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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have an athletic son, who is not particularly tall, and who has become completely obsessed with basketball. He's got the kind of work ethic that you really dream about for a kid, doing things like practicing outdoors in the rain to get reps or spending hours in the gym. Essentially he wants to play basketball in his free time all the time. He has siblings who are stars in their sports who never practice, and I've often wished that they would put in even 1/10th of the effort this kid puts in. As a parent, do you draw the line? I'm happy that he has a healthy outlet and he really wants to hone his craft, but it seems a little over the top. I worry that he will burn out of basketball because he is so singularly focused.

Has anyone encountered something similar and if so, how did you work with your child to find a balance?[/quote]

A couple of quick thoughts:

1. There is a difference between practicing basketball and shooting around with friends.  Shooting around with friends does surprisingly little to make a kid a better player beyond a very basic level.  Also, most kids make themselves worse at shooting by shooting around with friends because they practice and solidify terrible mechanics.

2. Burnout IMHO has more to do with kids feeling pressure and an obligation to practice/play more than they want to than with the amount that they are choosing to play/practice on their own.  My son was like yours from about age 10 through  age 16, but he quit his highly competitive high school team this year rather abruptly.  When explaining his decision to us, DS cited the expectation by coaches that he would be basically only eating, sleeping, doing schoolwork and practicing/playing basketball seven days a week 11 months a year.  I can't really convey how intense this expectation is (at least at the high school level for highly competitive teams), but DS was told repeatedly by a whole range of adults that he needed to fully commit to basketball and have no other interests.  We pushed back on this, but the reality is that when the kids they are competing with are training more hours a day than they are in school, it's tough to find balance.

3. Basketball changes a lot from early middle school to early high school.  Kids who mature early and are aggressive are often stars in middle school, but unless they continue to develop  skill plus some combination of height, strength, quickness and bounce, their progress stalls.  There are certainly short, skilled kids who have a lot of success, but they often have outstanding athleticism (like DS's 5'10" teammate who averages 3 dunks a game).  Likewise, there are lots of kids who are tall but clumsy and unable to jump and they end up being a liability to their team (thinking of a 6'8" kid who got cut from DS's school team).  The point is that it's really hard to predict at 12 which kids will still be playing at 18, so I wouldn't read too much into where your DS is now, just be glad he found something he likes and encourage him.

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