Why is little league/kids sports so competitive? (teenagers, Taekwondo, girl)
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As a former soccer coach , I gurantee if you had been on my team and I saw you riding a bike you would have been put in my van and driven home and your mom and dad would have been told why it is not safe to let a kids ride to the practices and such . I am sorry that your parents did not take an interest you would be surprised how many dont and like i said forget to pick their kids up from practices and games . god bless you and i wish you had , had better parents .
Just depends on where you live (and the era). DH always rode his bike to practices. It never would have occured to his parents in a million years that they drive him - and I think that could probably be said for all his friends too. Now, that was 40 years ago, in Iowa also. They certainly attended his games (or most of them anyway). Just different time and place.
DS played baseball for years in a competitive league. He started out in a local "rec" league but DH pulled him out in 2nd grade when they were still not keeping score and everyone got to run the bases whether or not they even hit the ball. BORING and learning nothing.
I can't remember how often they practiced at first but it seems to me they had 2 practices/week and a game on Saturday for several years. That seemed about right. There will always be overcompetitive parents and coaches. Once you are in a league for a year or two you'll figure out how to get with the group that most fits your own philophies regarding team sports...Enjoy it, don't resent it. It can offer so much to your child not to mention, we've met people through those sports that have become dear friends over the years.
I have had a completely different experience with organized sports. My kids are teens now and the older two have played varsity sports for high school. My younger one is still only in middle school.
Our lives revolve around our kids sports. They love playing them and we love watching them and have made friends with the other parents. We carpool to practices and love going to games.
There are good and bad coaches and I could tell you heartwarming stories that would make you cry. I disagree with the pp who said winning is everything. It's how you lose that proves your sportsmanship and teaches a child invaluable life lessons. However, no one wants to keep losing!
If your child is having fun playing, keep them in it! It is so competitive now to play high school sports. The younger they start, the better the chance they have. Just the way it is!
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I truly believe that some coaches are trying to re-live what they could have been as far as being a good athlete through the kids they are coaching and they are way too serious. You are correct, it should be about how to play the game, how to learn the rules of the game and above all how to be a good sport and learn to take turns playing any one given position.
This is so true. My bIL has always lamented about how he quit Little League when he was 12. He's convinced he could have been drafted by the Yankees if he had just stuck with it.
Anyway, he has two girls, ages 10 and 12, and he's obsessed with turning them into champion ballplayers. He pays a few hundred dollars a month during the winter to have them train with a former Minor League player at the local batting cages. From April through August they play/practice six days a week. Most Saturdays are devoted to traveling tournaments. They can't even think about taking a family vacation until mid-August when the season ends.
And, the coaches don't even give the kids off on Mother's Day or Father's Day. We like to celebrate those holidays with a barbecue and they have to come late if they can come at all. Now, I realize Sundays aren't the same as when I was a child and the stores and everything else closed so families could go to church and spend time together, but can't the kids have these two family holidays off?
My BIL is one of those crazy parents who yell a lot. And whenever one of his girls strikes someone out he'll call my husband from his cell phone to shout something like, "Hey, **** just got another kid out. She's killing the other team. Isn't that great?"
My kids play soccer on a town league that's tops in our county even though they only have one practice and one game per week. That seems to be enough to keep them happy and fit.
And, the coaches don't even give the kids off on Mother's Day or Father's Day. We like to celebrate those holidays with a barbecue and they have to come late if they can come at all. Now, I realize Sundays aren't the same as when I was a child and the stores and everything else closed so families could go to church and spend time together, but can't the kids have these two family holidays off?
I agree this would be nice...in reality though, depending on where you live, it's very difficult to do. I live in an area that has so many kids playing baseball, fields are hard to come by. Add to that, the unpredictable spring weather (just had 18" of snow this past weekend - now it's 75 deg.) - trying to get all those kids and umpires on fields is not easy. Add one or two games that must be postponed due to weather and you end up scheduling on MD and FD just to keep the schedule going. Once summer starts, the kids are competing with adult softball leagues for the fields. One of DS's games actually (due to a league scheduling error) was "called" after 4 innings and had to be rescheduled because and adult league was scheduled an hour into the game.
