<p>For American children, team sports have become an untamed behemoth, gradually colonizing weeknights, weekends, religious holidays and now vacations.</p>
<p>It’s not just sports. If you have a kid in music, theatre, dance… you’ve experienced the same and it’s nothing new. Heck, we know kids on improv teams who have to commit 4 days a week including almost every weekend. I mean, improv… how much rehearsal can you need lol. It’s a great frustration to me the level of commitment and hyper-focus required in children’s activities these days and at earlier and earlier ages. I’m all for giving children with special talents opportunities to work at their level but why does it have to be all consuming and exclude all other experimentation? I can’t tell you how many adults wanted my eldest to specialize as early as 5… before she even knew the options and what other things she might enjoy and be good at. </p>
<p>Then you have the struggle of finding the level of activity for a child who has the ability to be in the elite groups but may actually WANT to play soccer AND be in the junior symphony (which is totally impossible as both club soccer and symphony are 4 to 6 day a week commitment year round with no tolerance for missed rehearsals/practices.) In our area, there is nothing between “rec” and “club.” The school teams at the high school level might as well be “club” for the commitment they require.</p>
<p>You’ll always know “that kid” who is internally motivated to get to the Olympics by 16. There will be that kid who just NEEDS to play the violin 5 hours a day. Most of us don’t have “that kid” though. Most have active kids with their own specialty but still interested in seeing all the world has to offer.</p>
<p>I say my kids have more of a life than I do, but ask if it’s the life I would like. </p>
<p>Growing up in an urban setting, we made our own fun down at the schoolyard or the park. </p>
<p>We deliberately opted for an urban environment for our kids, and although they have had all the usual scheduled activities, they can also walk downtown without a chauffeur and hang out. When they reached adolescence, they appreciated this, and their suburban friends envied it. </p>
<p>We just said “no” to club sports and travel teams so will never really know what might have been. It’s a family decision because with club sports you are dragging the other kids every weekend to watch the brother and we did not want that. We skied together as a family in the winter and sailed and swam as a family in the summer and played golf in the late fall for fun. The only kid that griped about not playing club or traveling was our third son who played lacrosse and he survived without it. It’s really a family decision how much time to devote as a family to one kiddo and one sport or activity. </p>
<p>But how will they get into Yale?
<a href=“New book: "Excellent Sheep"--The Lower Ambitions of Higher Education - #8 by oldmom4896 - Parents Forum - College Confidential Forums”>New book: "Excellent Sheep"--The Lower Ambitions of Higher Education - #8 by oldmom4896 - Parents Forum - College Confidential Forums;
<p>And of course the upside to all this activity is that the kids are kept busy in healthy pursuits with likeminded peers, many of whom become their closest friends. Each family has to answer the question of how much is too much for themselves. We did plenty of travel teams in middle school but as their interests became more focused some of them fell to the wayside. But looking back I think on balance all the activity benefited my children.</p>
<p>I agree that for some families this kind of focus isn’t necessarily a limiting thing. I have family members whose lives revolved around their children’s high-level sports. But sports were the parents’ passion as well, plus they were teacher/academics with a lot of time off during the summers, making such a commitment much easier. I also saw a similar thing with music-focused families where this kind of dedication to the musical life was… simply a WAY of life. </p>
<p>This trend makes me so sad. I was a year round sports player growing up- but I played 4-5 different sports a year- softball/baseball, swimming, basketball, volleyball, and dance. I was good enough to make varsity in basketball and softball in high school (never played v. softball- blew out my knee in pre-season) but I still had time to enjoy all the sports I wanted. I quit playing basketball for my school because I couldn’t have anything resembling a life during basketball season and that wasn’t my cup of tea. </p>
<p>I was on the board for a community sports league and was head of the basketball program. The parents were fanatical about their kids playing and getting onto AAU teams or whatnot. The kids just wanted to have fun and a lot of kids confided in me that they didn’t want to play all year anymore. </p>
<p>I just wish we could go back to when sports were fun and not a chore. If your KID is passionate about it, by all means let them lead the way. The problem is that I’m seeing more and more that the kids just want to have fun and the parents want to live vicariously through the kids. </p>
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<p>Or because it will look good on their college application. NO!</p>
