Anonymous wrote:Who else feels like this?

Spent $30k on club, team fees, training alone

Spent 3,000 hours alone on practices and matches

My DC has not made long term friendships on any of the teams

The coaches never seemed to be interested enough

My other kids have had to keep some of their activities to a minimum because of the oldest. I don't blame anyone but myself for this, though.

My DC loves soccer, but he is not good enough to play past high school or maybe D2/D3, but those colleges aren't good academically anyway.

This season DC is on the top team of his club, ECNL-RL though but like I said if he were to make an ECNL team, he would not get much game time. The coach is really interested in my DC as a player as my child now says that after practice and matches he makes comments about child's playing style and what he could improve upon. My DC on this team plays with confidence and attempts 1v1 moves. My DC now is more friendly with other players.

I like that both of us are enjoying the experience right now, but hate that it took so long to finally find a place that was right for him.

I have decided this year will be the last one for him. He will be junior in HS next year and made the HS soccer team last year.

For those of you that have had 4-5 years in travel soccer, what has your experience been like so far? Enjoyed it, or miserably looking at next year and hoping your son will not want to do it?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who else feels like this?

Spent $30k on club, team fees, training alone

Spent 3,000 hours alone on practices and matches

My DC has not made long term friendships on any of the teams

The coaches never seemed to be interested enough

My other kids have had to keep some of their activities to a minimum because of the oldest. I don't blame anyone but myself for this, though.

My DC loves soccer, but he is not good enough to play past high school or maybe D2/D3, but those colleges aren't good academically anyway.

This season DC is on the top team of his club, ECNL-RL though but like I said if he were to make an ECNL team, he would not get much game time. The coach is really interested in my DC as a player as my child now says that after practice and matches he makes comments about child's playing style and what he could improve upon. My DC on this team plays with confidence and attempts 1v1 moves. My DC now is more friendly with other players.

I like that both of us are enjoying the experience right now, but hate that it took so long to finally find a place that was right for him.

I have decided this year will be the last one for him. He will be junior in HS next year and made the HS soccer team last year.

For those of you that have had 4-5 years in travel soccer, what has your experience been like so far? Enjoyed it, or miserably looking at next year and hoping your son will not want to do it?

Yep. Spent a lot of time and money on it.

Kid has always played on a club's top team (we've moved around a bit) and currently plays on an ECNL team. Kid has made MANY long term friends and we the parents have made many friends that we are close with.
We have a younger kid and he has always been able to do his activities although they really don't enjoy going to each other's stuff.
Soccer has given us some additional opportunities to travel overseas (once) and to some other states. Great bonding experiences.
Kid has lots of memories. Lots of Life lessons. Lots of fun. Lots of miserable times (cold/wet/hot/etc). Lots of hard work. Lots of winning. Lots of losing. Lots of ties. Lots of 2nd places medals. Lots of 1st place medals.

I don't regret one minute taking my kids to practices or to games. Lots of stories. Conversations. Getting to know his friends. I get a lot of walking and/or jogging in during their practices and listening to podcasts, etc.

I like to think that sports has also helped him to keep up his grades in school and, hopefully, he will get to play in college where soccer will help him keep up his grades there and keep him out of trouble,

I can't imagine this year will be his last, but if he chooses that, I will support him.

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for all the comments! I actually didn't mean to put down any colleges, we are looking to stay in Virginia for college though, so that was my mindset and I didn't mention it in the post.

For deciding for my child, I think at this point I still have that authority. What will happen is my DD will now not have to choose her ballet or softball and other activities around her older brothers soccer practice schedule. We said no to her this year because the activities she wanted were exactly on the days my oldest practiced. Can't split myself in two so she joined rec soccer on the days my oldest practiced. Not a terrible outcome, but it wasn't what she wanted. My youngest is 5 yo and is glad to be out and spending time with other kids, so he is fine for now.

While I don't regret having spent time with my DS at practices or games, if you honestly look at it, I really wasn't spending time with him. He was at practice and I was on the sidelines. I have had a chance to go for runs so I'm not just sitting, but I could do that in my neighborhood park after actually having spent time with my children. To be clear, the fact that we wouldn't do travel soccer doesn't mean I would not spend time with them, in fact we would spend more time together.

Anonymous wrote:Who else feels like this?

Spent $30k on club, team fees, training alone

Spent 3,000 hours alone on practices and matches

My DC has not made long term friendships on any of the teams

The coaches never seemed to be interested enough

My other kids have had to keep some of their activities to a minimum because of the oldest. I don't blame anyone but myself for this, though.

