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[quote=Anonymous]We are having a similar dilemma with our 11-year-old son, OP. He does have one sport that he focuses on more, and two others that he does either seasonally or in a lower key way. Because he is fairly athletic he has been able to have a decent amount of success in all three sports. But that is starting to change as the gap between him and the kids who have already specialized is starting to widen. He just can’t compete with kids doing a sport 4-5 times per week that he is only doing 1-2 times per week or only a few months out of the year. It has already resulted in him not making a team for one sport that he was able to make in the past. It’s really hard to know whether to just keep having him do all three sports at whatever level he can make/manage, or to go “all in” on the sport he is most focused on. It feels like he’s even going to fall behind on the main sport as many kids his age have dropped other sports tend to specialize in that one. And then there’s the huge question mark of puberty and how that changes things.

It doesn’t help that it’s really hard to make the high school teams for all of the sports. Dabbling in the sport just doesn’t cut it and even committed athletes don’t make JV. I have started trying to have conversations with him about goals, but I don’t know if he’s mature enough to truly reflect on it yet. He is a hard worker when at a practice, but I wouldn’t call him one of those kids with an unusual inner drive, at least not at this age. I too hate that we even have to think about these things right now. As a parent, I am just hoping he can participate in a sport he enjoys at the high school level. [/quote]

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