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[quote=Anonymous]Disagree here as well.  My older kids both played travel soccer from around 2nd grade on, and it was a great experience for our whole family.  They love playing and competing, and we (and all our local extended family) enjoyed watching them play and getting to know the other parents.  Some of our closest friends today are ones we met when our kids were u8 or u9 teams together, and both kids made extremely close friends on their teams.  The crazy parents we've met are a small minority, and we generally just find them amusing.  We have enjoyed the travel, which is not that extensive unless the kids are on a national-level team.  We always had carpools to help with the weekly practice burdens, and it was so interesting listening to the kids talk, especially during the MS and HS years.  I learned a lot from those carpools.

In terms of the costs, we found them reasonable for the services our clubs provided, and we have plenty of money for discretionary expenses.  I'm not sure why anyone would regret spending money on whatever activity their kids enjoyed, regardless of the ultimate outcome, unless it didn't work for their budget.  That's always one of the weirder parts of these anti-travel sports posts to me.

In our family's case, one of our kids ended up with a D1 scholarship worth multiples of all the travel costs we paid for both kids.  The other kid just played club in college.  Despite their different talent levels and sports outcomes, they loved the sport equally, and were equally conscientious about putting in extra fitness and skills work on their own.  The character and life lesson benefits are the same for both (though I'm not saying travel sports is the only way to learn leadership skills, discipline, and resilience etc.) The one who played club in college met many friends and a couple of boyfriends through that experience, and now that she has graduated, she has enjoyed playing in local adult leagues wherever she is.  It's a great way to meet people once you are out of school.
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