What to do with a kid who is good at a number of sports & school only allows kid 1 sport per season

[Anonymous]

Our DC excels at a number of sports. Due to scheduling -- school doesn't allow students to do more than one school sport per season. What to do? DC asked for our help in picking...we said pick the one you prefer most. DC wants to do them all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our DC excels at a number of sports. Due to scheduling -- school doesn't allow students to do more than one school sport per season. What to do? DC asked for our help in picking...we said pick the one you prefer most. DC wants to do them all.

If DC is in elementary or middle school do 1 in school and 1 outside of school. Many soccer and lacrosse players do outside leagues during the school year.

[Anonymous]

Until you get to the high school level, and sometimes even then, club sports are probably at a higher level anyway. But club sports often require a multi season commitment (e.g., one of my DCs has to play soccer year round, summer included, as part of his team). That makes it difficult to pursue a lot of other sports. Some kids on the team play baseball, basketball or lacrosse, but many had to make choices, around the 6th grade level, because it was difficult to do both and do homework.

[Anonymous]

How old is your child, OP? Most schools have a choice of sports (fall, winter, spring) so students can play up to three at their school.

[Anonymous]

P.S. It is hard to do club and school sports! This is our second year doing both and with team practices three times a week, we are talking conflict city.

[Anonymous]

It's OP again. DC is in 7th grade -- can do just about any sport really well. Husband is adopted -- sports genes must have come from his unknown heritage because mine are fair to poor for sports.

[Anonymous]

Your child's dilemma is borne of opportunity, so maybe rather than framing it as a "problem," perhaps you can encourage him/her to feel like a kid in a candy shop --- all choices are good and happiness producing. Unless s/he wants a pro career in one particular sport and you're willing to support it. In that case, there is a right choice.

[Anonymous]

I don't really think a 7th grader should get to rule the parents. Your kid is probably a good athlete. Great. So ar a lot of kdis. Pick a sport, stick with it a semester. If he really misses another sport, do it the next semester.

[Anonymous]

OP,
I don't get your question. Does he chose one sport t school per season? How could he do more than one unless it was school plus an outside sport?

[Anonymous]

Oops sorry didn't read your question closely. Well it's too late for basketball, there are some neat leagues. Tennis lessons in the spring? There's club soccer and club lacrosse too but by this age most of the club teams consist of kids who've been doing it for a long time so he'd have to be super talented to make a select soccer or lacrosse team and be willing to work hard to catch up on technical skills. (DC's team practices 3 times a week, one game per weekend, sometimes two.) If you are in DC, the Boys and Girls Club runs a great basketball program during the winter. Registration's in the fall.

[Anonymous]

7th grade seems late for a talented athlete to be struggling with this. Surely he or she has had lots of team experience in various sports already. Based on those experiences she/he should be able to choose which sports to play. While being well rounded has its benefits getting very good at one or two sports will probably serve him/her better for high school.

[Anonymous]

7th grade seems late for a talented athlete to be struggling with this

Does anyone else find this comment sad?

[Anonymous]

Not really. Kids who excel at sports are usually on select teams by the end of 7th grade, which is the age of the OPs child.

[Anonymous]

I agree that in some ways it's sad that athletes specialize at such young ages -- my son's been playing select soccer since age 9 -- but that's the way it's been for awhile. I do know several 12-year-olds who were "discovered" by travel coaches at winter clinics and who ended up playing on high-level club teams. On my son's team only one player who'd never played select soccer before is on the team this year (most are in seventh grade). Serious athletes do have to choose by age 13 or so when it comes to doing outside sports ... on our team alone, we've had players chose between club lacrosse, tennis and baseball. (Some stayed with soccer, some went to the other sport.) Some players juggle school sports, which makes life interesting!

[Anonymous]

I agree that it's sad that kids have to specialize this early, but it is also absolutely realistic. Our kids are both athletic -- our high school DS is pretty good at most sports and excells in one; our elementary school DD is a natural athlete who excells at almost every sport. Our high schooler chose to focus on one sport per season when he got to middle school and, now, as a high schooler is making the choice to focus on one sport year-round. These decisions were his own, but we were very relieved he made them. Why? Four reasons:

1) if he had continued trying to do several sports, he would never have developed mastery in any one sport, which I think would have been very frustrating to him;

2) if he had continued trying to do several sports, his grades would have suffered, which would have been a great disappointment to him and would have limited his college choices;

3) if he had continued trying to do several sports, he would have missed practices and games, thus undermining one of the most important benefits a child can get from participating in sports at any level -- commitment and discipline produce results; and,

4) if he had continued trying to do several sports, he would have had no down time at all -- his life would have been a merry-go-round of scheduled activities, which would have robbed him of his childhood too soon.

While it may be more difficult for our DD to make the choices her brother did -- because she is such a natural athlete and thus has more options-- we will nonetheless urge her to do so. One thing that might make this easier for her, is that like many natural athletes, even as an adult, she'll be able to pick up most sports and play pretty well. I can think of several friends who've done this, including one former near-Olympic figure skater who started playing tennis in her 40s. The agility and confidence she had as a figure skater translated to tennis and she now holds her own with former high school and D3 college players.