youth soccer participation down 23.5% in key 6-12 year age group...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Never thought of tennis as a rich sport...public courts are free...you only need to find one person to join you...rackets can be purchased for $20...tennis ball cost is negligible...

Tennis group lesson around $20-40 per hour. Private lesson ranges from $40-150. It does cost a lot more than soccer/basketball/swimming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Never thought of tennis as a rich sport...public courts are free...you only need to find one person to join you...rackets can be purchased for $20...tennis ball cost is negligible...

you are not going to be a competitive tennis player by teaching yourself on a public court.

[Anonymous]

I meant over a lifetime...Once you know how to play tennis... It is certainly not a rich person's sport (as someone claimed). Anyone can access a public tennis court and the gear is cheap. Golf, on the other, certainly is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Never thought of tennis as a rich sport...public courts are free...you only need to find one person to join you...rackets can be purchased for $20...tennis ball cost is negligible...

you are not going to be a competitive tennis player by teaching yourself on a public court.

Yes. Venus and Serena Williams trained only on the most exclusive courts of Compton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fun is gone too young. Too many parents ruining it for the kids and over-training them younger and younger. Clubs out to make $ and requiring too much structure and too much $$ at an age-inappropriate time.

The organized 90-minute travel practices 3+ times a week almost year round for SECOND graders is ridiculous...add in multiple tournaments each season and long drives and a culture that gives up on 90% of kids in an age group.

This is the issue.

They are burned out before third grad.

Oh stop with throwing “burned out” around. At that age most kids who “quit” simply prefer something else. Isn’t the whole point to simply expose kids to a variety of things and see what sticks? Preferring something else is not burnout. Some of you people are so dramatic.

This is first and second graders. This is way too much and kids are burned out. Third grade wasn't a tipping point for a large amount of kids leaving travel soccer. In fact, the more serious stuff used to start closer to 4th grade.

I see little kids refusing to go to practice or saying 'it'ssss boorrrring' when the professional coaches that have no idea how to interact with younger children try to treat them like 16-year olds. And the parents are usually pushy as hell---over-bearing to the kids so they can show the other parents just how much better their child is.

3 organized 90-minute practices per week and multiple games a weekend a lot of months,, and regular season games with 50minute + drives is not age-appropriate for 2nd/3rd graders. That is why there is burnout. You don't need this to develop players and since in this country it is shitty training anyways...they are better off starting formally later if they have a parent or friend that can help with basics.

+100

the expensive race to nowhere....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I meant over a lifetime...Once you know how to play tennis... It is certainly not a rich person's sport (as someone claimed). Anyone can access a public tennis court and the gear is cheap. Golf, on the other, certainly is.

The only people I know who play regularly are members of a country club. The public courts are empty. I have a friend who is not a member of a club and he can never find anyone to play with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Soccer America Today article.

Pay-to-play (lack of free play opportunities), decline of in-town youth sports leagues (like traditional little league), low participation from low income families, and not enough trained coaches (soccer finished last in 4 of 6 training categories and no higher than 7th in any) cited. Smart phones and tablets also cited.

But while baseball participation dropped 5 percent and basketball 8 percent...soccer's 23.5% drop was striking!

I don't think it's quite as bad as the soccer america article makes it out to be. If you actually read the report cited and look at the chart, they cherry picked 2010-2016 because 2010 was the largest participation year for soccer so the drop off for that time frame is the worst. The study goes back to 2008 and if you look at just the last year available, 2015-2016 soccer is down 1.1 %. Basketball was actually down more than soccer 2015-2016. Don't burn your kids soccer cleats just yet.

https://assets.aspeninstitute.org/content/uploads/2017/12/FINAL-SOP2017-report.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Never thought of tennis as a rich sport...public courts are free...you only need to find one person to join you...rackets can be purchased for $20...tennis ball cost is negligible...

you are not going to be a competitive tennis player by teaching yourself on a public court.

Yes. Venus and Serena Williams trained only on the most exclusive courts of Compton.

yea- and there are soooooo many kids who have been as successful as them. Let me name a few.... oh, that would be none.

[Anonymous]

We quit because of a handful of intense parents. They’re really monsters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We quit because of a handful of intense parents. They’re really monsters.

You mean you let them win! One team had the most obnoxious parents. That team became the rivals to all the parents on our side. Kids did not care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Soccer America Today article.

Pay-to-play (lack of free play opportunities), decline of in-town youth sports leagues (like traditional little league), low participation from low income families, and not enough trained coaches (soccer finished last in 4 of 6 training categories and no higher than 7th in any) cited. Smart phones and tablets also cited.

But while baseball participation dropped 5 percent and basketball 8 percent...soccer's 23.5% drop was striking!

