Anonymous
08/05/2019 23:09
Subject: Re:Average child quits sports at 11
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:We quit soccer when our son couldn't play with his classmates. Great Falls Reston soccer would not allow DS to play with his classmates in first grade because he was born in 2012 and they were born in 2011. They were all 6 at the time, none of them were going to have a birthday during the season, and they were in the same first grade class. This was the rec teams not the pre-travel group. DS decided to add a second season of baseball because he really liked baseball and could play with his friends.
I get that there needs to be age brackets and the like but the cut offs at such a young age, without any opportunity for allowing some movement, is a bit ridiculous.
There are a number of sports that are available at an early age. Baseball and softball are available starting as early as 4 (blastball or t ball). Flag football starts early, heck I know kids playing Pee Wee tackle football at 6. Lacrosse and the like are all available.
I do think that kids drop out off sports that they are playing for fun and exercise when they start moving to 2 practices a week or 2 games a week and the time commitment starts to increase.
The pressure to play travel ball in a fair number of sports is crazy. As more kid leave for travel teams at an earlier age, there are fewer kids to play rec ball and rec ball becomes less fun.
We wanted DS to continue with soccer but the idea that he cannot play with his friends was a killer.
If you'd signed him up anyway, within 2 weeks he'd be playing with his friends again. Because at 6, that's about how long it takes to make friends, at most.
He played that season and then said he did not want to play soccer again and moved to a second season of baseball. He got along fine with the other kids and did fine playing but his motivation fro soccer was to be with his friends. He was probably not going to be a life long soccer player but he enjoys it well enough when he is with the kids he knows.
Not a huge loss to the league or to him, I get it, but inflexible rules that prevent classmates who are the same age from playing together on a team are not going to help leagues.
Anonymous
08/05/2019 16:21
Subject: Re:Average child quits sports at 11
Anonymous wrote:save up for college or vacays...
find other non$$$ options to keep kids fit
Why can't you do both? We have college saved for (working on graduate school) and do sports and music.
Anonymous
08/05/2019 16:20
Subject: Average child quits sports at 11
My child is going into 5th and turning 10 in September. I think the bigger issue is it gets more competitive, most are try out teams and very few rec teams, cost and its a huge parental commitment. We have sports 5 days a week for our child, not including music. Its a lot of driving, sitting around waiting, and cost.
Anonymous
08/05/2019 16:18
Subject: Re:Average child quits sports at 11
Anonymous wrote:We quit soccer when our son couldn't play with his classmates. Great Falls Reston soccer would not allow DS to play with his classmates in first grade because he was born in 2012 and they were born in 2011. They were all 6 at the time, none of them were going to have a birthday during the season, and they were in the same first grade class. This was the rec teams not the pre-travel group. DS decided to add a second season of baseball because he really liked baseball and could play with his friends.
I get that there needs to be age brackets and the like but the cut offs at such a young age, without any opportunity for allowing some movement, is a bit ridiculous.
There are a number of sports that are available at an early age. Baseball and softball are available starting as early as 4 (blastball or t ball). Flag football starts early, heck I know kids playing Pee Wee tackle football at 6. Lacrosse and the like are all available.
I do think that kids drop out off sports that they are playing for fun and exercise when they start moving to 2 practices a week or 2 games a week and the time commitment starts to increase.
The pressure to play travel ball in a fair number of sports is crazy. As more kid leave for travel teams at an earlier age, there are fewer kids to play rec ball and rec ball becomes less fun.
We wanted DS to continue with soccer but the idea that he cannot play with his friends was a killer.
If you'd signed him up anyway, within 2 weeks he'd be playing with his friends again. Because at 6, that's about how long it takes to make friends, at most.
Anonymous
08/05/2019 16:17
Subject: Re:Average child quits sports at 11
Anonymous wrote:save up for college or vacays...
find other non$$$ options to keep kids fit
This.
Also less skin cancer later in life.
