<p>Eh, you can think you would or wouldn’t allow whatever. I thought that too. </p>
<p>When my oldest was discovered by Disney, we said no thanks, because that never turns out well. </p>
<p>I certainly never would have sought it out, but we just lived in the same area as the best team in the country. Some things aren’t in your control. But, it’s all good. She’s a kid who knows her own mind and is having a fantastic college experience in a top school and no longer even plays.</p>
<p>She’s in a band, a sorrority, and has a great job.</p>
<p>I don’t think she’s missed out on very much to be honest, except for a bunch of drunken weekend parties in high school. </p>
<p>Yes, after raising three kids, I think it is impossible to make generalizations about what you will or won’t allow, without knowing your child’s unique talents, interests, and temperaments. Some kids are born athletes, so preventing them from following their “passion” (sorry) for the sake of say, taking an oil painting class, will feel wrong so you probably won’t do that. Which is why I hate all the generalizations people make about what other people should or should not allow their kids to do athletically. There is no one size fits all, like everything else.</p>
<p>“Eh, you can think you would or wouldn’t allow whatever. I thought that too.”</p>
<p>Since I am the parent, I certainly would have had the ability not to allow him to do something when he was young - especially since it would be my money paying for it. And it’s not like sending him to his regular camp was a cheaper alternative to a specialty camp. It was $10K for seven weeks and he went for 8 years. </p>
<p>Maybe sailing is a different thing. When you have a kid who is playing a sport everyone plays, and they are having to play up a couple of years, and aren’t even allowed to play at the rec level in the area, and they just want to play with kids their own age? It’s not really in your hands. You can refuse to let them play at all if you only allow rec, or you can let them play at the club that’s a national but not dominant, or you can just let them go play with their peers. It’s not as in your hands as you might think.</p>
<p>At that level, the kids who can’t afford it get scholarships. For the club. It’s not the same.</p>
<p>It’s no fun to be that much better than everyone else. It doesn’t produce camaraderie among girls.</p>
<p>“We soon learned that S would have little chance of playing HS soccer (our school has an extremely competitive, usually nationally ranked team) without the training provided by the travel team.”</p>
<p>That’s interesting because where we are the travel soccer team coaches won’t allow their players to play for their school team. They have been threatened with all kinds of punishment. The coaches say they are afraid that the school coaches are going to teach bad habits that they will have to unteach. That’s a quote by the way. So all of our travel soccer players run Cross Country for the school as a cross training opportunity because the travel soccer coaches allow that. </p>
<p>“You can refuse to let them play at all if you only allow rec, or you can let them play at the club that’s a national but not dominant, or you can just let them go play with their peers. It’s not as in your hands as you might think.”</p>
<p>I was only speaking about not allowing it in the summer. There was no way I would have let my kid go to a specialty camp or participate in a national program for one sport in the summer. If that precluded participation in their sport at other times of the year, so be it. </p>
<p>Others choose differently. That is their prerogative. </p>
<p>I kind of just went with what each of my children wanted to do. I had no hard rules when it came to athletics and it wasn’t a matter of what I “let” or didn’t “let” them do. If they expressed a preference for a certain camp or team we tried to make it happen. Most times it worked out. The only thing we could not swing was travel teams 3 seasons during high school. Was just too much on all of us. But we did it in middle school.</p>
<p>I think many of the kids who really excel at a particular activity end up devoting all of their time to that activity when they get older. I don’t think sports is much different than music or dance or an academic interest. If you want to be the best at what you do, you’re going to spend much of your time perfecting your talent and often that involves practicing or competing or performing on weekends. Excellence requires commitment and hard work and sometimes you have to give up other interests and family stuff takes a back seat. In the instances where a kid does this, it’s because he or she has made the choice. Kids who are being pushed by parents to get involved at such high levels eventually quit because that passion isn’t there and continuing becomes too hard.</p>
<p>There are a lot of families who think sending a kid to camp, any camp, at age 6 is insane (I sent mine to a 5 day church camp and you would have thought I was sending her to a Siberian Work Camp), boarding schools are for Dickens’ orphans, or doing summer math worksheets is cruel and unusual punishment, yet many families make those choices every year.</p>
<p>My daughter played lacrosse as much as she could, which meant fall ball, the high school season, club in the summer, and camps if she could. It was not year round, but she wished it had been. Tomorrow she starts college and has an athletic scholarship. She would not be going to this school if it weren’t for lacrosse, even though she’s a good student. We needed the athletic money.</p>
<p>Then there are the very real risks of overuse injuries in children and adolescents who play a single sport year round (this also happens in musicians).</p>
<p>There is a lot of territory between a team that travels the country and requires commitment beyond the exclusion of all else and the local rec league. My youngest loves his sport and he plays Club on a team that is highly ranked in our state and for HS. Yes, we spent many hours on fields and driving all over the state. Yes, we split up at times on weekends, especially when the older two were involved in activities. But we still had family dinners and family vacations. We still had beach days and visits with friends. He still had time to ride bikes all over town and hang out with his friends and do other activities, and went to summer camp . His team, while reasonably high level, also understands that kids and families have lives. A kid may not start if he misses a game for a family event, but there is no real punishment. Our team did not start doing overnight tournaments until 8th grade (to participate in a regional event after winning at the State level) and those are not mandatory. </p>
