OP I think this is only an issue if your child is saying they don't like soccer. In which case you don't sign up for next season. If they like it, let them enjoy it. They might figure things out in a year or two, or not. There's no way to know at 5-6 years old. I have no recollection of what my travel soccer playing child looked like in kindergarten. My own kindergartner plays like you describe. But they love it so we will keep signing up unless that changes.

My oldest started at 5. His younger brother was 2 at the time. I had to help my 5 year old a lot during his practices. I would sit in on the lessons and basically learn with him so that I could reinforce the lessons at home.I don't remember what the 2 year old would do at that time. Maybe he was eating or playing with my spouse? Those days are kind of a blur.


It's funny that you worry the younger one won't want to do piano if it becomes his brother's thing. In our house the younger one has no interest because he hears his brother (now almost 9) complaining about it. We are probably stopping at the end of this school year, even though I think it's good for him. He fights practicing and I don't think the benefit is outweighing the cost.

As far as the younger one not leaving the older one alone... I would just manage this as best you can for now and know that the older one will probably start wanting more space as he gets older. And then you will just deal with that when you get there. Mine used to play together a lot until the older one aged out of toys/pretend play. He will still do it occasionally, but not nearly to the extent the younger one wants him to. He just wants to go outside and kick/throw a ball and the younger one isn't coordinated enough yet to be a good partner for that. When this transition was first occurring, my younger one would cry a lot about his brother not wanting to play with him. He has started to adjust and will now either join him outside or just start doing his own pretend play, or ask me to engage with it sometimes. I know they'll hit a stage where they are back on the same page with interests, and it will just continue being on and off like this for their childhood. I don't think purposely keeping them away from each other earlier would have changed anything. Kids don't really think like that.

Snorlax wrote:You can try out for Herndon, Great Fall-Reston. St. James/FCV has a loudoun location but last time I checked their practice are all over loudoun county and some are very far from Fairfax county.

Herndon is a smaller organization, Great Fall-Reston has 50% more players and I think better coaches. Herndon players has lots of latinos while GFR are mostly white.

I don't like Valor because they are more grabby for donation etc. Here are their top team standing:

https://public.totalglobalsports.com/public/event/2561/conference-standings/12

Thank for the information. There is a lot of overlap in the tryout dates/times for these clubs. What if we can't make any of the tryout for a club we are interested in? Should we just ask to attend a practice on a night that does work for us? It would be nice to get some idea of which team my son would be most likely to end up on. Will coaches give that sort of feedback based on attending a practice? I have seen kids randomly attend practices at our current club. Some end up on a team but plenty are never seen again.

We have a mid elementary aged boy that has played a year of travel soccer elsewhere in the DC area. Relocating and wondering about the following clubs in the northern/western part of Fairfax County for a mid-level travel player:

Herndon
Great Falls-Reston
Sterling
St. James/FCV (they list a Chantilly location in addition to some Loudoun County locations)
Virginia Valor

Priorities are good coaching and not a screamer, player development, nice/fun team culture, and appropriate level of competition where games aren't lopsided all the time. We would hope to stay there long term, so it would be nice to find a team that is good for older ages too.

On a related note: if my son can't make some tryouts, would we just ask to attend a practice or two instead? If so, should we make sure to do that before tryouts have wrapped up for a team? I assume the clubs will want to make decisions soon after.

My child is playing their first year of travel soccer at U9. They are on the second team of five at a large club. Because there are so many teams (girls and boys practice at the same time), field space is limited. They scrimmage another team in the age group sometimes, but for the other practices they do drills on a small part of the field. Sometimes they mingle all the teams together and do things in small groups including 4v4 mini scrimmages. My child does very well in these, stealing the ball from and scoring on kids who are on the top team. But they seem to be struggling to adjust to 7v7 on the larger field. The team overall is not doing well and I suspect other kids are having similar struggles.

Is it common for U9 players to struggle making this jump to the larger field? Other teams we've played seem to be doing a much better job with it. Do most clubs around here struggle to get adequate field space, or do some have more regular access to a full sized field for practices? It seems like getting more time on a standard size field would help, but maybe I am wrong. If that doesn't matter, what kinds of things should be done at practice to help prepare for games? I am trying to figure out whether my child is having a particular difficulty with this, whether some kids/teams initially struggle with this but it gets better with time, or whether maybe the coaching at this club is not supporting development in this way.