Anonymous
08/05/2019 16:04
Subject: Re:Average child quits sports at 11
Anonymous wrote:My HS DD plays a sport, but only in spring. Soccer is a fall sport here, and DD would play rec if there were a rec program for HSers. But the rec programs for almost all of the sports stop by 14.
I wonder if the average child quitting by 11 is something my DD encountered. She likes soccer, but she's not a soccer phenom and she wasn't interested in playing at a club level, assuming she could even make a club team. Rec was perfect for her, except by the time she was 10-11, the "good kids" had mostly filtered out to play club. The kids left on rec were a mix of the kids who didn't want to be there but their parents were making them and kids who like my daughter loved soccer but weren't good enough or weren't interested in club. It was a noticeable shift. When she was 9, there was a good team of focused kids, there were always enough kids for games, practices went well. The next year started the team maybe not having enough kids for a game. Kids acting up during practice because they didn't want to be there. Fortunately my daughter had a good group of kids she could hang with in soccer, and it kept her playing until she aged out at 14. But the slow downturn of what had been a great rec program as kids moved off to club was noticeable.
She would still play now if there were opportunities, and is waiting to be old enough to join some of the 18+ social leagues, or hoping there's an opportunity for casual play in college.
Yes! This is very common. There are so many "travel" teams that rec has become almost like pickup with mostly disinterested kids. The majority don't come to practice, may or may not show up at games, and have no idea of basic concepts of the sport. That's how kids who, in years past, might have continued to be happy rec players, get forced into travel leagues and wind up getting sick of it.
Anonymous
08/05/2019 14:52
Subject: Average child quits sports at 11
Anonymous wrote:My vote is it's because the crazy parents push soccer too hard too fast too much. Kids at age 9 and 10 are practicing two times sometimes three per week, and traveling every weekend. They just want to hang out with her friends...
My child is 8, and this is what is happening. It’s a status thing to do travel, so everyone tries out. They practice 2-3x a week, and all of a sudden they don’t know anyone on the team andthe kids are much more aggressive. Rec was fun. For the kids who don’t “love” soccer it isn’t fun, and they end up quitting.
Anonymous
08/05/2019 14:50
Subject: Re:Average child quits sports at 11
I'm not sure why this topic has any legs on this forum since none of us who post here have average kids. Our kids are well well above average. Mine are elite! : )
Anonymous
08/05/2019 14:45
Subject: Average child quits sports at 11
Anonymous wrote:My vote is it's because the crazy parents push soccer too hard too fast too much. Kids at age 9 and 10 are practicing two times sometimes three per week, and traveling every weekend. They just want to hang out with her friends...
It’s nuts, not to mention the brain injuries.
Anonymous
08/05/2019 14:37
Subject: Re:Average child quits sports at 11
Why don't you start a spin off thread and ask how old is your 5th grader instead of highjacking this post?
Anonymous
08/05/2019 13:10
Subject: Average child quits sports at 11
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:This isn't rocket science.
By age 11, your kid will have been playing soccer for years (one of the few sports you can start playing at age 3), so it is predictable that your kid will want to bounce around or find something else.
You can say the same statistic about Scouts too.
11 yr olds are 7th graders - tons of school activities/clubs, band, chorus, drama reheresal, other hobbies, etc. The little time they do have leftover in their day is not going to be going to soccer practice especially if they are feeling mediocre about it to begin with.
Um, no. My rising 5th grader is turning 11 in October.
My 5th grader turns 10 end of sept
My 2008 April bday (turned 11 this year) will be a 6th grader like every other 2008 born Jan-September.
Anonymous
08/05/2019 13:05
Subject: Re:Average child quits sports at 11
As a PP mentioned, it would be really interesting to see the numbers broken down by race/ethnicity, and also by gender. I'd also be willing to be that there are significant regional differences. This area is really into soccer, and it's much easier to find a club within convenient driving distance than it is in many other parts of the country. In MoCo at least, it's also extremely easy and affordable to play rec all the way through HS, and I know lots of kids who do.
