How much is too much for kids sports?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid has the potential to go pro and really truly could make a good living as an athlete, I don't see the problem in making your life revolve around kidsports.

But very few are naturally gifted enough for the investment to pay off. Best case scenario your kid gets a sports scholarship to a no-name university and they graduate with a comm degree and work at a car dealership. Worst case scenario they become a kidsports coach and keep the scam going. You'd have been better off focusing more on academics and keeping the sports as a rec level hobby.

This is so weird. I was a competitive gymnast as a kid and grew up to be an attorney. I would actually say that a child who shows to the drive and commitment for 9 hours/week of practices and conditioning plus meets is the type of kid who is going to grow up to be successful. All my gymnastics teammates and myself took our studies seriously as well. This is not a group of kids known to slack off at anything.

My cohort of competitive figure skaters used to practice for 15-20 hours per week. Some of them had to be homeschooled to accommodate their skating schedule. Among the ones I was closest to, and remain in touch with after more than 20 years, we have a lawyer, a neurologist, another physician, an executive with an MBA, and one coach still involved in skating. Figure skating instilled competitive drive (and perfectionism), which translated into other aspects of life

The sports kids who are homeschooled are better educated and less likely to get burned out. Very different outcome from the kids who have to go to regular school 30 hours a week on top of 15+ hours of sports practice. If you are going down the route of making your kid's life revolve around a sport, at least do them a massive facor and homeschool them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter has made the team for a sport that she has been doing for many years. She currently does 4 hours of practice a week right now. Practice will be 3 days a week for 3 hours at a time (Mon, Tues, Thursday from 5-8.) She is only 9, currently in 3rd grade. This would be for next school year. Skipping practice is highly discouraged plus travel competitions. This is going to put a strain on our family, miss family dinners, etc. She really wants to do it, and I am actually discouraging it - this isn't a parent living through their kid.

Would you let your kid do it for something they have worked very hard for?

Are most of the kids on the team homeschooled or online schooled? How is this schedule feasible for a child who goes to a traditional school?

School 8-3:30, gymnastics 5-8. What part are you missing?

The part where you give your kid a d*mn break. You should homeschool so that your kid can practice the sport during the day when they are at their best and fit the schooling in the spaces in between. When you homeschool, you dont need to spend as much time covering subjects as a regular school does. 1 on 1 instruction goes faster.

It's not a good idea for most competitive gymnasts to homeschool. Even good gymnasts should have space to try other things in the long term, and often, those things are facilitated through schools, such as music, theater, other sports, robotics, and the debate team. Even though it is a grueling schedule, school and other hobbies provide balance. If your daughter is out for 6-9 months because she has a stress fracture, which is not uncommon for tween and teen gymnastics, it's helpful that she has school and maybe some other passion project.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter has made the team for a sport that she has been doing for many years. She currently does 4 hours of practice a week right now. Practice will be 3 days a week for 3 hours at a time (Mon, Tues, Thursday from 5-8.) She is only 9, currently in 3rd grade. This would be for next school year. Skipping practice is highly discouraged plus travel competitions. This is going to put a strain on our family, miss family dinners, etc. She really wants to do it, and I am actually discouraging it - this isn't a parent living through their kid.

Would you let your kid do it for something they have worked very hard for?

Are most of the kids on the team homeschooled or online schooled? How is this schedule feasible for a child who goes to a traditional school?

School 8-3:30, gymnastics 5-8. What part are you missing?

The part where you give your kid a d*mn break. You should homeschool so that your kid can practice the sport during the day when they are at their best and fit the schooling in the spaces in between. When you homeschool, you dont need to spend as much time covering subjects as a regular school does. 1 on 1 instruction goes faster.

It's not a good idea for most competitive gymnasts to homeschool. Even good gymnasts should have space to try other things in the long term, and often, those things are facilitated through schools, such as music, theater, other sports, robotics, and the debate team. Even though it is a grueling schedule, school and other hobbies provide balance. If your daughter is out for 6-9 months because she has a stress fracture, which is not uncommon for tween and teen gymnastics, it's helpful that she has school and maybe some other passion project.

Terrible advice. Your child is not a workhorse for you to live vicariously through by making them do 100 hours a week of school and activities. If you are not smart enough to homeschool then relocate to a place that has a specialized sports academy. There's a tennis one in Fla, and a multisport one in an upscale part of Cali., and a ski racing one in New Eng. somewhere plus several others,... can't remeber their names. But those schools blend the academics with the sports practice so that a kid is not burned out. Regular 8:00-3:00 school is too draining for a kid who practices elite sports.

