Reply to individual sports practice at home (long, sorry)

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[quote=Anonymous]Several things:

Kids start out in a few sports.  They are easy to join.  That does not mean they will be ones that work well for the kid as they grow and mature.  Soccer, for example, is a game for fast kids.  You can play when you are young if you are slow, but you will never be good even if you work hard at technical skills.

It is up to parents to pay attention to your own kids physical abilities and attributes.  Your daughter who is headed for 6 feet tall is not going to be a gymnast.  But, volleyball and basketball are real possibilities.  Maybe your son who is headed for 5’7” will be the next Mugsy but he will likely be better at sports where being tall is less of a requirement.

Not everything is about playing pro or college.  Being on a high school swim team is about being on a team and having fun with your school mates.  And, getting in shape.  You may never win a race, but you can have a great time.

Kids do not know what they need to do to improve.  Practice.  Practice what?  Practice a move a 100 times is boring.  What person wants to do that?  No one.  So how do kids improve?  It takes a ton of effort and pushing.  The real goal being for kids to learn that getting good at anything takes real effort and real practice.  No one sits down at the piano for the first time and plays Mozart.  No one can one touch control a centering pass until they have tried 3-400 times.

The big thing for parents to work on - and it takes years - is to get your kids to understand that the real fun is in working to improve yourself.  Then - win or lose a game - matters significantly less.  But, how you did matters more.

My daughter played college soccer for 4 years.  Obviously a good player and she played very high level club soccer.  But, on her youth teams she had many teammates who switched to other sports along the way.  Very good athletes but soccer was just not a great fit.  She played with kids who later played college lacrosse, ran x-country, swam, played basketball, and my favorite is the girl who went to a D3 and played soccer, basketball and golf.

Do not get wedded to a particular sport, just because.  Parents need to be involved and on top of what physical development is going on, and what will go on in the future.

Finally, no 11/12 year old is going to know what to do on their own.  Get with parents of a friend and together hire a local college or high school kid to work with them once a week or twice a week in the summer.  Overpay the “coach” so it is a priority for them.  Your kid will work better and harder for a non-parent and get a ton more out of sessions which you can help plan to address specific weaknesses.

By the way - all the kids playing at high levels in whatever sport are already doing the same thing.  You don’t have to hire the team coach - but do keep things very small.  Your kid and one other.  They can have fun, and work on different ends of the same play.  Example:  one works on centering.  One works on finishing.

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