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[quote=Anonymous]Kids do stuff.  People like to have their kids involved in athletic activities for many reasons.  Fun.  Group socialization skills.  Takes time away from unproductive activities.   Develops focus.  Increases coordination and general conditioning.  All strong positives.

Just like any activity though, as kids age they grow and physical abilities differ.  Kids have different likes and dislikes, and kids - every kid - has to go through the experience and learn that practice moves you forward and can, itself, be interesting and challenging.  That personal enjoyment can be found in the process of working to improve yourself.

Whether you play chess, paint, play an instrument, do science research, focus on math, write fiction, or play a sport - to improve you must practice.  And, the more intense and higher level/advanced you get in anything - the more time you have to spend on it.

Want to be a good baseball player?  It takes a mountain of practice and natural ability to excel.  Want to be a good piano player - it takes a mountain of practice and natural ability to excel.  Want to be a good writer?  It takes a mountain of practice and natural ability to excel.  Want to be a …., it takes a mountain of practice and natural ability to excel.

It is frankly both stupid and mean to criticize parents because they are doing something with their kids.  No one who is an actual parent should ever do that.  Do we make mistakes with these decisions?  Sure.  But not if the kids do not enjoy the activity.  Just because a parent likes math does not mean their kid likes math.  You go with what the kid likes.  And, importantly, you can only do what works for the family.  Time and cost are huge considerations.  We tease our kids that they had the ability to be Olympic dressage riders, if only we could have afforded the lessons…and the horses, and they equipment (we lived a few minutes from a training site).  You do what you can do.  And, you deal with the learning process.  No kid sits down at the piano for the first time and plays Mozart.  Years and years of practice are required.  You learn in stages and you advance slowly.  Maybe your kid is like me and after 10 years of piano lessons and an hour a day of practice - it is still a struggle to be competent.  My talents lie elsewhere.  But, I still got things out of it.

Do you have to travel to do things?  Sometimes yes.  Sometimes teachers or competition is elsewhere so you go there.  My daughter played soccer through college.  As a teen she played on teams that looked to compete at a very high level.  Some kids on the team came significant distances to play on the team.  They did it for 2-3 years and got college deals from it.  Is that bad?  They could have played on not as good teams.  Not gotten the training.  Not gotten a college scholarship.  Are they bad for doing that?  If you have a team where pretty much ever kid in the team is going to play in college - who do they play games against?  In the State of New York there might be 2-4 teams like that for an age group. Do they just play each other over and over?  They are trying to get seen by college coaches to get scholarship offers.  Are you telling them they can’t be seen by coaches outside their geographic area?

Like I said - mean and stupid.

Kids on the team came from some

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