Reply to Why are youth and high school sports so competitive to get into now?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]While I feel most of the competitiveness is driven by lack of opportunity.  Pools, fields, courts etc.  Another aspect is that there just aren't all that much else to fill kids time with or to cultivate being physically fit.

When I was a kid growing up in a rural area.  There were plenty of chores.  Clearing the fields, weeding the gardens, bringing in wood for the fire, splitting wood, and then there were plenty of go run around and play outside.

I mean sure you could have kids do art, science experiments, sniff glue, or something, but these all tend to be sedentary consumptive activities.  Let's buy bags and bags of sodium bicarbonate so they can make volcanoes.

Not to ding on art, but just pointing out that for kids in an urban/suburban area there isn't much else.[/quote]

This reflects a lack of creativity.

I have a kid who plays no team sports. She does ballet (not competition based but fairly rigorous) and she swims noncompetitively (stroke and turn clinics mostly). She has friends through both activities.

As a family we hike and bike and play tennis casually.

If she doesn't have a dance or swim class she will go play at the park on her own or with friends for an hour or two in the evening. Climbing or kicking a ball around or doing basic gymnastic skills. She gets sweaty and tired and comes home tired and ready for a shower and bed.

She also enjoys art and science thought those things occupy different parts of her life. She gets physical exercise every day and eats healthy. She is a healthy weight and has plenty of energy and spends remarkably little time on screens (doesn't really watch much TV and rarely asks for it and has yet to ask for a phone or tablet at age 10).

[b]She tried competitive sports when she was younger and didn't like it. [/b]Hated soccer -- she was small for her age cohort and not aggressive and even in K the kids fought for the ball and were competitive and it just wasn't fun for someone who likes taking her time and does not like contact in sports. Basketball was a similar story. She did take tennis and enjoyed it but chose to focus on swimming and ballet. She's actually not bad at it and I could see her going out for a high school team but we aren't sure how competitive they will be. If making a HS team means playing tennis intensely competitively for the next 4 years and hiring private coaches and all that then it won't be worth it to her or us. I could also see her doing cross-country (she won't be fast but she's diligent and could enjoy it) or crew (our HS doesn't have a competitive it's just a club but she likes water sports).

So no you don't have no choice but to sign your kids up for highly competitive sports from a young age and then do travel sports and spend huge amounts of money on them. We currently spend between $180-250 per month on sports and activities for her (on the higher end when she's doing ballet and swim at the same time or if she needs new equipment for anything) plus the cost of family recreational activity. I actually feel really fortuante that we are well off enough to be able to afford that comfortably and also that we only have one kid so we don't have to make a lot of tough choices. But we aren't spending tens of thousands of dollars or killing ourselves in terms of schedules. Our lives are pretty chill.

You absolutely have options. This idea that it's travel sports or fat lazy kids on screens is a false dichotomy.[/quote]

There is a lot of judgement in this post from someone who would obviously have their precious DD in all the competitive travel sports possible if not for the bolded.

Also, my HS aged son does competitive travel baseball and basketball and we spend around what you’re spending on your daughter’s structured physical activities that don’t count as structured physical activities in your world.[/quote]

Nope, not at all-- I was silently glad to be able to opt out of travel sports and have zero issue with my kid's lack of competitive athletic spirit.

And my judgment is not if parents who do travel sports or have very competitive kids. It's of parents like the PP who claim that's the only way to keep your kid physically active with a social life. It's not, and if your kid is not into those sports there are lots of other things you can do.[/quote]

You lack both reading comprehension AND self awareness.[/quote]

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