Does your travel athlete play every tournament?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here.

FWIW, I'd have no problem with kids missing a tournament if it conflicted with a family wedding, or granny's 100th birthday celebration, or something significant.

But otherwise, I'm happy to take them. To be clear, kids are younger, so tournaments are all within an hour's drive, no overnights yet. Spouse gets really grouchy about it, even though spouse was on board with kids playing travel (for which said kids begged, and for whom rec coaches said it would be a good fit). Wanting to skip them just because, especially knowing kids will find out and desperately want to play, is causing me some stress.

My spouse and kid like the idea of travel and the tournaments with the level of competition. They both get grouchy about the time commitment on the weekends and the actual travel. So I’m the bad up front grouchy mom who says no. We have BTDT and it’s miserable when DH and I are exhausted from work and DD is excited to play bit mad she missing some big social event that everyone will be at except her. We both feel that if you commit to a team, you go to the games.

After an especially bad year of arguing I forced her to go back to rec. Yes, some things are a better fit for her in travel but not with what else she wants to do in life. It’s definitely a bad fit for us because I don’t want to spend so much time traveling.

[Anonymous]

Also no snark, but it sounds like the DCs are pretty young. If they are middle school or HS it will be expected that they do not miss if they are on a top tier team.

[Anonymous]

Is the “too much” referring to it being a lot for the kids or is it referring to the parents not wanting to constantly cart them around? If the latter, then you work out a carpool. Travel players are expected at every practice and tournament unless sick. Heck even injured players show up to practice and tournaments whenever possible to show support of their team.

[Anonymous]

Tournaments (games and practices too!) are mandatory on travel teams. It’s made clear at the start. We just came off a team where about half the families failed to honor their commitment. Parents didn’t even have the decency to respond on TeamSnap. It was infuriating as it hurt the entire team. DS was really frustrated that the other kids lacked commitment and I was livid that we paid close to $3k for a subpar experience. I didn’t understand why the coach refused to put his foot down. On all other teams, players lacking commitment would sit on the bench or be replaced.

If you don’t want to show up, play rec.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tournaments (games and practices too!) are mandatory on travel teams. It’s made clear at the start. We just came off a team where about half the families failed to honor their commitment. Parents didn’t even have the decency to respond on TeamSnap. It was infuriating as it hurt the entire team. DS was really frustrated that the other kids lacked commitment and I was livid that we paid close to $3k for a subpar experience. I didn’t understand why the coach refused to put his foot down. On all other teams, players lacking commitment would sit on the bench or be replaced.

If you don’t want to show up, play rec.

Was this like, the fourth level team in a club?

[Anonymous]

Please don't sign up for a rec team and then not show up. That's obnoxious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please don't sign up for a rec team and then not show up. That's obnoxious.

We don’t do that either. I’m a PP who mentioned rec. The reason I insist on that for DD is because it is not as time intensive. You don’t have the same amount of travel with entire weekends taken up by a tournament. She can still play and go to the social event. I can still have some time on the weekend to do the laundry and maybe even relax for a min.

[Anonymous]

Too much because it is a pain for the parents? Agree with the PPs that’s what you signed up for.

But if “too much” refers to the amount of play, that could be true. Kids are getting overuse injuries in insane numbers lately and a good parent will mitigate that by enforcing rest time.