[Anonymous]

This sounds like gymnastics. My daughter was also invited to do the team 2 years in a row and we declined each time. I don’t want the repetitive stress on her body or the injuries. It’s not good for their development. We also didn’t want to sink the cask or time into this sport.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like gymnastics. My daughter was also invited to do the team 2 years in a row and we declined each time. I don’t want the repetitive stress on her body or the injuries. It’s not good for their development. We also didn’t want to sink the cask or time into this sport.

Cash

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like gymnastics. My daughter was also invited to do the team 2 years in a row and we declined each time. I don’t want the repetitive stress on her body or the injuries. It’s not good for their development. We also didn’t want to sink the cask or time into this sport.

Same.

[Anonymous]

If it’s her passion and only sport, I would let her try it for a year. Conversely my 4th grader does LESS sports than most kids we know and he has 2 baseball practices, 2 games, and 1 lesson per week. He also does 2 - 1 hour swim workouts a week year round - except summer when he swims 6 days a week / no baseball.

He doesn’t have a winter sport and asked to add 1-2 more swimming days between baseball seasons. We agreed to 1 more for a total of 3.

As long as his friends are at sports, he is happy. If his activities take away from time with friends, then he gets grumpy about it. We have 2 kids that play different sports and each misses dinner at home a few times a week. If i insisted everyone was home for dinner together, my kids would never have any activities. As it is, each kid gets 1:1 time with parent while we take them to activities and stay engaged in what they are working on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid has the potential to go pro and really truly could make a good living as an athlete, I don't see the problem in making your life revolve around kidsports.

But very few are naturally gifted enough for the investment to pay off. Best case scenario your kid gets a sports scholarship to a no-name university and they graduate with a comm degree and work at a car dealership. Worst case scenario they become a kidsports coach and keep the scam going. You'd have been better off focusing more on academics and keeping the sports as a rec level hobby.

The grapes are sour with this one

Nah. Sugar, the grapes are gonna be sour with you when you see the college prospects for slightly above average athletes with below average academic achievements. Shoulda spent all that time and money on Kumon classes and an English tutor instead of chasing a ball around. Elite athletics is genetics. You either got it or you don't. 10 hours a week of practice can't make up for the genetic lottery.

Elite athletes are genetic. My family has some along with the arts. Two professionals in my generation. Two ballet dancers in nyc 100% scholarships in this generation. Both only danced. No other activities but dance. Varsity players in football basketball and lacrosse.

Nobody doing Kumon after school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter has made the team for a sport that she has been doing for many years. She currently does 4 hours of practice a week right now. Practice will be 3 days a week for 3 hours at a time (Mon, Tues, Thursday from 5-8.) She is only 9, currently in 3rd grade. This would be for next school year. Skipping practice is highly discouraged plus travel competitions. This is going to put a strain on our family, miss family dinners, etc. She really wants to do it, and I am actually discouraging it - this isn't a parent living through their kid.

Would you let your kid do it for something they have worked very hard for?

Are most of the kids on the team homeschooled or online schooled? How is this schedule feasible for a child who goes to a traditional school?

School 8-3:30, gymnastics 5-8. What part are you missing?

The part where you give your kid a d*mn break. You should homeschool so that your kid can practice the sport during the day when they are at their best and fit the schooling in the spaces in between. When you homeschool, you dont need to spend as much time covering subjects as a regular school does. 1 on 1 instruction goes faster.

Last I checked, it's 3 days a week out of 7. More than half the days they get a damn break. Relax.

[Anonymous]

Your kid has a better chance of becoming a doctor than a recruited athlete.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your kid has a better chance of becoming a doctor than a recruited athlete.

Do you know how many doctors are former athletes?

[Anonymous]

We have one kid who does 2 travel sports and practices 5 days a week. He loves it and still has a ton of energy after hours of practice, so I don’t mind it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your kid has a better chance of becoming a doctor than a recruited athlete.

People play sports for reasons other than being recruited and scholarships… you don’t have to be the best to benefit from organized athletics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. We don't let our kids do team sports for this reason. A third grader doing 12 hours a week and traveling? No.

Ironically, the sports OP named were both individual sports. No team sports are pushing 9 year olds that hard

+ 1. OP, why are you so secretive about the sport involved?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have one kid who does 2 travel sports and practices 5 days a week. He loves it and still has a ton of energy after hours of practice, so I don’t mind it.

Some kids are just built like this. I’m a mom of 3 and 1 of mine is similar. Wants to be doing multiple sports at a time, including a travel sport. Never seems to tire of it. On days off will randomly go outside to shoot hoops or run around. Since early childhood, he’s been my kid up at the crack of dawn ready to go for the day whereas my other 2 need more rest.

People who don’t have a high energy/driven kid don’t understand it. Which is why they should just stick to parenting the kid they have and stop making assumptions about what is right for all children.