My DC loves soccer, but he is not good enough to play past high school or maybe D2/D3, but those colleges aren't good academically anyway.

This season DC is on the top team of his club, ECNL-RL though but like I said if he were to make an ECNL team, he would not get much game time. The coach is really interested in my DC as a player as my child now says that after practice and matches he makes comments about child's playing style and what he could improve upon. My DC on this team plays with confidence and attempts 1v1 moves. My DC now is more friendly with other players.

I like that both of us are enjoying the experience right now, but hate that it took so long to finally find a place that was right for him.

I have decided this year will be the last one for him. He will be junior in HS next year and made the HS soccer team last year.

For those of you that have had 4-5 years in travel soccer, what has your experience been like so far? Enjoyed it, or miserably looking at next year and hoping your son will not want to do it?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, I dont get why families put themselves through this hell. Just let your kid play for their high school teams. No driving. They play with their friends, etc. And I agree the amount that the driving to practice and games can affect the other kids in the family is unfair.

And before anyone brings up college aid, just think how much thirty thousand invested over the years would be now.

If your kid can drive himself and you can afford to make a car available to him and he really wants to continue, let him. But parents should not feel obligated to spend hours driving their kids to play sports. I have a friend who complains that she "has" to get up at 445am to drive her kid to swim practice. No, she does not HAVE to do that. She CHOOSES to do that, and I for one would never do that.

I have to say that at my DC HS, if you haven't been playing travel soccer, you probably won't be good enough to make the soccer team. I think that plenty of HS in the area are same.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who else feels like this?

Spent $30k on club, team fees, training alone

Spent 3,000 hours alone on practices and matches

My DC has not made long term friendships on any of the teams

The coaches never seemed to be interested enough

My other kids have had to keep some of their activities to a minimum because of the oldest. I don't blame anyone but myself for this, though.

My DC loves soccer, but he is not good enough to play past high school or maybe D2/D3, but those colleges aren't good academically anyway.

This season DC is on the top team of his club, ECNL-RL though but like I said if he were to make an ECNL team, he would not get much game time. The coach is really interested in my DC as a player as my child now says that after practice and matches he makes comments about child's playing style and what he could improve upon. My DC on this team plays with confidence and attempts 1v1 moves. My DC now is more friendly with other players.

I like that both of us are enjoying the experience right now, but hate that it took so long to finally find a place that was right for him.

I have decided this year will be the last one for him. He will be junior in HS next year and made the HS soccer team last year.

For those of you that have had 4-5 years in travel soccer, what has your experience been like so far? Enjoyed it, or miserably looking at next year and hoping your son will not want to do it?

What are you talking about?? there are many academically excellent schools that are D3:
https://recruiting.studentathleteworld.com/recruiting-101-blog/entry/best-academic-d3-schools

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you say you finally found a place that was right for him and then you are going to make it his last year? Damn, that's pretty cold. If he still enjoys playing club then suck it up and let him play. Sounds like you were a club jumper and that's why he doesn't have any long term friends. Sometimes the grass isn't always greener.

OP here

Yeah, we spent no more than two years at any one club, and my DS was good, but ib the early years I could see the coach was not giving the team the attention I would be happy with. There are plenty of clubs in the area, so looking at the other clubs to see whatvwas available is something I did. The practice locations were all generally equally distant, so I figured what the heck, maybe this might work out.

Yes, I don't feel great that at last were all at a place that he is enjoying, but I didn't feel great about having to say no to activities other than soccer to my other two children because their oldest is doing travel soccer.

Anonymous wrote:So you say you finally found a place that was right for him and then you are going to make it his last year? Damn, that's pretty cold. If he still enjoys playing club then suck it up and let him play. Sounds like you were a club jumper and that's why he doesn't have any long term friends. Sometimes the grass isn't always greener.

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, I dont get why families put themselves through this hell. Just let your kid play for their high school teams. No driving. They play with their friends, etc. And I agree the amount that the driving to practice and games can affect the other kids in the family is unfair.

And before anyone brings up college aid, just think how much thirty thousand invested over the years would be now.

If your kid can drive himself and you can afford to make a car available to him and he really wants to continue, let him. But parents should not feel obligated to spend hours driving their kids to play sports. I have a friend who complains that she "has" to get up at 445am to drive her kid to swim practice. No, she does not HAVE to do that. She CHOOSES to do that, and I for one would never do that.