<p>We were just talking about this the other day and my son said, unprompted, that he is very glad he did his sport and was on the team he was on - even if at times it is a lot of effort. It definitely taught him a lot about teamwork and about how hard work results in improving yourself. One of my other kids did marching band and while that was great and required a lot of commitment, he didn’t grow with the activity the way my sports son did. There is something about doing a sport from the time you are 7 or so to see how much you can achieve by 17. </p>
<p>He is not interested in playing varsity at college, but will continue with Club or even intramurals depending on the school he selects. I was not a sports star and our other two kids did not play sports in HS but this is what this particular kid wanted to do. </p>
<p>A lot of people like to bash sports or the time they take up. And yes some take sports way too seriously and some kids think they are so very special because they are good at sports. But I see kids like that in the arts as well - the diva star on the stage for example.</p>
<p>I am not sure what all these non-sporty kids are doing with their free time, but it seems an awful lot of them (although perhaps not the kids of CCers) are more likely to be sitting in front of an Xbox than exploring in the woods. And not that many families are doing super exciting, enriching activities with their kids every weekend instead of driving to games. Most families don’t have the money to ski in the winter and boat every weekend in the summer. </p>
<p>I think Poetgirl is right - never say never. You don’t know what you will do until your kid leads you in a direction. Following the kid’s the lead is usually a good approach. Within reason, of course. It doesn’t work for every family, but each of my kids found an activity that took time and commitment and that has been a good thing. </p>
<p>My personal take is that “travel or select” teams get the bum rap! From personal experience, the high level soccer team was the easiest to participate in terms of time requirements. Two ninety minutes practices and one game a week with a few well-chosen tournaments. Throw in a bit of ODP and regional tournaments, and the total is still manageable. OOS travel are wonderful opportunities to plan family vacations and discover parts of the country. And, yes, you CAN do Disneyland, EPCOT, Disneyworld all the while playing in a tournament. Same thing when playing abroad. </p>
<p>Now, although it may vary from state to state, the real crazy scene is at the school level. Since the students are pretty much hostage for 5 days a week, you have the (sometimes hidden) two a day practice, the “invitations” to train for swimming at an ungodly hour in the morning and another sport after class. And what about the football lunacy that sends you home about every day with headaches and bruises?</p>
<p>In the end, the real key is to have activities one DOES like or love. The real drama comes when kids are forced into pursuing activities they do not care much for or, even worse, are NOT very gifted in the first place. Riding the bench of a travel team to please Mom and Dad in the hope of maintaining the illlusion of a scholarship is crazy. The same applies to the arts! When the objective is a far way pipe dream as opposed to the immediate pursuit of simple fun … you have a problem. </p>
<p>And, lastly, unfortunately, the impact of activities in organized sports in schools is a mixed bag at best. It works for certain sports, but it is surely a huge negative for many sports. </p>
<p>I totally agree that kids should do activities that they enjoy - sports, arts, debate, etc. Or get a part-time job. Or volunteer. Or pursue a hobby. Regardless of what it is, as long as the kid enjoys it and the family can afford it, then I say - go for it. What is right for one family, may not be right for everyone. Different strokes. </p>
<p>@xiggi – not sure what that last sentence in your post means?</p>
<p>Someone up thread stated adults did not stay fit through team sports. Well, participating in team sports often leads to caring about fitness in general. In my own experience growing up as an athlete I transitioned from playing my sport in high school to long distance running and aerobics classes in college to stay fit and later weights, core work and yoga, etc.
My kids have all transitioned from high school team sports/travel clubs, etc to working out and eating right as young adults.<br> @mom2and - nice post.</p>
<p>And in conclusion, I think we can all agree with this:</p>
<p>My child’s level of participation is the optimal one. The levels above are full of crazy, pushy parents and exhausted kids, and the levels below are full of slackers. And don’t even get me started about those who chose not to participate at all. They are doomed.</p>
<p>YMMV on that depending on the individual kids. </p>
<p>Some who desire to continue that lifestyle and/or are able to from liking it will continue. Others will decide they’re sick of the regimentation and want to veg out during their free time. Some of them end up becoming visibly out of shape later in life. </p>
<p>On the flipside, others who weren’t particularly athletic or like in my case…attended a HS where HS sports wasn’t highly emphasized in the larger student culture* ended up picking up fitness activities or sports later in life. </p>
<p>I personally make it a point to walk several miles at least a few times a week and I know several formerly non-athletic HS classmates who are currently active in young adult sports teams in the City and other parts of the country. </p>
<ul>
<li>With the exception of swimming, fencing, handball, and ultimate frisbee when I attended. While we had football and other regular HS sport teams…the athletes weren’t regarded as anything special. If anything, they were sometimes regarded dubiously in ways similar to how unathletic “nerds” tend to be in mainstream US high schools where athletes are among those at the top of the social pyramid. This is underscored by one older alum who stated “At Stuy, we made fun of our athletes!” While extreme, that environment at least innoculated us from the worst effects of sports-mania which seemed to have affected many mainstream US high schools colleagues, college classmates, and older cousins attended…including some who were BMOC due to their athletic status.<br></li>
</ul>
<p>My daughter played travel soccer when she was in middle school, and it got to be a huge burden for the whole family (we called it “soccer bondage”). It was OK when she played a lot, but as the team got more and more serious, some of the girls got less and less playing time. The last straw was traveling to some remote tournament on a holiday weekend to watch her sit on the bench. She switched over to rec soccer, with a much smaller time commitment, and got exercise and had some fun. So my perception is that the intense travel sports team is not a very good deal for the kid who doesn’t get to play.</p>
<p>By the way, if you have Netflix, there is a movie called “Bad Parents” about this topic. I have only seen about half of it, because it is so painfully reminiscent of what we experienced that I can only watch a little of it at a time.</p>