Anonymous wrote:Depends on the sport. Some, like certain baseball/softball programs, will require them to also do the house league. Kids definitely do multiple sports at that age -- say there's soccer 3x a week, they also do lacrosse on Sundays.
As for whether it's too much-- only you can answer that. Is your child begging to play the sport as much as they can, and are they in the backyard practicing by themselves? If so they're probably ready. If you are the one who heard about the league without them asking, maybe not.
Also, most travel leagues, especially at that age, don't actually "travel" much. You'll go outside your community but likely won't go more than 1.5 hours at any given time. Just for planning. Tell us the sport and we can give more guidance.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the sport. Some, like certain baseball/softball programs, will require them to also do the house league. Kids definitely do multiple sports at that age -- say there's soccer 3x a week, they also do lacrosse on Sundays.
As for whether it's too much-- only you can answer that. Is your child begging to play the sport as much as they can, and are they in the backyard practicing by themselves? If so they're probably ready. If you are the one who heard about the league without them asking, maybe not.
Also, most travel leagues, especially at that age, don't actually "travel" much. You'll go outside your community but likely won't go more than 1.5 hours at any given time. Just for planning. Tell us the sport and we can give more guidance.

This is a good synopsis. My DS plays travel baseball and started in 8U (most of team was in 2nd grade). It was roughly 3x a week in the fall, and 5x a week in the spring, since players have to also play local little league.

In fall a few boys play a second sport, and in winter probably half the team plays basketball. There’s usually 1x a week indoor winter practice after a break in November-December.

Frequency of tournaments and distance traveled varies widely by club, and even by team. Right now we do 1-2 tournaments per season, and mostly local. I expect that to gradually increase in number and intensity over time.

I freely admit this is probably a stupid question. What, in this context, is a tournament? Do they spend a whole weekend playing a game each day for 3 days in a row? Or is it like 2 weeks of games 2-3x a week against different teams in a bracket?

For baseball, usually two games Saturday and a game or two on Sunday. After those two days, they are ranked then it’s single elimination starting Sunday afternoon. If you win you keep playing with you are champs or are eliminated. Usually max would be 4 games on one day, but that’s very rare. On non tournament weekends, a rec game on Saturday would be normal. Most kids also play another sport such as soccer for flag football. So they’d have games for that too. In third grade, most would play both soccer and flag IME. Sundays are for travel games, which are usually a double header which is two two hour games. They are usually within an hour away. So if you start at 9, you’d have to be there at 8 and it’s an hour away, you’d be gone from 7am-2:30pm on Sundays.

Anonymous wrote:It’s crazy to spend so much time driving for a kid to play a sport, in my opinion. It’s also environmentally a problem for so much car travel. The time spent traveling could be spent on so many other things, like playing in the yard or just having downtime. As a psychologist, I think this kind of thing is contributing to overall mental health struggles as kids grow.

Anonymous wrote:It’s crazy to spend so much time driving for a kid to play a sport, in my opinion. It’s also environmentally a problem for so much car travel. The time spent traveling could be spent on so many other things, like playing in the yard or just having downtime. As a psychologist, I think this kind of thing is contributing to overall mental health struggles as kids grow.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As others have said, it depends on the sport/league.

My kids started travel soccer in 3rd and 4th and no, it wasn’t too intense because as PP said, actual travel was minimal (1.5 hour drive maybe 3x per season for either games or tournaments). Practices 3x week, so still time for something like scouts. Some teammates did/do a second sport, but found it challenging and that’s more than I’m willing to deal with.

In our experience, pressure and travel didn’t start until middle school. And fwiw, expecting nothing from it beyond exercise, friendships and learning to work at something.

Good to know. I certainly hope my kid decides to switch out travel for the rooty-poot no-cut soccer school team once he’s in middle school 🫣

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the sport. Some, like certain baseball/softball programs, will require them to also do the house league. Kids definitely do multiple sports at that age -- say there's soccer 3x a week, they also do lacrosse on Sundays.
As for whether it's too much-- only you can answer that. Is your child begging to play the sport as much as they can, and are they in the backyard practicing by themselves? If so they're probably ready. If you are the one who heard about the league without them asking, maybe not.
Also, most travel leagues, especially at that age, don't actually "travel" much. You'll go outside your community but likely won't go more than 1.5 hours at any given time. Just for planning. Tell us the sport and we can give more guidance.

This is a good synopsis. My DS plays travel baseball and started in 8U (most of team was in 2nd grade). It was roughly 3x a week in the fall, and 5x a week in the spring, since players have to also play local little league.

In fall a few boys play a second sport, and in winter probably half the team plays basketball. There’s usually 1x a week indoor winter practice after a break in November-December.

Frequency of tournaments and distance traveled varies widely by club, and even by team. Right now we do 1-2 tournaments per season, and mostly local. I expect that to gradually increase in number and intensity over time.

Our exact experience with travel baseball. Maybe we are on the same team haha

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the sport. Some, like certain baseball/softball programs, will require them to also do the house league. Kids definitely do multiple sports at that age -- say there's soccer 3x a week, they also do lacrosse on Sundays.
As for whether it's too much-- only you can answer that. Is your child begging to play the sport as much as they can, and are they in the backyard practicing by themselves? If so they're probably ready. If you are the one who heard about the league without them asking, maybe not.
Also, most travel leagues, especially at that age, don't actually "travel" much. You'll go outside your community but likely won't go more than 1.5 hours at any given time. Just for planning. Tell us the sport and we can give more guidance.

This is a good synopsis. My DS plays travel baseball and started in 8U (most of team was in 2nd grade). It was roughly 3x a week in the fall, and 5x a week in the spring, since players have to also play local little league.

In fall a few boys play a second sport, and in winter probably half the team plays basketball. There’s usually 1x a week indoor winter practice after a break in November-December.

Frequency of tournaments and distance traveled varies widely by club, and even by team. Right now we do 1-2 tournaments per season, and mostly local. I expect that to gradually increase in number and intensity over time.

I freely admit this is probably a stupid question. What, in this context, is a tournament? Do they spend a whole weekend playing a game each day for 3 days in a row? Or is it like 2 weeks of games 2-3x a week against different teams in a bracket?