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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It is all about inner drive. Full stop. 
Beyond that, if you do happen to have a genuinely driven kid it is a parents' core responsibility to support them in time, money and encouragement to fulfill their potential.

Rationalize as many do, but any parent who does not do so has seriously done a disservice to their child.[/quote]

My husband loves tennis. He never had formal tennis lessons. He did make his high school tennis team. He would never make the team around here but back in the early nineties, being athletic and able to hit a tennis ball was enough.

My kids have played tennis since preschool. They played daily during Covid. We have the resources to provide them with the right coaching. [b]A kid who is playing for fun has no chance against my kid who has played almost every day since being able to hold a racquet[/b].[/quote]

And who really cares? The commodification of sports/intense focus on success in sports as the end is doing more harm than good for your kids. They're burning out, getting injured, suffering mental health, and parents are overspending chasing the delusion that they can mold their kid into a athlete when the ultimate goal should be enjoying the process of sports. Your unathletic but well coached tennis player is not going to play in the U.S. Open and it's weird and unhinged to compare him to a casual for parental bragging rights [/quote]

DP but what about PPs kid suggested they were "unathletic" seems like you're just looking to be a jerk. Do you have any data to support that student athletes are in worse shape mentally and physically compared to the non-student athletes? I haven't heard of a kid on the tennis team shooting up a school recently, have you?[/quote]

I hope your bar for a kids well-being is not whether they shoot up a school. That being said, there is data that supports that kids that focus on one sport in today's Uber-competitive environment are at more risk for overuse injuries as well as mental burnout. It doesn't mean they're necessarily worse off that kids that don't participate in sports, but it could be inferred that athletes today or worse off overall than what they could be, even if they're better skilled at their specific sport. Sadly, there's big bucks involved in keeping kids/parents on the train to chase elite sports performance so there's no going back.

I say this from the position of a former D1 athlete that currently works with professional and collegiate athletes now and a lot of parents are chasing an unattainable dream in an unhealthy/unnecessary manner.[/quote]

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