Reply to How do you balance competing interests and overlapping sports' schedules?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Multiple people do this in this area, its kind of the norm for kids who are good athletes.

At some point you have to prioritize the sports, then work off that.  Number one priority never gets missed, at least not in the main season (even though many sports go year-round now, they do realize and will accept that people will sometimes miss practices when it's not the main season, games/tournaments less often hopefully).

Then as you sign up for other sports, do so knowing that the main sport gets top-ish priority and communicate that to the other teams as you sign up.  If your kid is a good athlete/player, you can usually find a team or situation that will accommodate them.[/quote]

This is generally how we work it. I have one child that plays on travel teams in two sports (travel lax and AAU basketball) but also plays rec sports in season like football and rec/CYO basketball. In season, travel takes precedence over rec no matter what. Out of season travel stuff (like fall lax) is managed based on what is going on. Tournaments are not missed but practices might be missed because of in season sports. For example, in the fall when my son played football and had travel lax practices, football would take precedence but we would still go to travel lax depending on what is going on.

Our biggest issue is the next couple of months when travel lax and AAU seasons conflict. We have taken the view that lax is in season and will make all the AAU stuff we can. In fact, our son made an A team for AAU program but we had him drop down to their B team because of the conflicts. We talked with the A coach and told him our reasoning. We told the A coach that he would be conflicted out of too much and that he was really only wanting to keep his skills up and wanted to play for the B team. The A coach was very appreciative that we were open and honest with him. He said many parents wouldn't say anything and that it raises issues with having enough kids for tournaments. So my view is that if you communicate with the coaches what you are doing, they will be open to working with you. The better your child is the more leeway the coach is willing to give. Though some coaches won't. Just the nature of the beast and I completely understand those coaches view. My son had made another AAU team that plays higher level tournaments  and had the discussion with the coach and he said that wasn't going to work because he wanted players "all in." And that is fine. But, he also appreciated that we told him up front.

As for rec, most rec coaches understand the deal. He plays when he can and makes as many practices as he can. It generally hasn't been an issue. I've coached a variety of rec and mid-level sports teams and I have kids missing all the time for higher end travel sports. I also understand because generally the kids that miss practices are very quick to pick up on plays, techniques, drills, etc. than the kids that just play rec sports. They generally just have a higher sports IQ than your average rec kid. Most parents understand because most rec sports are about playing with your friends.[/quote]

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