When could you tell that your child was a good athlete?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD is in kindergarten. She plays soccer, basketball and tennis and seems to play them well. In soccer, she typically scored 4 or 5 goals per game. (No goalies!) She's small, but could score 5 or 6 times in a basketball game. No problem stripping someone of the ball and dribbling it away. She just seems to understand the games better than other kids do at this age. In both sports, she just steals the ball, dribbles it down the court and shoots. She doesn't understand why nobody chases her and tries to get the ball back! (When one basketball player did, DD was surprised once and anticipated it the next time.)

Is this just a case of having an aggressive, driven kid or is this what your athletic child looked like at this age? DH is very excited that she's got some athletic abilities. While I'm happy to have her running around enjoying team sports, I'm expecting everyone else to catch up pretty quickly once they realize how the games are played. I'm also trying to manage DD's expectations -- she counted her goals from the fall soccer season and is fully expecting to score another 17 goals this spring; I don't want her to get discouraged if she doesn't manage to do that.

FWIW, I'm relatively athletic and DH has two left feet. Our older son can hold his own in a few sports -- and watching his sister's focus playing soccer actually helped him improve game a good bit last fall.

I think your bigger worry is that she doesn't play like she's on a team.

Not to burst your bubble, OP. But the Kindergarten record (tied by my boys) was 17 goals in a SINGLE game.. They only had enough for one string so couldn't pull him out of the game when the score was so ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Kids can be coordinated, relatively big and/or fit at any age, and that will help in most any sport (gymnastics may be the exception where small is better). Kids who understand how to be appropriately aggressive in sports where that is part of the game will appear to be "better" than kids who still have not figured that aspect of the game out.

Really with girls I think you are going to have to wait until they are 15 or so to get an understanding where they are going to be with their size, speed, quickness and coordination. My daughter plays college soccer now. Over Christmas break she had some of her old club soccer friends over to the house and they were looking up kids from their 11 year old team. Of that particular team of 14 girls 7 went on to play college soccer and 1 runs cross country. But that was the club's "B" team. Of the "A" team 1 went on to play in college and 1 plays lacrosse. Kids were just at different stages of development. By the time they were sophomores in high school things were pretty well set in terms of athletic ability.

[Anonymous]

OP it might be useful to stay humble and allow your DD the chance to be humble because at this age the fastest most agressive athletes dominate but that will most definitely not always be the case. Around 5th or 6th grade the athleticism develops exponentially in the taller kids who seem to just develop more slowly. By 8th grade, there is an even mix of the short aggressive athletes and the taller, stronger athletes. It seems like it is difficult for the kids who dominated so much in elementary (and I would say especially their parents) to adjust to the new reality. I see this in DDs travel soccer, AAU basketball and swim teams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:...She's small, but could score 5 or 6 times in a basketball game.... she just steals the ball, dribbles it down the court and shoots....

i have older kids and there's no doubt in my mind OP's daughter is a natural. any 5-yo kid who can do the above is a no-doubter.

[Anonymous]

I could tell by K that DS is not athletic- I could also tell by K that he is a damn genius compared to most kids his age

[Anonymous]

Even in preschool it is easy to tell who has more athletic ability. Among three and four-year-olds some are running, catching, dropkicking, throwing well etc. while others are tripping over their feet. It doesn't necessarily mean that the more proficient ones will be more talented athletes later, but you can absolutely tell who has more natural ability. And at this age it's all nature and no nurture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:...She's small, but could score 5 or 6 times in a basketball game.... she just steals the ball, dribbles it down the court and shoots....

i have older kids and there's no doubt in my mind OP's daughter is a natural. any 5-yo kid who can do the above is a no-doubter.

Or, mom is living vicariously. I couldn't really tell. Too much precision in her game recaps for me.

My kid's a natural athlete. It was obvious at that age because he was just more sophisticated overall in every aspect of whatever game he played. I didn't keep track of goals. I appreciated that our coach (even at the beginning) encouraged passing.

[Anonymous]

DD just turned four. For the last year I have recognized she is much more coordinated the DS (7). She can do perfect cartwheels, hand stands etc. I am just letting her do her thing and figure out what she likes.

[Anonymous]

You people are nuts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD is in kindergarten. She plays soccer, basketball and tennis and seems to play them well. In soccer, she typically scored 4 or 5 goals per game. (No goalies!) She's small, but could score 5 or 6 times in a basketball game. No problem stripping someone of the ball and dribbling it away. She just seems to understand the games better than other kids do at this age. In both sports, she just steals the ball, dribbles it down the court and shoots. She doesn't understand why nobody chases her and tries to get the ball back! (When one basketball player did, DD was surprised once and anticipated it the next time.)

Is this just a case of having an aggressive, driven kid or is this what your athletic child looked like at this age? DH is very excited that she's got some athletic abilities. While I'm happy to have her running around enjoying team sports, I'm expecting everyone else to catch up pretty quickly once they realize how the games are played. I'm also trying to manage DD's expectations -- she counted her goals from the fall soccer season and is fully expecting to score another 17 goals this spring; I don't want her to get discouraged if she doesn't manage to do that.

FWIW, I'm relatively athletic and DH has two left feet. Our older son can hold his own in a few sports -- and watching his sister's focus playing soccer actually helped him improve game a good bit last fall.

I think your bigger worry is that she doesn't play like she's on a team.

Not to burst your bubble, OP. But the Kindergarten record (tied by my boys) was 17 goals in a SINGLE game.. They only had enough for one string so couldn't pull him out of the game when the score was so ridiculous.