Anonymous wrote:I disagree with most of the others on here. 8-years-old is pretty late to be considering travel for soccer or baseball. You really should have been focusing practice for your older kid at your younger kid's age. You need to have them figure out how to get meaningful reps when the rec kids around him all s***.

But iron sharpens iron. Kids won't develop if they're coddled through youth sports. It's easy to be the best on your block. It's a lot harder to be the best in the DMV.

How much do you love your kid? Are you willing to get up at 5:30 AM and run him through drills for two hours? Are you willing to drive up to 90 minutes each way for practice? Are you willing to postpone your 401k contributions so you can have the cash flow to support your kid's dream? Are you willing to "plow the road" for your kid, to promote his progress and to undercut his rivals? I have to say I'm concerned because you even question whether a kid should be playing travel at 8-years-old.

Meh… kinda funny, but this particular post has really been done before. You need to come up with something more original.

I disagree with most of the others on here. 8-years-old is pretty late to be considering travel for soccer or baseball. You really should have been focusing practice for your older kid at your younger kid's age. You need to have them figure out how to get meaningful reps when the rec kids around him all s***.

But iron sharpens iron. Kids won't develop if they're coddled through youth sports. It's easy to be the best on your block. It's a lot harder to be the best in the DMV.

How much do you love your kid? Are you willing to get up at 5:30 AM and run him through drills for two hours? Are you willing to drive up to 90 minutes each way for practice? Are you willing to postpone your 401k contributions so you can have the cash flow to support your kid's dream? Are you willing to "plow the road" for your kid, to promote his progress and to undercut his rivals? I have to say I'm concerned because you even question whether a kid should be playing travel at 8-years-old.

It's a lot more fun and beneficial physically and mentally to keep doing multiple sports for as long as you can. It is really hard to do more than 1 travel sport for more than a year. You'll see if you try. There will be too many game conflicts and the risk for injury is really high and you'll have to choose one or the other pretty quickly.

Your child could always choose 1 travel sport and do a more casual rec sport on the side.

Anonymous wrote:Try keeping it real...mentioning aspirations of college sports with a 5 & 8 yo is patently absurd....their chances are slim so you are better off finding out what makes them happy...

As a parent with young kids, the logical part of my brain agrees with this, but it's VERY easy to get sucked into all the travel BS (particularly in soccer) and to worry about what team your kid is on and whether it's the best and if they are improving. So tired of the rat race in regards to everything in the DMV. It takes a really strong person to not get caught up in it, kid's sports are no exception.

Try keeping it real...mentioning aspirations of college sports with a 5 & 8 yo is patently absurd....their chances are slim so you are better off finding out what makes them happy...

OP my kids are the same age as yours. I think you will know if/when it makes sense for your child(ren). I wouldn’t do it just to try to position your kids to hopefully do well in a sport later. It should be driven by your kid(s) having a high level of interest in the sport (a clear favorite, even if they do other sports), never complaining about practices or games, and even expressing a desire for more. My oldest plays a few different sports but has one that he says is his favorite with no hesitation. He loves going to practices and is sad when they get canceled. He has the maturity to listen to coaches’ instructions rather than goof off, and a desire to improve. He has also shown enough talent in the sport for travel to make sense so we have made the move. He will continue with the other sports at the rec/lower commitment level. One of those other sports happens to be one I did at a high level. I know what it takes to be successful and if I wanted to try to get him on that path I know which teams/coaches/private trainings to sign him up for. I wish he liked the sport as much as I did because I could help him be so good at it. But that’s not what he wants, at least not right now. He is fine with a lower key experience so that’s what he will do unless he changes his mind someday.

It’s way too early to say for my 5 year old. I can’t imagine we will know until at least 7 or 8 if not later. He may not like any sports once they aren’t a glorified version of herding cats.

Some 7-10 year olds we know are amazing athletes and one of the best if not the best on their teams in every sport they play. They aren’t moving to travel because their kids love everything equally. They want to be able to go to multiple sports’ practices and games each season. I’m sure they will pick one or two to focus on within the next couple of years, but there’s no need just yet. They will have no problem getting on a travel team if that’s what they want because they are good athletes. If you own child’s interests start to narrow you will know it, and then you can consider the options.

Totally depends on the sport.

For baseball and softball, age 12 is “last call” time for most in terms of moving to travel. Tricky after that unless an outstanding pitcher.

I’m sure others can give details about other sports.