My BIL kept three of his children in swimming due to convenience factor. Only one went to D1 school with a partial scholarship. The other two quit (they hated swimming) in HS and worked as life guards in the summer while home from college. Me personally, I would pick the sport your child loves most, but it does not have to be a travel team. Local leagues are fine.

Did your younger son try baseball? I found my older sibling did a considerable amount of guiding already and has more or less already passed down the family information. Though I think it's interesting that there appears to be renewed interest with club swimming since the younger one started, like the rec coaches are all the sudden interested in the older one.

It is awfully convenient when you have multiple kids in the same sport with swimming. Though, I think down the road they might likely have different practice times and events.

Maybe look to see if there is a seasonal program for both sports that is travel? Baseball until after little league has teams that seem to be more geared for the fall and slows down a bit in the spring to allow for focus on little league. There might be something similar for travel lax? Try that for a year then make them pick a sport. I also agree with previous commenters that if you try to play baseball from just rec in the dc area there might havebe no chance at many schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t allow my rising 5th grade son to do one club sport much less two. Get over the fomo. Let him play both at the rec level. Putting a 10 year old on a travel team where he only plays one sport is a recipe for injuries and burnout. (Signed parent of multi sport varsity athletes)

You don’t know shit fool

For our freshman baseball team there was a 65% cut. Not a single kid that just played rec made the team. Not 1. Most played club since elementary school and many kids who played club for years still got cut. The comments that come and say this are misinformed. It’s good not to specialize but many play club and various other sports as well. Some play more than one club sport. Most Varsity athletes play some version of select before high school in any competitive area. If they don’t, you don’t have a competitive program. We have over 2k kids at our school and it’s very hard to make certain teams. Only football is no cut or track but they only play or race certain kids.

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t allow my rising 5th grade son to do one club sport much less two. Get over the fomo. Let him play both at the rec level. Putting a 10 year old on a travel team where he only plays one sport is a recipe for injuries and burnout. (Signed parent of multi sport varsity athletes)

And what are the multiple sports they play? Private or public? You understand schools are very different. One school hrs very feasible to okay 3 V sports and a of her it’s absolutely not. Lax and baseball are a no go. Same season.

Each kid gets to choose one travel sport. They can do as many rec sports as they wish throughout the year knowing that they will miss some games and/or practices do to conflict with their own travel sport and possibly the travel sport of their sibling or non-sport family conflicts.

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t allow my rising 5th grade son to do one club sport much less two. Get over the fomo. Let him play both at the rec level. Putting a 10 year old on a travel team where he only plays one sport is a recipe for injuries and burnout. (Signed parent of multi sport varsity athletes)

He wouldn’t be playing one sport. I just said he plays football, tennis and golf in addition to bball and lax. Most kids in our area do club sports. It’s the norm

I do keep my multiple kids in the same sport per season partially out of convenience.

But I've also made sure to keep things one sport per season in the past.

So never had the type of conflict your family has.

I would let your younger son decide which one to pick. And if he doesn't decide, go ahead and decide for him (lax for convenience for the family).

But honestly even with the kids doing the same sport you'll likely have conflicts either way and will need to split things up with your spouse or ask for help from other families on the team.

Even when our kids were playing in the same club there would be conflicts with their games being at the same time at different locations, they'd be in different tournaments, practice schedules at the same time but different location, etc.

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t allow my rising 5th grade son to do one club sport much less two. Get over the fomo. Let him play both at the rec level. Putting a 10 year old on a travel team where he only plays one sport is a recipe for injuries and burnout. (Signed parent of multi sport varsity athletes)

You don’t know shit fool

I wouldn’t allow my rising 5th grade son to do one club sport much less two. Get over the fomo. Let him play both at the rec level. Putting a 10 year old on a travel team where he only plays one sport is a recipe for injuries and burnout. (Signed parent of multi sport varsity athletes)

I wouldn’t choose for him, but I would make him very aware of the logistical advantages of doing lax over baseball, while letting him know that it’s up to him.

So spelling out what this means - if he does baseball, mom and dad and big brother are going to miss more of his games. Because of the logistics of covering two different sports, you may have less opportunities for other fun weekend stuff, like travel or going to the pool or whatever.

If he preferred baseball, I’d stay quiet and go with it, but if he truly is on the fence, it’s worth spelling out the advantages.

Anonymous wrote:Why can’t he do both? Then decide later what he likes best.

Lax and Baseball are direct conflicts. You really can’t do both without letting the team down and no showing for games. Also tournaments are all weekends and some out of town so you would definitely miss. It’s also expensive to do both on a club team but he definitely wants to do a club team at this point and that’s pretty much the norm in our competitive area. He also does tennis and golf and flag so it’s by no means specializing. He does rec for both when it works.

If you choose to keep both in the same sport, be mindful that it can increase competitiveness between the two kids. You may have seasons where things are going well for one and not the other, which can be tricky. Same thing can happen when they're in different sports, but in my experience, it can add friction. And for what it's worth, in my experience, it won't always simplify logistics as much as you think it might.

Why can’t he do both? Then decide later what he likes best.

I have two sons two years apart. Both are really into sports and play multiple sports. My older son plays lax and often tournaments are out of state but very fun. It’s a whole experience staying at the hotel and doing dinners with the other families. We are at a crossroads with my younger son who is going into 5th who has also been playing baseball. He wants to do both club baseball and club lax. This isn’t realistic. When we say you pick he goes back and forth between the two. My husband wants to just decide lax because it’s so much easier in every way and our family won’t split up and we can travel together mostly. WDYT?