I would be curious to know the percentage of the child population in America versus other countries that are doing highly competitive sports. Or let's be real a lot of these travel sports. Things are just a way to suck money out of parents who have overblown beliefs about their child's athletic abilities. I've heard all these funny stories about kids who did travel sports, but then weren't even good enough to make their high school team |
I think that it's definitely more of an American thing. I think it's a money grab for these teams and it's for the parents themselves more than the kids. |
So as an extremely young teen, 13 you only did organized activities. You never went outside with friends just for fun? You didn't ride bikes or play basketball? No night games, like capture the flag? |
Sorry you’re too selfish to put your kids interests ahead of your own inability to manage your schedule. My kid likes swimming so DH and I take him 3 days a week at 6 am so he can still fit in other sports and activities. My kids also do a travel sport that involves driving to another state every weekend for 3 months out of the year. |
We get it, parents whose lives revolve around kid sports are batsh*t. |
i And yet these bums won’t even play high school |
Nah that's the couch potatoes and their lazy kids, they can't keep up and are complaining about it. |
No, the opposite. My mom was too lazy and sat around smoking watching tv or gossiping with her friends not caring what I was doing at 13. Likely just riding my bike to my friends houses so we could do nothing together. I want better for my kids. |
That is what kiddie travel sports are in a nutshell, and rec sports to a far lesser degree. I get a laugh out of parents who think their kid has to be in sports practice 20 hours a week to "keep them out of trouble." Their kid is going to run around town burning empty buildings and throwing rocks at cars unless a coach supervises them moving a ball around? Bizarre. |
Couldn't have said it better myself actually. Sports don't guarantee anything. If your kid is going to be a trouble maker, and that's a big If, they're going to do it anyway |
In many Asian countries the kids are scheduled with cram schools and instrument lessons. I have friends from Singapore who talk about tutoring centers the size of shopping malls. The kids are studying far longer then the American kid playing travel sports. |
I'm really surprised at how some posters are so seemingly angry about not playing sports. I didn't get to play sports either, but it doesn't really bother me or affect me that much. I never saw it as a big deal. |
OP, you have one kid. A parent who has three kids who had one sport per kid may still feel very busy even if each kid is not necessarily that busy or overscheduled, especially after working all day. It is all relative.
I don’t think people on this thread are attacking those kids who play rec sports or don’t do much. What we are saying is to be good at anything, you need to put in the time whether it is an instrument, sport or often multiple sports. My kids all play multiple sports. They usually play one sport year round and other sports one season at a time. The main sport takes priority. We have also been on the other side. My kids played soccer most of their lives. One kid played travel. Other kid played rec. The rec kid would sometimes be short a player when kids didn’t come or weather wasn’t good. |
Amd that's not any better. It's like ppl today forget to let kids have a childhood |
You act like these kids don’t actually like what they do and of course they would rather be skipping stones. |