not the travel league but it is more competitive than the current recreation league our kid is in - it involves one more practice per week and some weekends could be up to three-ish hours round trip for a game. I recognize that travel leagues are a much heavier lift. Our kid loves playing and is fairly good. They enjoy their current rec team with friends but are worried about getting left behind as several friends plan to move onto the next league. I could see our child excelling in the next league as well as being content until middle school to remain in the rec league and have more weekend time for other social activities.
Any input on how it is for your family currently or looking back, if you started your child in competitive sports early? |
Anonymous
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How old is your child now? My son was in 6th grade, which was still elementary school, when he started travel baseball (12u). I don't know if you consider 6th grade early or not.
We didn't start younger because he didn't ask. One overlapping season of travel and Little League was plenty for us, but I know families with 3 or more kids who do both rec and travel sports at the same time. It worked well for us as I had a lot more flexibility in terms of work schedule so I was able to take him to practices. My husband had less flexibility so he went to as many rec games as he could. He didn't come to as as many travel games or at least would only make one of the two in a doubleheader, as we have another child. What he did do was cook dinner and have it ready for whenever DS got home, which was invaluable. |
Anonymous
Kiddo just turned 9 and is a 4th grade, essentially a year younger than their grade level peers. That makes sense about dividing and conquering based on scheduling. My work schedule is currently somewhat flexible but it's also a factor of signing on for losing more hours on the weekend. |
Anonymous
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We always took the lead from our kids and didn’t push. We supported what they wanted as long as we could make it work with time and money. We didn’t do any crazy travel like some in elementary but didn’t prioritize sports and they monopolized many of our weekends. No regrets because our kids like them.
By 7th grade both kids were into different sports than they were in elementary school. It’s hard to say if they still would have been in in middle and high school if they weren’t involved in some sort of athletics early. Also, when one of ours wanted to stop it all completely we supported that too. |
Anonymous
| That should say we DID prioritize sports and they monopolized our weekends because our kids wanted that and loved it for many years. |
Anonymous
| We also followed our kids' lead in sports, and they monopolized our time. I regret ever introducing hockey as a sport. It's a dead-end sport from this area and requires so much travel due to a lack of depth locally, and the practices and games are scheduled at weird times based on when ice is available. Also, the parents are a little nuts. It's the only sport I regret. Everything else has been enjoyable enough. |
Anonymous
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Our son started travel in 4th grade. We had planned on waiting until he was older, but he begged. We’ve always prioritized low-key teams, so his travel team was local travel only for instance.
In high school now is still playing and still loves it, so no regrets. |
Anonymous
Why |
Anonymous
| Our daughter is a great athlete and wanted to move out of rec in third grade. It was a big time commitment but she excelled and made great friends. Honestly I think it helped with doing well in school and keeping out of trouble. Wouldn’t change anything |
Anonymous
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All my kids did high level travel in elementary and middle school and we are very happy with that choice. I think it had 3 big benefits.
1. Fitness. All of my kids are in fantastic condition (much better than their non-travel peers) 2. Social skills & confidence. All of my kids have good social skills, can deal with authority and are appropriately self-confident. It also ensures a significant amount of time away from screens. 3. Parent child relationship. For us working with them on their sports “career” spending one on one time in hotels, and being with them as they went through their ups and downs was the best bonding that I can think of. Particularly with my youngest who was cut from a team and then working him to get in another team was a key event in his life. When things are hard for him now I will say to him remember getting cut? You survived that and you’ll survive this. You can’t get that anywhere else. But with that said, as a parent you need to approach it with the right mindset. No matter how many opportunities you give them ultimately they have to be the ones to want it. Additionally, pursuing youth sports is no guarantee of athletic success or even continued interest in the sport. You have to look at it as a healthy activity not as a down payment on the future. Good luck. |
Anonymous
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Which parent wants to move up to travel? That parent needs to agree to be the one to give up all of their weekends to travel to games. Your entire weekends will be consumed by traveling for games, so make sure you know what you're signing up for before agreeing to it. IMO low level players shouldn't be playing travel sports, rec is perfect for them.
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Anonymous
+1 and read this book. https://www.si.com/more-sports/2009/04/07/youthsports-untilithurts My older son had lots of female friends with sports injuries in high school. My coworkers also have kids who had injuries so bad they quit their sports. I read high school scholarship apps and a common essay topic is "how I recovered from a leg injury so I could meet xxx goal in my sport". |
Anonymous
| DS attends one of the big 3 private schools, and he will likely plays varsity tennis there as the number one player on the team. It took so much time and money to get there, and knowing then what I know now, I am not sure I would do it again. YMMV. |
Anonymous
| ^^ He is likely to be the best player on the varsity tennis team as a freshman. |
Anonymous
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It really depends on how much your kid loves the sport.
My kid is a baseball fanatic - it is his life’s great passion, and has been since he was about 4. Aided and abetted by a baseball loving dad who coached tball and played hours of catch. Still - with all that love - we still didn’t do travel until 12, and then it was a B level local travel team. Kid didn’t ask before then, and we didn’t offer. I would have had a hard time saying no if he had asked. He is going to college next year and will play. Over all of this time he has never said he didn’t want to go to practice, never did more than grumble to himself about 5am tournament wake ups. He has driven this the whole time. I’m glad we enabled his baseball playing - it’s what he loves, and makes him happy and gives him motivation to get up and out the door in the morning. He still lights up when he looks at the calendar at 7am and says “it’s a baseball day!” |