Reply to Our closest parent friends are becoming kind of intense parents. Anyone BTDT and have advice?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was very anti screen anti sugar when I had my first. My third child has candy often from parties, Halloween, Xmas, etc and I don’t care. When my oldest was 3, we had a friend whose daughter could bike up and down hills and I felt behind. My kids played tennis on a team but we didn’t spend that much effort while our friends had private coaches and were playing in tournaments. Now my kids are amazing bikers and play tennis all day.

There will be kids who excelled when they were young who don’t do much as teenagers. However, all the elite kids in high school all started when they were 5 or younger.

My husband pushes my kids at sports because they have raw talent and they enjoy it. It sounds like OP and her husband may not have anything specific they want their kids to try or do. This is the time to start.

I remember I once met a parent whose kid played ice hockey at age two! I thought she was joking when I met her but she wasn’t joking at all. My friends with kids in gymnastics seem to be pretty damn advanced by age 8.[/quote]

Oh dear[/quote]

Gotta start five years ago! Or you’re lame and forever behind and you ruined their potential! That’s the only way to live but jeez she’s just a custodian of raw talent maybe your kids lack raw talent mkay???[/quote]

I am the pp. my oldest is now 13. We were very low key all through elementary. The kids who excel in whatever they do did start early. Many kids try different things in elementary but few excel. I don’t want to say my kids are behind but we are currently at a spring training camp and the coaches were shocked at how little my kids trained for their age.[/quote]

Well that's a coach problem. Send them the stories about the rise in overuse injuries in the kids that specialize early and train too hard at a young age.

Or talk to psychologists about the problems caused by throwing kids into too many adult-led activities and sports so that they failure to develop important skills in self agency and independence.

The hard chargers may win in middle school or even high school, but life is a long game.[/quote]

My kids play plenty in my opinion. We are at a place that trains elite athletes. I’m very impressed by them. My kids are not close to that level or at least not yet. These are kids who will be college D1 players or be pro one day. My kids are not that level. These are kids will go to Stanford type schools though.

My children are play and are good at several sports. They enjoy playing. We don’t push them. I’m not athletic at all. They also play musical instruments and do academic extracurriculars. I try not to talk about these things to others because people seem to get competitive.[/quote]

Slightly OT, but I don't quite understand the perceived value of pushing your kids to excel at something like tennis. You're going to peak in your 20s, and then what? You'll have spent your youth training super hard and being singlemindedly focused on something you can no longer play at the level you trained for. Meanwhile, you've lost out on key years for socioemotional learning. So much of life is learning to deal with things beyond your control, the complexities of relationships or just life itself. I wonder whether setting your kid up with this laser focus on a game defined in terms of win/lose, optimize strategy, push push push is giving them the skills they need to cope with everything. Because the reality is when you spend so much time training on anything, you spend less time around all types of people and different life situations.[/quote]

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