In thinking about my older kids' teams when they started with soccer at 8 or 9 (and travel at 10), I'd say about 80 percent of the kids on those teams were still playing on an organized soccer team through their senior year of HS, and most of the rest switched do a different sport. I was also really struck by the experience my son had with Montgomery County rec basketball. He played from first-12th grade on a team that had few personnel changes, and there were 4 or 5 other teams made up of players from his HS who were still playing in the same league as seniors.
Maybe our experience is an anomaly, but I feel like this is a very sporty community overall.
In thinking about my older kids' teams when they started with soccer at 8 or 9 (and travel at 10), I'd say about 80 percent of the kids on those teams were still playing on an organized soccer team through their senior year of HS, and most of the rest switched do a different sport. I was also really struck by the experience my son had with Montgomery County rec basketball. He played from first-12th grade on a team that had few personnel changes, and there were 4 or 5 other teams made up of players from his HS who were still playing in the same league as seniors.
Maybe our experience is an anomaly, but I feel like this is a very sporty community overall.
Anonymous
08/05/2019 12:53
Subject: Re:Average child quits sports at 11
My HS DD plays a sport, but only in spring. Soccer is a fall sport here, and DD would play rec if there were a rec program for HSers. But the rec programs for almost all of the sports stop by 14.
I wonder if the average child quitting by 11 is something my DD encountered. She likes soccer, but she's not a soccer phenom and she wasn't interested in playing at a club level, assuming she could even make a club team. Rec was perfect for her, except by the time she was 10-11, the "good kids" had mostly filtered out to play club. The kids left on rec were a mix of the kids who didn't want to be there but their parents were making them and kids who like my daughter loved soccer but weren't good enough or weren't interested in club. It was a noticeable shift. When she was 9, there was a good team of focused kids, there were always enough kids for games, practices went well. The next year started the team maybe not having enough kids for a game. Kids acting up during practice because they didn't want to be there. Fortunately my daughter had a good group of kids she could hang with in soccer, and it kept her playing until she aged out at 14. But the slow downturn of what had been a great rec program as kids moved off to club was noticeable.
She would still play now if there were opportunities, and is waiting to be old enough to join some of the 18+ social leagues, or hoping there's an opportunity for casual play in college.
I wonder if the average child quitting by 11 is something my DD encountered. She likes soccer, but she's not a soccer phenom and she wasn't interested in playing at a club level, assuming she could even make a club team. Rec was perfect for her, except by the time she was 10-11, the "good kids" had mostly filtered out to play club. The kids left on rec were a mix of the kids who didn't want to be there but their parents were making them and kids who like my daughter loved soccer but weren't good enough or weren't interested in club. It was a noticeable shift. When she was 9, there was a good team of focused kids, there were always enough kids for games, practices went well. The next year started the team maybe not having enough kids for a game. Kids acting up during practice because they didn't want to be there. Fortunately my daughter had a good group of kids she could hang with in soccer, and it kept her playing until she aged out at 14. But the slow downturn of what had been a great rec program as kids moved off to club was noticeable.
She would still play now if there were opportunities, and is waiting to be old enough to join some of the 18+ social leagues, or hoping there's an opportunity for casual play in college.
Anonymous
08/05/2019 12:49
Subject: Average child quits sports at 11
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:This isn't rocket science.
By age 11, your kid will have been playing soccer for years (one of the few sports you can start playing at age 3), so it is predictable that your kid will want to bounce around or find something else.
You can say the same statistic about Scouts too.
11 yr olds are 7th graders - tons of school activities/clubs, band, chorus, drama reheresal, other hobbies, etc. The little time they do have leftover in their day is not going to be going to soccer practice especially if they are feeling mediocre about it to begin with.
Um, no. My rising 5th grader is turning 11 in October.
My 5th grader turns 10 end of sept
Anonymous
08/05/2019 12:48
Subject: Re:Average child quits sports at 11
save up for college or vacays...
find other non$$$ options to keep kids fit
find other non$$$ options to keep kids fit