<p>Like everything, the value of paying for activities remains in the eye of the beholder. For some, the 1,400 represents the same cost as buying a ticket to travel to Europe for a few days. In the end, it is all about what one “gets” from the investment. If the 1,400 covers the operations of a wonderful team that has access to quasi-professional facilities and pays for the fees of a REAL professional coach with a lengthy overseas experience … what is there not to like? Is it really better to subject yourself or your children to glorified amateurs who passed the minimum tests and are still learning the sport to save a few bucks? Or even worse at your local school where you have a clueless AD who thinks coaching volleyball or swimming translates to soccer? </p>
<p>I have no doubt that not every experience with travel or select soccer is positive. It is a brutal environment where quality and talent are important, but is not immune to politics. Kids lucky (or good) enough have a great time but the ones riding the bench have a different opinion, and especially when cut during the tryout phases. </p>
<p>The key, as other have said, is to find the appropriate balance for your own family, and be honest about the chances of playing at a certain level. Many do HAVE fun being on the most competitive teams and have a reasonable chance of playing at the next level. But many more will NEVER have that opportunity and will spend miserable years schlepping an athletic bag. </p>
<p>Bottom line? If the fun is not there, just move on to an activity that is more fun. After all, kids are not about to run out of possible activities any time soon! </p>
<p>As the parent of a kid who lives and breaths the sport, we support his love for this the way we would support love for music or any other passion. He plays club soccer (travel) and high school, and begs to go to camps during the summer to do what he loves. It may not be what other kids thrive on or even what I would choose to do, but it is who he is. If it were violin, or chorus, or anything else, we would support his interests. At the high school level of competition, there are not many kids playing who don’t eat sleep and breath the sport – it simply takes too much time if you don’t love it. </p>
<p>At our HS, the soccer program was ridiculously punitive. If a kid missed a practice, he was required to suit up but be benched at the next game. If the kid missed a game, he was required to suit up and be benched for 2 or 3 games. The reason did not matter: family weddings, medical appointments, you name it. I don’t think they even got a break for funerals! (What kind of idiot punishes a kid for attending their sibling’s wedding?) Since practice was every school day, this meant that a kid who had to visit the dentist or orthodontist had a choice: miss SCHOOL, no consequences; miss soccer practice, be punished.</p>
<p>My S ran winter and spring track, which he loved, played soccer in the fall. I encouraged him to give XC a shot instead. The practice times were the same, the teams were both very successful, but the whole atmosphere of the programs could not have been more different.</p>
<p>In our area rec soccer only went through 8th grade. After that,. players did club/travel teams and/or hs soccer (usually both)… DD was not interested, and I didn’t like the idea of playing same high impact sport all year round. </p>
<p>The down side, which we had not anticipated, was appearance of ADHD-ish tendencies. (They were probably always there, just mitigated by exercise and easier workload… Freshman year was ok, but there was no carpool that year so she walked 3 miles home from school.) </p>
<p>“It is SOOOO much easier and cheaper for your kid to do debate or school newspaper type activities.”
Most kids who are actually looking for a variety of activities and for the variety of kids that they meet at this activities participate in not just both sport, newspaper…whatever else at school, but also in art and music. They want to try them all. Not becasue it would look good for adcom, but because they want to, becuase of who they are, because of curiosity of what they could achieve there and because they know that they enrich their lives for the rest of it, not just in HS. Parents normally do not push them into all of these, parents jsut patiently wait until they drop something, the schedule is very hard to keep track of, there no dinner at home, it is in a car, there is no time to stop at drive thru, you warm it up in microwave at the office before you pick up a kid, but then they start driving themselves and it is easier.<br>
Yes, there is a ton of money. The out of town may be around $500 each trip. But it is such a fun…
If kid wants to drop something like this, then he simply stopped having fun or never had it.<br>
If there is an issue with just one activity vs. 4-5, then this kid will have a rough time adjusting at college where time managment is a big factor in success.</p>
<p>^ A tangent, but an interesting one. Some kids do much better in life, not to mention school, if they get vigorous physical exercise every day. Maybe they have ADHD, maybe they just need to blow off steam. I have one like that. He gets unbearable if he doesn’t go out and sweat. It doesn’t have to be a practice or an organized game. I will tell him he needs to go for a run.</p>
<p>…and mine cannot run at all…but every person on earth would do much better if they are physically active, this is a known fact which is not really focus of this thread. I do not know naything about ADHD either, but I know that in general the academically succesful kids are very very busy and mostly not because they are pushed, but becuase they wnat to try out things and also because American k-12 is such a bore, but it is also not the focus of this thread…In many cases it is easier to ask what the kid is NOT participating, the list would be shorter…</p>
