Honestly, I was a child that played a travel sport starting in 4th or 5th grade (AAU basketball), I did it because I LOVED it up until my senior year of high school. On my own, I would shoot outside for hours, not because I was forced to, but just because I liked it. I’ll still bring a ball to a park and shoot around if time allows.

I stopped playing because I transitioned to volleyball and it was too much juggling to handle both sports. I wound up going on to play volleyball in college. I also did things like music, art classes, etc.

I think it is SO important that the kid likes what they are doing. My daughter, for example, is going into 4th and this will be her second season on a travel soccer team. She absolutely loves going and is a star on her team. Would it be nice if she continued and got herself a college scholarship? Of course, but she could also burn out next year or 5 years down the road. My job, I think, is to encourage and support her interests. This winter, she wants to try rec basketball, so that’s what she’s doing! My son, who is two years older, plays rec soccer and basketball. Let your kids lead on this, trying to do anything else is a recipe for burn out…… and most likely your kid, nor mine, will be earning scholarship money but would be nice if it happens!! For the record, I earned scholarship money and my dad played D1 football and I still think it’s a parents job to support and let the kids follow their passion.

The only real limitation I made was to cut down on sports that conflict in one season. For example, I knew baseball and lacrosse were both spring sports so I made my kid choose one or the other.

Rotate sports seasonally to keep his interest and decrease injury risk, and definitely up keep with the wrestling - it’s a great foundational sport for many others including football, marital arts and lacrosse. He will develop more preferences as he gets older. Not every kid likes the full contact sports. Some prefer the technique of baseball or fencing, some might need something faster paced. All those kids are athletic but that doesn’t mean certain sports suit them.

Let him guide you.

Is he short for his age, average or tall? I would do one hand eye coordination/ ball sport plus gymnastics. If he wants to wrestle later doing competitive gymnastics is fantastic

My son is 9 and going into 4th grade. He's also "very athletic." But in terms of sports the only things we have really focused on are things he can continue well into adulthood - as examples, golf, skiing, swimming, etc. College admissions are not even on the radar for us, but if it happens that he is good enough, great.

I totally agree that he should do what he enjoys, should not do too much of any one sport, and should do a variety of sports. Because, you know, he's a kid!

But that would be the best approach even if you only cared about college scholarships: Doing a variety of sports when young is not only the right thing to do for a happy kid, it's also probably the best way to increase the odds of athletic greatness. Roger Federer played a lot of soccer and credited that with improving his tennis more than just playing tennis all the time would have.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would not consider travel/competitive sports until around 5th grade. Until then, I would have my kid play soccer, basketball, and either baseball or lacrosse. I chose those because they tend to be the most social sports that other kids from school play. Swap one of these with gymnastics if he loves it or tennis ior swimming if that interests him. You’ll see what he likes the best.

I have a rising 9th grader whose coaches are talking him being a candidate for college cross country/track. He didn’t run either until 7th grade. He also plays basketball and lacrosse. He didn’t start lacrosse until 4th grade and didn’t start travel until the 6th and is on a highly competitive team.

Sports should be nothing but fun in 2nd grade.

I think this is a good approach. Re gymnastics, it’s great for kids to spend some time on, as it helps them develop balance and coordination, and it’s fun if not too competitive. While I don’t think OP should be thinking of college recruiting just yet, if her kid stays athletically dominant, it’s worth considering that gymnastics and tennis are not very likely to lead to college recruitment compared to several other sports.

And for the people making fun of OP, I understand that a lot of parents are delusional about their kids’ abilities, but there also are athletic phenoms out there. One of my kids started getting comments on his athletic talents when he was playing rec sports in kindergarten. By the time he was in second grade, strangers would approach us after games to talk about how great he was. He’s playing a D1 sport now with a significant athletic scholarship. And also contrary to the narrative you will hear a lot on here and elsewhere, in our experience about one-third of the kids who were standouts on their teams at 10 or 11 we’re also the stars at 18. Just take everything one year at a time and reassess what level and sport based on your kid’s interests and any family factors like time or money.

Uh, okay. Good for you?
You'll hear stories on both sides but given the very low number of D1 recruits take this PP's story with a grain of salt. DC's top travel team was made up of 20 kids who were all standouts at that age and being on this very competitive team at 17 means they are still great players. Less than a third are playing in college and only one is going D1. You can pick any sport and look at how many seniors who are going to D1 schools by searching for different clubs.

There are very very few.

Anonymous wrote:OP you need psychological help if you're seriously asking what sport a 2nd grader should be encouraged to take up for college admissions. I just spent the entire afternoon watching my second grade grandson doing incredibly acrobatic jumps and dives into the pool, and the last thing I though of was how it could help him get into college! You've lost your mind.