<p>It’s OK if the whole family is into it. It is not OK if it’s just for the parents or just for one kid out of several. My sib has several kids with differing travel teams. The family is often split up even to the point of being in different towns almost every single weekend. If they are fine with that it’s OK, different strokes for different folks. We knew we would only have our kids for a short period of time in our total lives and we wanted a different lifestyle. The travel and club sports teams are a different animal and the philosophy and the requirements just didn’t align with my H and I beliefs about raising kids. </p>
<p>I think what is “new” about this is the sheer number of kids who take part in elite/travel sports leagues. My brother was an elite level athlete back in the 70s. Our family travelled for him to compete in tournaments, exhibitions and camps. But there were very few kids doing this back then, and those that were, were high level athletes - all with collegiate and professional potential. Nowadays, almost any kid can get on an elite team and most of those kids will have no chance at all to play at collegiate or professional level. For my brother and family - it paid off. He played in college (full scholarship) and pro. But, interestingly enough, when his own son was offered a spot on a traveling team in jr high, my brother said no - because his son was not passionate enough about it to sacrifice family time. </p>
<p>IMO, if families have the interest and money needed to play sports (or any activities) at this level, fine. But I also think it is a mistake to do it only because it might look good on a resume. Do it only if the kid loves it. </p>
<p>I think a family has to really think about a travel team once the child is in high school. For one of mine, the travel team would have been in addition to the local high school team which worked its schedule in conjunction with the travel team so players could do both. Doing both would have kept every week-end occupied with that one sport from October through late March.</p>
<p>I think you need to assess where your child is going with the sport. If it will be a purely recreational pursuit after high school then I am not sure committing so much time to one activity makes sense. For us opting out of the travel team after 8th grade opened up some family time on week-ends where there were no games. </p>
<p>I think people should engage in some kind of athletic activity every single day of their lives, or at least 6/7 days a week. So, I do not object to sports practices being held nearly every day, year-round, as it teaches children to make athletics part of their everyday lives. I do agree with the parents in the article that there needs to be more allowance for excusable absences, though. Family trips are important, as well as other events that need to come before a practice. Some coaches become dictatorial and many parents are afraid to ask for time-off, and that is not good.</p>
<p>^^^
I agree with the physical activity almost every day but not the “sports practices” being held nearly every day. I would like my child to have time to ride a bike, swim in the ocean or lake, play some hoops or take a few weekends to ski or snowboard. Organized sports are great but if you have a child involved in sports for multiple seasons throughout the year, there really is not all that much time left for those other activities.</p>
<p>The good news is that kids who are athletic are often good at many sports, even if they officially play only one, I guess because they are fit, and have developed muscle control and strength. Some coaches will do cross-training with other sports as part of training, and sports camps also often involve swimming and other activities. I do think time off for skiing and other physical activities that take more than a couple of hours (like mountain climbing) should be encouraged and counted as part of training by the coaches.</p>
<p>^^ Oh, I don’t know how true that is. Like I said, I have family members whose kids competed on traveling teams, one for soccer the other for basketball (which got her into Princeton, as well as accepted to in other Ivies). Both kids also surfed, played tennis and one skied. Family also made an annual summer trek to Hawaii where they just sat on the beach and did nothing. So there was plenty of time for multiple other activities. </p>
<p>With one sport they could do that. But 3 season athletes don’t have much time. You might train year round for one sport but there is more flexibility since there are no scheduled practices and games during the “off” seasons.</p>
<p>Oh, I see what you meant. I agree - one sport it’s doable, even on an intense level. 3 competitive/traveling sports… gimme a break, that’s taking things a bit too far, IMO. But I guess there are those who make it work. Better them than me!</p>
<p>I just hate that there is no time off and unwritten penalties for missing games even for funerals and weddings. </p>
<p>"We just said “no” to club sports and travel teams so will never really know what might have been. "</p>
<p>I agree. It just does not fit with our values at all to have entire weekends taken up with a sport. </p>