<p>I have one athlete who drove me crazy when she wasn’t in her sport every day. She finally figured out that she needed to go work out if there was no practice or game. Even now in college, she has work out 6-8 am, but will often take her stick and a ball over to the wall at about 4 pm to get some extra energy out. When she was in high school, her practice was 4-6 (they went to school 9-4) and would then come home, eat, and do homework until 9 or 10. College is almost the same, but now she does practice in the morning, then class, then studying.</p>
<p>My other daughter was a casual athlete, but we did find that if she didn’t have hockey at least once a week, she wasn’t in a good rhythm. She needed at least a little exercise. She was in theater and during practice weeks there was a heavy dance work out, but hockey was better. Not a lot, once or twice a week, but some was necessary.</p>
<p>There is a big difference between club/travel teams and just exercising. If OP’s son will use the time wisely (not just more video games) and get some regular exercise, I think he should get to pick what activities he does. If he agreed to play this spring before the $1400 was paid, then he should play this year. Years ago my daughter wanted to play hockey and it was very expensive (really more than I could afford). I agreed she could play, but told her she couldn’t miss practices or games if something better came along. She agreed and she lived up to that commitment. She usually had games at 6 am on Sat or Sun, so that meant no sleepovers or birthday parties on Friday and Saturday nights, no going away for the weekend, no wanting to sleep in. For 9 years, she kept that commitment, with I think 2 misses for special occasions. No complaining either. She could have quit at any time BEFORE I paid. Once I paid, she was committed.</p>
<p>I was so relieved when my daughter quit soccer. She went through a theater period and then got deeply into music, for which she is not headed to grad school.</p>
<p>Because teenagers who are forced to do things they don’t want to do sometimes do foolish, harmful things to get out of them (as discussed above), I would not suggest this as the only option. Perhaps if the family considers it important to teach the teen that the $1400 really matters, the teen could be given the choice of either (1) playing soccer for the one remaining paid-for season, or (2) getting a part-time or summer job and contributing a portion of each paycheck to the family until the $1400 is paid off. If the teen has $1400 of his own money already, from birthday gifts, an inheritance, or some other source, another option could be for the teen to pay off the debt right now from those funds. </p>
<p>I am with @Consolation on this. There are sports that are less time and pressure. And sometimes it is just the coach and the atmosphere. “Quitting” was one of the best things my kid ever did from her team sport. Unless your kid is on track for a D1 career, I think you should let him make the decision. Not sure… has it been verified that none of the money is refundable if he drops now?</p>
<p>Not sure if this has been discussed or not, but this kid could end up being deeply resentful of being forced to continue an activity he wants to drop. Especially if some of the money can be gotten back. It is the sort of thing that makes kids shut down from communicating with their parents – “making” them do things once they are in high school rarely builds good relationships between kids and parents.</p>
<p>It’s not quitting if it’s not mid season with a team counting on you. He’s not going to play forever, so he will, in effect, have to ‘quit’ sometime. Let him make this call. Offer the possible solutions to any of his specific objections, so he knows those options are available, then leave it up to him. </p>
<p>@lizardly. That is how/why we went from a 1sport/season rule to a 4-5 days of activity no matter how many sports that is rule while he was still in elementary school! </p>
<p>While getting home at 5 is plenty of time to finish schoolwork and such, I think you should still let him choose whether he wants to play soccer or not. Before letting him quit though, I would cut him off from the video games as they are a waste of time. See if he can handle his schoolwork then. </p>
<p>This soccer activity isn’t going to mean a thing on a college application. Unless you are really into soccer at a young age, it is almost impossible to play in college. There are way too many good things for your son to do than to just hang with his soccer team. I’d make an exception if he really liked the guys. But if he is indifferent then find something better to do as a social activity. And definitely make reading part of what he does.</p>
<p>JSMILL…no one said the kid wants to play soccer in college. Where did that come from?</p>
<p>I think the parents here just want to be sure this student has a good reason for stopping this particular sport…and he does.</p>
<p>And for the record…if a student plays a HS sport for four years, it CAN make a difference on college applications…as it shows a commitment to an activity.</p>
<p>But back to this student…I would not suggest he continue this soort unless HE wants to.</p>
<p>The parents have already paid $1200? to provide this opportunity for their son. I assume he really, really wanted to do the soccer at that time, or else I can’t imagine parents putting down that kind of money. What has changed? He knew what the soccer would be like since he’s done it before. He has an older sibling so the entire family presumably had a pretty good idea of what the demands of high school would be like. I’m not saying he should be forced to continue, but I’d be pretty unhappy if my child did such an about face after (presumably) begging for this activity. </p>
<p>Am I the only one who thinks the academic issue needs to be addressed? Is the soccer creating academic problems or will they not go away when he quits soccer? If he can’t handle a freshman workload along with soccer, what is going to happen next year when classes get a lot more demanding? Also, has he had a checkup to see whether his tiredness could be due to an undiagnosed medical issue?</p>
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