She's not the only one. There were several kids in DD's class at that age or younger when asked what they want to be when they grow up would answer something like I want to play a certain sport for certain Ivy League school.
They are now in HS and one is still on track to do so but the rest switched to other sports and I'm not sure college admissions for sports is not something on the radar as far as I can tell. The parents of the first kid always make it a point to say "they love it" "I wouldn't let them do it so much if they didn't love it" or variations of that but who knows. That is a lot of pressure to put on a child who was 6 or 7.

Anonymous wrote:I would not consider travel/competitive sports until around 5th grade. Until then, I would have my kid play soccer, basketball, and either baseball or lacrosse. I chose those because they tend to be the most social sports that other kids from school play. Swap one of these with gymnastics if he loves it or tennis ior swimming if that interests him. You’ll see what he likes the best.

I have a rising 9th grader whose coaches are talking him being a candidate for college cross country/track. He didn’t run either until 7th grade. He also plays basketball and lacrosse. He didn’t start lacrosse until 4th grade and didn’t start travel until the 6th and is on a highly competitive team.

Sports should be nothing but fun in 2nd grade.

I think this is a good approach. Re gymnastics, it’s great for kids to spend some time on, as it helps them develop balance and coordination, and it’s fun if not too competitive. While I don’t think OP should be thinking of college recruiting just yet, if her kid stays athletically dominant, it’s worth considering that gymnastics and tennis are not very likely to lead to college recruitment compared to several other sports.

And for the people making fun of OP, I understand that a lot of parents are delusional about their kids’ abilities, but there also are athletic phenoms out there. One of my kids started getting comments on his athletic talents when he was playing rec sports in kindergarten. By the time he was in second grade, strangers would approach us after games to talk about how great he was. He’s playing a D1 sport now with a significant athletic scholarship. And also contrary to the narrative you will hear a lot on here and elsewhere, in our experience about one-third of the kids who were standouts on their teams at 10 or 11 we’re also the stars at 18. Just take everything one year at a time and reassess what level and sport based on your kid’s interests and any family factors like time or money.

Everybody’s kid is VERY athletic at 8. It must be in the water here in DC.

I would not consider travel/competitive sports until around 5th grade. Until then, I would have my kid play soccer, basketball, and either baseball or lacrosse. I chose those because they tend to be the most social sports that other kids from school play. Swap one of these with gymnastics if he loves it or tennis ior swimming if that interests him. You’ll see what he likes the best.

I have a rising 9th grader whose coaches are talking him being a candidate for college cross country/track. He didn’t run either until 7th grade. He also plays basketball and lacrosse. He didn’t start lacrosse until 4th grade and didn’t start travel until the 6th and is on a highly competitive team.

Sports should be nothing but fun in 2nd grade.

Anonymous wrote:OP here...I guess what I'm asking is whether you just say no to travel sports/competition sports in early elementary? I don't want him to have to "choose" something now when he wants to do a lot of stuff and he really has no idea what the future holds. Did you just say no to competitive teams in elementary and middle school? If he does 12 hrs of gymnastics a week he won't be able to do anything else.

Each of mine did a year of a travel sport in elementary school. It was because they wanted to try it, I could make it work with time and financially, and it was less time asking for screen time. Both decided the sport wasn’t as fun as the rec level and dropped it after a year. One child continued with the same sport and went back to travel in middle school. The other never went back to travel but got serious about a different sport that didn’t have a travel team and started training for that more seriously around middle/high school. Seriously as in more days per week on his own. He has no desire to play in college.

Take things seasonally. Do fall soccer, winter wrestling, spring baseball this year. Decline the competitive gymnastics team for this year but keep practicing around the other team sports if it fits into the schedule (usually seems gymnastics clubs/gyms have some flexibility in times). Reevaluate next year. Odds are his preference for at least one of his sports will change! If you use summer camp for childcare, signing up for sports related camps can kill two birds (whether trying a new sport or working on skills for a current sport).

Anonymous wrote:Better goal is not to pursue college sports. If you can manage college without any sports money it is a better experience. College sports force the students to keep doing the same thing they have done for 12 years into college at the exact time they should be exploring new pursuits. Regret getting my kid on that train.

I understand your point but I think it's more complicated than that. A college sport was my ticket out of my small home state that has one good university. My parents could only afford to send me out of state if I got a scholarship, and my sport was the easiest path to that. So while I was more limited in what kinds of activities I could pursue during my undergrad years, my horizons were expanded by attending a university in a different part of the country with all new people instead of going to college in my hometown with half of my high school class.

Anonymous wrote:OP here...I guess what I'm asking is whether you just say no to travel sports/competition sports in early elementary? I don't want him to have to "choose" something now when he wants to do a lot of stuff and he really has no idea what the future holds. Did you just say no to competitive teams in elementary and middle school? If he does 12 hrs of gymnastics a week he won't be able to do anything else.

I let my kids do more competitive programs in middle school, but in elementary we only did rec. We did do summer swim which is a lot of hours.

The general advice is to no let your kid play an organized sport more hours than they are years old. Which would mean no 12 hours of gymnastics.

But while my kids have picked up sports in middle school and excelled, I think gymnastics might be an exception.