When did you know your kid was good?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When kids are especially young (under 10 or so) it's very easy for the smaller children to excel, as they have less body to control. The larger children can struggle.

As to who really excels in the long term, it's almost always the large children that stay large, but come in to their own through and after puberty.

For better or worse, size matters.

+1 especially in some sports with soccer being one of them

[Anonymous]

My, now 12 year old DD, was a standout when she was younger. Very fast and always won the tot trot races and, even in diapers, she had a drive to win. I also have a son and he’s completely the opposite, so it’s just the luck of the draw, I think. Anyway, she played rec soccer for one season and we were approached by the coach to have her try out for travel. Soccer was never a sport I was interested, so I never even considered travel soccer at her age.

Anyway, she is got her period at 10, so through puberty at this point. She’s still a standout in soccer and is only getting better because she’s still very fast, but now realizes that she can’t just outrun everyone anymore. She is now adding in foot skills, smart passing, and has a better sense of spacing and where to be on the field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 1st grade daughter really dominates her soccer games. There are usually about 16 kids playing and she just appears to be a bit faster, more coordinated, and more hungry to score than the other kids every time she plays. My husband and I are not and were not good at sports so I am surprised to see this. I guess what I am asking is - is being very good at this age just a product of the other kids not having figured the idea out yet?

I don't know if you are talking about college recruitment level good but if so, then size matters.
You will not know if your daughter is going to have the physical size, strength, endurance, etc until puberty.
The world is replete with small fast girls that were great in 5th or 6th grade and then never grew big enough to deal with the more physically punishing aspects of their sport.

Right now all you can do is encourage and make sure that they continue to love the sport.
Ironically parents who want their kids to love a sport are the number one reason kids stop loving a sport.

[Anonymous]

This is true

[Anonymous]

Having a HS senior who has always been the fastest- but did not ever grow into a tall or solid girl- soccer is still great but her size is an issue. She excels at running now.

[Anonymous]

In young kids, it's usually a combination of aggression and interest. When you figure on a team of 16, 4 probably don't want to be there, 4 are happy enough but easily distracted, and the rest are usually just running in a pack and trying to figure it out, it's easy for one or two kids to shine.

I agree, keep her happy and playing lots of sports. Give her lots of outside time. If she wants to practice, practice with her. Enjoy her!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The best kids are usually the bossiest at that age

Was just going to chime in with this. The "best" kids in K and 1st grade soccer were the ones who were bossy and either didn't read social cues or didn't care about social cues. Watching soccer games at that age was strange because the girls who dominated the games weren't big, weren't athletic, and weren't fast- they were just the ones who were willing to steal the ball from their teammates and run straight to the goal.

Over time, those girls have moved from one sport to another trying to find a good fit. I think one of them became a swimmer and is pretty decent and another is really into choir. The kids who have become really good are the ones who were fast but unwilling to get into the 1st grade death circles (those horrible little scrums that roam back and forth) or they focused a little too much about how they were passing and dribbling at the expense of keeping the ball.

The girls who have the patience to condition and drill and learn the game and already had natural speed and athleticism weren't obvious at that age.

None of my kids played soccer beyond these early years but we definitely noticed this at this age. It’s been drilled into them to be kind, share, not take other’s things, so the girls were polite at 5 and 6. The kids who never really got the message and struggled in other areas had no problems stealing the ball. We didn’t stick with soccer long enough to find out what comes next.

[Anonymous]

When DS was in 1st grade we started looking into individual sports since he was scared of the ball and just didn't seem very athletic or driven. By 5th grade he began coming into his own (both in terms of athleticism and enjoyment of sports) and is very athletic as a high schooler and made varsity as a freshman in both an individual and team sport. So for him at least, early elementary school was not a great predictor.

I will say though that the one kid I know who was a complete athletic stand out starting in preschool is now a total phenom as a teen.