Agree or disagree? Kids should only play travel sports if they have college or pro potential

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t travel sports start way before you can tell if they have that kind of potential?

Yes, of course.

[Anonymous]

B team, baby! More local travel, fewer crazy parents. Still a good experience for many kids. Some of them will grow into wonderful high school and college athletes; some will tap out in 7th grade. It's all fine. Whatever each family decides.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:my DD is 13 and has played travel soccer since 8. She has always been athletic and even tried a lower level travel team for one year during covid and got frustrated with the skill, lack of commitment and the coaching so we went back to the higher level team. She has great friends, they have fun together, they all enjoy the game and it is great exercise. Yes- its a big time commitment and it is expensive but the happiness and fun makes it worth it. Plus- she has an outlet that isn't school related. She has gotten great opportunities to travel to places we might not necessarily have gone, will go to Europe next summer and she has recently become interested in playing in college. It might open some doors!

I think even if it doesn't open some doors, there is value there. Right? I would try to just enjoy it for what it is, not always looking for a door to open.

My niece played a travel sport for YEARS and coaches were always telling her this would be her ticket, she could play in college etc. But then it turned out, the schools who would give her money to play were not the schools she was interested in. So she's choosing college based on academics (and making a great choice) now that she's graduating. But it doesn't mean the experience was meaningless...

[Anonymous]

so let's just make school for those who are going to go to college. If you start a kid as an electrician at age 5, by the time they are 10 they will be amazing at it.

[Anonymous]

I see some parents are comparing travel sports to other non-sport extracurriculars. Can someone share what non-sport extracurricular activities cost as much as travel sports, requires as much time from the parents, and puts as much stress on kids' bodies?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:B team, baby! More local travel, fewer crazy parents. Still a good experience for many kids. Some of them will grow into wonderful high school and college athletes; some will tap out in 7th grade. It's all fine. Whatever each family decides.

+1

I’m not sure why more people aren’t clued into this. Being on the lower teams is the best. You get the younger and more enthusiastic coaches who are ambitious, the travel is limited, there is a lot of playing time, and the parents are normal and not insane. The focus is development not winning.

My lower team player who was on lower teams until age 13 is a senior getting recruited for college now who has now surpassed most of the A team players, I think in part because DC was able to make mistakes, learn to love the game, and develop at DCs own pace. B team is the best!

[Anonymous]

It's the actual travel that makes travel sports ridiculous when you live in a highly populated area like this one. Why can't you "travel" to play a high level team in another county in the dc area? Why do you have to drive to Delaware to play a team there when there's a glut of travel teams around here?

But no I don't believe travel sports should only be for the college bound athletes. If you can pay and your family likes it, go for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ll agree to this only if you also agree that no kids should do children’s theater or music unless they have a chance of being in Hollywood movies, Broadway, or a major symphony.

Personally I might seriously consider this tradeoff if it spares me the pain of yet one more youth theater performance.

Ha. The youth theater can be tough to sit through when they are younger but by middle school they are pretty decent!

My kid does it and sorry it's just not the same thing in the least. There is no traveling, you don't pay them, etc. It is short bursts of a lot of time commitment, but not year round the way travel can be.

As for music, because I have a kid who does that as well, that doesn't get super intense (travel, $) if it's going to get intense until high school marching band.

I disagree with this, btw. If people enjoy it and that's how they want to spend their time and $, great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I see some parents are comparing travel sports to other non-sport extracurriculars. Can someone share what non-sport extracurricular activities cost as much as travel sports, requires as much time from the parents, and puts as much stress on kids' bodies?

I have a kid who did children’s theater for years and a kid who did travel soccer and theater was a lot worse. Parents were nastier, rehearsal schedules much more intense than the travel soccer, and the parent volunteer stagehand requirements were far more than anything I saw in travel soccer. Cost was about equivalent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see some parents are comparing travel sports to other non-sport extracurriculars. Can someone share what non-sport extracurricular activities cost as much as travel sports, requires as much time from the parents, and puts as much stress on kids' bodies?

I have a kid who did children’s theater for years and a kid who did travel soccer and theater was a lot worse. Parents were nastier, rehearsal schedules much more intense than the travel soccer, and the parent volunteer stagehand requirements were far more than anything I saw in travel soccer. Cost was about equivalent.

Where?

I have a kid who has done several community theater productions and not my experience at all. There is no fee to participate. You can donate but it's sincerely not required. Rehearsal schedules are intense for tech weeks and during performance time. That's a couple weeks. And couldn't find a less nasty group of people What is there to be nasty about? Are people heckling during the performances? Pretty minimal volunteer requirements too. Typically kids do all of the stagehand and crew work. The tech crew kids are a whole other thing in theater from the performers and a lot of kids do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I have always admired highly athletic kids and wish them the best, I am just so glad that mine never fell into that category. The commitment required for travel sports sounds exhausting, and many of the parents seem insufferable. And for what? The vast majority of the kids end up putting the sport largely behind them, more often than not before college. I just don't get the appeal.

I don’t understand why people care so much about what other kids do. But I’ll bite..our kids enjoyed travel sports because they loved their sport, got frustrated in rec when kids missed games and practice at the drop of a hat, liked the competitive nature and overall higher skill and commitment levels in travel. None of them had any interest or desire to play in college. But they made great friends, stayed fit, and had great time management skills which served them well in high school and college.

Why isn’t the same disdain shown to non athletic extracurriculars? It gets old.

I never said one bad word about the kids. To the contrary, I specifically said I wished them well. It's the rest of the package (especially the parents) that I don't get.

[Anonymous]

Completely disagree. Sports can show you how to be part of a team, how to work together, push through during difficult times. They have value for everyone. Help develop who you are. FWIW, I was a kid who got eliminated from
Their travel team but then tried a different sport. Still had so much personal growth

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I have always admired highly athletic kids and wish them the best, I am just so glad that mine never fell into that category. The commitment required for travel sports sounds exhausting, and many of the parents seem insufferable. And for what? The vast majority of the kids end up putting the sport largely behind them, more often than not before college. I just don't get the appeal.

The parents like it. They like watching. They like hanging with the other parents. They often were athletic themselves and sometimes, not always, they perceive that it has a lot of social cache for themselves and their child.

I had a daughter who played a D3 sport in college. The group of parents for her travel team in high school was a whole scene. Lots of going out and drinking together. I let my husband partake and stayed home. But they enjoy it.

My kids played various recreational level (i.e, non-travel) sports through high school. Every single thing that you have just described took place in that context as well, and was loads and loads of fun -- except for the "social cache" thing. That's what I meant when I said "insufferable," so thanks for proving my point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Completely disagree. Sports can show you how to be part of a team, how to work together, push through during difficult times. They have value for everyone. Help develop who you are. FWIW, I was a kid who got eliminated from
Their travel team but then tried a different sport. Still had so much personal growth

I agree with this and also it should be pointed out you can get all these same things from a lot of other activities as well.

I grew up playing sports and one thing I would say is for a lot of team sports, the opportunity to play the sport can be challenging after high school. More so for women. Not a lot of pickup basketball games going on for middle-aged women! And no, I wouldn't play with men. Too rough. Tried that.

I have steered my kids a bit more to lifetime sports but of course that doesn't always work. They like what they like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Travel sports is a family decision. Who cares what other people do??

You could say the same thing about every single topic on DCUM. So just spare us.