We loved (mostly!) watching our son play sports - he loved it and we loved watching his enjoyment. There will always be parents who are jerks and frankly, it's not just sports - I've seen some academic parental jerkiness too...some people are just clueless.
I enjoyed every bit of those sports and my child improved greatly during the season.
Well it really shouldn't be about YOU and what YOU enjoy. It's for your child. Did HE enjoy it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by kwalk65
I think I will go back to what is important for my son which isn't spending 4 times a week so that he can learn how to play baseball. I guess I am just feeling resentment of having to give up so much of my family time to get to all of these games and practices - time I won't ever get back.
Again, this seems all about YOU and what YOU want. What does HE want?
Look-my kids all play sports. My youngest (10) plays football and lacrosse. My middle (12) plays lacrosse and my oldest (15) is a total jock and plays football, wrestles, plays lacrosse, and weightlifts. I really HATE weightlifting and I can barely tolerate wrestling. They are boring and wrestling tournaments take all day, sometimes 2 days. But my son doesn't participate for me. He does it because HE LOVES IT.
If your son loves it please don't take it away from him because you find it irritating.
We had a similar experience when my husband coached football for little guys (ages 5-7). We had the youngest (and least experienced) children in the league, and the other teams took great pride in creaming us at every game. They would ensure that just a few of the "best" kids played for their team, while the others sat on the sidelines and watched. We made sure that everyone on our team got equal playing time, regardless of ability, but lost. It was some of the most awful showmanship I've ever seen.
.... but when I was a kid the older kids taught the younger ones how to play ball, or the younger kids learned by watching. ...
This is a really improtant thing I think. Often these days kids are separated into year levels to play. At school, grade 1 plays here and grade 2 plays there and so on. Sometimes done out of some kind of desire to protect them but I think the down side is that the young ones do not learn how to play from the older ones.
On the parents and coaches thing, there are all sorts from the way to pushy to the parent who forgets to pick up their kid. And the poor middle of the road parent coach who cops it from some parents because he does not drive the kids hard enough and other parents who give them a hard time for being too hard.
Its not just sport, its music and cheerleading and dance and singing. Anywhere you get parents and kids you will get pushy ones.
This does seem excessive. One practice and one game a week is enough for a 7 year old. However, you can either go along with the program, or not. Have any of the other parents complained about the schedule? Maybe you can get a group of the parents to rally for a saner schedule next year.
Well it really shouldn't be about YOU and what YOU enjoy. It's for your child. Did HE enjoy it?
Again, this seems all about YOU and what YOU want. What does HE want?
Look-my kids all play sports. My youngest (10) plays football and lacrosse. My middle (12) plays lacrosse and my oldest (15) is a total jock and plays football, wrestles, plays lacrosse, and weightlifts. I really HATE weightlifting and I can barely tolerate wrestling. They are boring and wrestling tournaments take all day, sometimes 2 days. But my son doesn't participate for me. He does it because HE LOVES IT.
If your son loves it please don't take it away from him because you find it irritating.
This is NOT about me but it does require ME to take a huge chunk out of our FAMILY LIFE which I have as a very high priority especially this day and age when everything in life seems to keep carving away pieces of family being together. Just because a child loves something does not mean it works for a family to do and I think it is terribly wrong to put a child in the middle of your universe and not keep a step back and keep making sure that what they are involved in is truly good for them, whether they love it or not. Trust me, my child would have the same amount of fun heading to a park and finding a group of kids to play with at the park for a few hours. Kids just love being part of anything and interracting - I get that.
The over-scheduled family life is killing family life at home in our country and that is what my children LOVE the most --- AND I am so very happy that they do not have the need to rush off and be involved in everything as children - they are content. I am beginning to see that I am in the minority here and that most people have no problem giving up a ton of family life so that they can cart their kids to all this "stuff". Again, sports that have 1 practice a week and 1 game are totally fine it is when it is becomes more time I get concerned.
Organized sports are not for everyone. The OP's situation does not strike me as excessive. When my older son was 7, he played baseball with the same kind of schedule, although he had 2 extra 'private' batting practices. He got to be very good, but he burned out by 12. Many of the parents at our level had college aspirations for their players....for some of them it was the only hope for paying for college.
A lot of the intensity you see in kid sports has to do with that.
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It gets worse at kids get older
