Reply to Anyone enjoy youth sports but shocked at the politics?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Take a youth team of, let’s say, 10 kids. It will pretty much always go something like this:

1 kid: clearly the most skilled kid on the team, very obvious
2 kids:  clearly behind on skills, very obvious 
7 kids: average, fine, not remarkable either way

“Politics” won’t matter much for the first 3 kids, but it will influence the experience of the remaining 7- sometimes heavily. Parent friendships/influence, kid friendships, other social factors etc etc.

I have never seen it go any other way. Literally ever. 3 kids. Some sports and teams it will only matter a little (pretty tolerable), other times it will matter a lot (can be hard to take).

All you can do is try to keep your kids playing in teams/sports where the politics are there (they always will be), but at a tolerable level. It is also important to ask yourself if it is bothering your child, or just bothering YOU. Often the kids are fine and having fun either way. Sometimes the kids do notice or feel a bit demoralized- in that case, likely time to move to a different team or organization. 
[/quote]

You nailed it! I’ve seen this exact scenario play out so much. I’m not sure what the answer is. My kids are still young. I’ve found the age impact of the 7 kids in the middle too, like coach runs drills first week to see actual stats- best time on dash, longest throw, longest catch and then its head to head with another kid  who is a full year older but same grade and older kid gets position due to maturity. Then older kid gets better in position and so on. [/quote]

Part of the problem too, I assume, is that as kids move up in age and the less skilled/talented/passionate kids drop out, many of those kids that were previously in that number 1 spot on their teams are now in that pack of 7 in the middle.  And their parents can’t or won’t accept it.[/quote]

Yes but sadly I’ve seen them hold onto the same positions just because they were the best at 5 and 6, especially the oldest, even when other kids should probably be developed too as they caught up in age and ability and the gap closed that was there in the youngest grades. I really wish there was a focus on developing all the kids. I think these young ages are hard to tell especially with the age consideration. Of course a 7 year old is more coordinated than a 5.5 year old. [/quote]

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