I don't think it's quite as bad as the soccer america article makes it out to be. If you actually read the report cited and look at the chart, they cherry picked 2010-2016 because 2010 was the largest participation year for soccer so the drop off for that time frame is the worst. The study goes back to 2008 and if you look at just the last year available, 2015-2016 soccer is down 1.1 %. Basketball was actually down more than soccer 2015-2016. Don't burn your kids soccer cleats just yet.

https://assets.aspeninstitute.org/content/uploads/2017/12/FINAL-SOP2017-report.pdf

There was also the fact that there was a birth rate decline in 2008 linked to the recession:
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2010/04/06/us-birth-rate-decline-linked-to-recession/

[Anonymous]

^^again, why was the drop off so much more radical for soccer than baseball and basketball? They should have dropped off simularily.

[Anonymous]

My U9-U12 kids are very good soccer players at a big club. They play on top teams. We have several kids who have all played at tiny, medium, and large clubs. We know most of the ins and outs of the whole scene. For many of the criticisms and disappointments expressed here about the younger travel experience, we plan to finally leave next year and add to the statistic. It is too much too soon, and the quality of play (yes, with an overfocus on winning meaningless contests) is not worth the trade off in time and money over a calendar? year that then prevents their participating in other sports and extracurriculars. It will be little loss to the club. There is a never ending line of eager parents with players who do everything & pay everything in the name of "moving up" who will be happy. Most of my kids' development has come outside the club experience and that environment (some paid for, some free) is where they have the most fun. We just played holiday pickup against two other families, and the smiles and fun from our elementary schoolers really made us once again stop and think and reinforced our decision. I know we will still play soccer somehow, someway; but not with this current commitment until they are older. These little kids all want more time for other things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My U9-U12 kids are very good soccer players at a big club. They play on top teams. We have several kids who have all played at tiny, medium, and large clubs. We know most of the ins and outs of the whole scene. For many of the criticisms and disappointments expressed here about the younger travel experience, we plan to finally leave next year and add to the statistic. It is too much too soon, and the quality of play (yes, with an overfocus on winning meaningless contests) is not worth the trade off in time and money over a calendar? year that then prevents their participating in other sports and extracurriculars. It will be little loss to the club. There is a never ending line of eager parents with players who do everything & pay everything in the name of "moving up" who will be happy. Most of my kids' development has come outside the club experience and that environment (some paid for, some free) is where they have the most fun. We just played holiday pickup against two other families, and the smiles and fun from our elementary schoolers really made us once again stop and think and reinforced our decision. I know we will still play soccer somehow, someway; but not with this current commitment until they are older. These little kids all want more time for other things.

Or......you can also say no to the coach. It is the parent who feels that every commitment must be met to the very end. If your kid wants to play piano and that means missing one night out of three practice nights then so what you could work it out with the coach and as long as you paid you are free to get out of it what YOU and YOUR kid want. But everyone acts like it is just soccer, in fact, anything that puts a 3-4 night commitment on any kid will be tested if they really do not like the activity. Personally, I did not enjoy playing a musical instrument enough to dedicate a hour a night to practicing or even three. I didn't blame band and it doesn't mean that I don't like music either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My U9-U12 kids are very good soccer players at a big club. They play on top teams. We have several kids who have all played at tiny, medium, and large clubs. We know most of the ins and outs of the whole scene. For many of the criticisms and disappointments expressed here about the younger travel experience, we plan to finally leave next year and add to the statistic. It is too much too soon, and the quality of play (yes, with an overfocus on winning meaningless contests) is not worth the trade off in time and money over a calendar? year that then prevents their participating in other sports and extracurriculars. It will be little loss to the club. There is a never ending line of eager parents with players who do everything & pay everything in the name of "moving up" who will be happy. Most of my kids' development has come outside the club experience and that environment (some paid for, some free) is where they have the most fun. We just played holiday pickup against two other families, and the smiles and fun from our elementary schoolers really made us once again stop and think and reinforced our decision. I know we will still play soccer somehow, someway; but not with this current commitment until they are older. These little kids all want more time for other things.

Or......you can also say no to the coach. It is the parent who feels that every commitment must be met to the very end. If your kid wants to play piano and that means missing one night out of three practice nights then so what you could work it out with the coach and as long as you paid you are free to get out of it what YOU and YOUR kid want. But everyone acts like it is just soccer, in fact, anything that puts a 3-4 night commitment on any kid will be tested if they really do not like the activity. Personally, I did not enjoy playing a musical instrument enough to dedicate a hour a night to practicing or even three. I didn't blame band and it doesn't mean that I don't like music either.

The key here is that you paid them. If you paid for a piano instructor, and then told him that you actually weren't going to attend the sessions you paid for, I'm sure that would be fine with the instructor. Just don't get angry at the instructor for not having your kid be selected for a solo act. If you can't commit to what the program requests, why not teach some decision making to your son as the pp did and demonstrate that you can't have all that you want at the time that you want it. You do have to be able to let some activities go to pursue others, otherwise you're going to be half-committed to all of them.