Reply to How Much to Push

Forum Index » Tweens and Teens

Reply to "How Much to Push"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]My 8th grade daughter has identified as an athlete for years. She's not extremely passionate, she plays for fun. That means lately her friends who are focused have eclipsed her. This year she did not make the club team she had been playing on, although she is still eager to play rec.

School tryouts for the sport are coming up, and she's started saying she might not try out. Her school fields multiple levels of teams, so it's not that she wouldn't make a team. She won't say, but I think she's concerned that as an 8th grader she might be one of the few who don't make the top team.

I think she would regret not playing, even if she doesn't make the top team. I also suspect if she doesn't play this year, she's less likely to play in HS and I know sports in HS are an easy way to get a friend group. It's also been the primary focus of her friends groups up until now. Her classmates are also generally kind children, and as far as I know no one has every been ridiculed for not making the top team, although kids do accrue social capital for being on the top team.

She would not replace the exercise with something done independently. She hates going to the gym or doing workouts on her own. I'll admit that's part of my motivation to see her continue.

How much would you encourage your child in this situation? Typically we let her make her own call on when she starts/stops an activity. But in this case I think there are things she's failing to consider as a young teen.

One option I've considered is telling her to try out but then let her know if she doesn't make the top team she can decide not to play. But then I'm still stuck on how to manage the missing exercise. Rec sports seem insufficient for regular exercise when you're dealing with a child who used to play club and may be opting out of trying out for fear of not doing well enough. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics