Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
You're in western PA right? The "lax bros" culture is very visible in eastern PA. My cousin lives in Philly and her kids both play.
Yes, I'm in Pittsburgh. The Appalachian mountains divide the state pretty good. We're not East Coast. We're not really Midwest. We're sort of an island of our own. We're kind of a mix of everything leaning heavy toward Appalachian, but few people will admit that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by strawflower
Yep, of course - I'm sure there are areas (yours and momma_bear's, for example) where lacrosse players are perfectly nice gentlemen. But as a whole, lacrosse has a reputation for the opposite. My son played for awhile and I agree it is a fun sport for both the players and the spectators.
ETA - Interestingly enough, I'm in Wisconsin - not exactly known for being lacrosse area, but I still see lots of the elitist 'lax bro' stuff.
I read descriptions of the culture like you suggested. You couldn't pull off a surfer dude wardrobe in the Steel City. LOL They're not elitist snobs here and don't have many of the attributes except a few had long-hair. They have a mellow, modest, laidback mentality and pretty much get along with everyone. They're not predominantly affluent. We worked hard to collect old equipment to distribute to children interested in playing. We had a hard time getting lacrosse started here, and players were simply glad to have enough people to make a team.
We have a bigger problem with football having an elitist bro jock mentality. That probably is the result of football being THE SPORT in Pittsburgh due to the Steelers.
Yes, I'm in Pittsburgh. The Appalachian mountains divide the state pretty good. We're not East Coast. We're not really Midwest. We're sort of an island of our own. We're kind of a mix of everything leaning heavy toward Appalachian, but few people will admit that.
My son is working in Pittsburgh this summer and he is really enjoying it there.
I did not make any personal comments so there's no need to make a personal defense.
I'm saying I think the regime the OP mentioned is extremely excessive.
The articles I cited all mentioned tons of injuries, and this is where it's not a matter of who is driving the process. As a parent, it is up to me to recognize unnecessary risks and let my kids know about it and counsel them otherwise. For example, my daughter loves to read, but I take books away at bedtime to ensure she gets enough sleep. I would also limit sports if it cut into sleep time or homework time.
Naturally, it's all about balance and it sounds like you were able to find a balance with your son. But the culture of youth sports and schedule is what I'm talking about, not your family's personal choices.
The articles also pointed out many times that over-practice (not specialization) could hurt a child's chances of doing well in a sport for the long term. If my child loves cake, then allowing them to eat unlimited cake is going to lead to a lifetime of food issues. That is not good for her relationship with cake! My mother limited cake to birthdays and celebrations, and now I can always have cake, guilt-free, fear-free, at birthdays and celebrations, because I was raised with a normal, healthy relationship with food. Lucky me. That was a gift from my mom, the gift of moderation.
Regarding your comment that "kids can participate in organized sports without being overly specialized," with the schedule the OP suggests, I assume you are talking about seasonal sports. And that's true. But it still leaves precious little room for music lessons and language lessons, not to mention remedial work if needed. Five times a week at the age of seven is a huge commitment that edges out anything else, unless you are homeschooling, in which case, good for you, because you save on instructional time by doing it individually. But that is not the case for most families.
And you know what? I don't hurt when my children don't do well in sport. It's their life. Nobody is good at everything, especially not at the elite level. It follows that even the most talented individuals will be losers more often than they are winners.
Don't get me wrong. I'm absolutely not opposed to sports. I love sport and I even require of my children that they participate in one team sport per year, and do physical activity every day, whether it's running or swimming or a team sport or just riding around the neighborhood. I am a big believer in sport and fitness as a crucial part of a full life.
But the whole structured training or competition 3x/week from kindergarten and daily from 2nd grade is what I object to. That's far too much training for a child in a particular sport, and it leads into increasing intensity in later elementary school which is age-inappropriate mentally as well as physically.
I read both articles that you provided links to. There is no comparison to what the OP was describing and the situations described in those articles. There are so very real injury situations mentioned in those articles, in particular baseball pitching. The sports with the highest incidence of overuse injuries at an early age are gymnastics, figure skating and tennis where very young athletes are most likely to be spending a lot of time in practice.
There is also a lot of talk about specialization in what sport but I have not seen it in my area. My one daughter did basketball and track, and did not start playing soccer until she was asked to play in 10th grade. We have a very good local high school basketball team and many also football. In the spring they do baseball, track or lacrosse.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Momma_bear
You're in western PA right? The "lax bros" culture is very visible in eastern PA. My cousin lives in Philly and her kids both play.
Some sports such as soccer, lacrosse and field hockey that have long been popular in Eastern PA were slow to get started in Western PA especially outside of the suburbs of Pittsburgh. Lacrosse has become popula in my local high school but I think we just completed the third season. I know some of the schools in the suburbs of Pittsburgh were playing lacrosse in the early 1990s.
Some sports such as soccer, lacrosse and field hockey that have long been popular in Eastern PA were slow to get started in Western PA especially outside of the suburbs of Pittsburgh. Lacrosse has become popula in my local high school but I think we just completed the third season. I know some of the schools in the suburbs of Pittsburgh were playing lacrosse in the early 1990s.
I think it was slow because it was a club sport that required dues and expensive equipment instead of being school sponsored. That changed the last year my son played, but I believe everyone still needs to supply their own equipment. Even though our school district had lacrosse in the 1990s, they still had a hard time getting players. They were attracting athletes from soccer, cross country and football due to the needed endurance, and some of the coaches from those teams became territorial. I believe that's why they were mostly a hodgepodge of misfits. As a coach, you know it's possible to build endurance and make a team with the most unlikely players if they're passionate. And kids who play lacrosse are passionate! LOL
Men’s lacrosse players were the biggest illicit drug users among athletes competing in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s 23 sanctioned sports, according to a survey by the governing body.
They led all other sports in the use of amphetamines, anabolic steroids, cocaine, marijuana and narcotics, according to the NCAA’s quadrennial survey, which included 20,474 responses from athletes for the 2009 school year.
I wasn't aware of this kind of culture for the players either.
Last year DS was in kindergarten and we had a rude awakening to the way organized sports are run in our new suburban idyll. It turns out that if you want your kid to play a sport at the age of FIVE you are committing to TWO hour-long weekly practices and one game a weekend that can be up to an hour away that starts at 8:30am.
Is this normal? It seems excessive with a capital X to me but I know nothing. For our family it was too much, just too much for a kid just starting fullday school life who only months before had napped daily. However, since there is such a push in this community I am worried that once he is able to (or wants to) pursue a sport he will be emotionally unable to deal with the fact that he is not as good as the kids who have been playing (3x A WEEK!!) since they were 4 and he'll give up.
(Keep in mind that this is per sport, so a kid on spring Tball and spring soccer would be 4 practices and two games a week.)
buddy of mine in suburban cleveland got his son involved in youth flag football a few years back. i wanna say his son was 6 at the time? anyways they practiced 4 days a week for an hour with a game on saturday. hundreds of kids were involved in it. was well run he said, very organized and the kids really enjoyed it.
buddy of mine in suburban cleveland got his son involved in youth flag football a few years back. i wanna say his son was 6 at the time? anyways they practiced 4 days a week for an hour with a game on saturday. hundreds of kids were involved in it. was well run he said, very organized and the kids really enjoyed it.
There is a big problem with this from a medical standpoint. Children can get Osgood Schlatter's disease if they play too much and too intensely. My son did and it meant several months without any sports which was very difficult for him because he loved sports. While it usually happens at 12 or 13, for my ds it happened at 8 years old because he was playing some sport every day and landing on his knees.
During activities that involve a lot of running, jumping and bending — such as soccer, basketball, volleyball and ballet — your child's thigh muscles (quadriceps) pull on the tendon that connects the kneecap to the shinbone.
This repeated stress can cause the tendon to pull away from the shinbone a bit, resulting in the pain and swelling associated with Osgood-Schlatter disease. In some cases, your child's body may try to close that gap with new bone growth, which can result in a bony lump at that spot.
What's excessive about doing something 3X a week for a few hours?
[i]
Why would sports practice 2X during the school week cut into sleep time or homework time?
[i]
If it's on the same block, with under 10 minutes transport time, you still have two nights per week and one weekend morning gone. If there is travel time, you have two afternoon/evenings gone and half a weekend day gone. That's a lot.
As for cutting into homework time, on this thread people are naming examples (and indeed, the OP mentioned a commuting example) in which the child is out for four hours (two driving, two practicing) twice per week--in kindergarten. It ramps up from there. I don't know about you, but we get home from school at 3:45, have 20 minutes of reading, about 15 minutes of math (if your child is advanced and struggles with 0% of the material--it just takes about 15 minutes to fill in the form, possibly 10 for an adult), about 20 minutes of spelling and grammar. Then the child has unstructured play time for at least an hour (I don't mean video games or TV time, just time to let their little mind REST and do whatever they want without a schedule), a family sit-down dinner for an hour including the clearing of places and helping tidy the kitchen, brush teeth and jammies for 30 minutes, and you have 15 minutes left. If your child goes to bed at 8:30, you have one extra hour.
Now let's see where we are fitting in sport, music, and language. If each of them takes 15 minutes to get there and one hour of practice, the child ends up with no free time during the week.
Please note that I'd also be opposed to 3x a week language or music practice, in large part because it edges out everything else.
That is assuming you have one parent at home at 3:45, or a nanny.
Quote:
Doing something 3X a week is not really an unlimited diet of one activity. It's only a few hours a week. There are 4 other days in the week to do other things. I am not getting excessive from a schedule of 2 practices and one game a week.
There are two parts of this that are excessive for me. First of all, in kindergarten, do you really need scored games? From what I understand from the literature I get sent home from the sports my kids are in, scored games are not age appropriate until around 2nd grade (7/8). Second of all, three times a week on one activity plus two other activities one day per week (let's say for some family that it's church and scouts, or scouts and music, you get the idea), that leaves two nights per week.
Quote:
The OP mentioned a schedule of 2 practices a week in the middle of the week and a game on the weekend. How do you get five times a week from that?
I should have been clear that I'm talking about the whole progression that has been discussed in this thread, in which 5x/week practices begin in 1st or 2nd grade, plus a game. That is six days a week at six.
Quote:
I do not think that kids can do everything. If you choose sports other things fall by the wayside. If you choose other things sports go by the wayside. I don't see how that is an issue.
I think that it's a huge issue. Huge. They need to learn to read music, learn to swim, be a part of the community through volunteering or commerce. They need to learn what it means to be a whole person, not a baseball robot. Who wants their kid to be a one-dimensional personality? What about appreciating the symphony? Dance? Lemonade stands?
Quote:
When my kids were small they took music lessons along with sports. My middle son continued with music lessons and fit lacrosse into his music schedule. My oldest and youngest dropped music in favor of sports when they got older. Life is full of choices. I don't see that as a problem.
When they get older, of course. Nobody will do everything in high school. But as parents we are there to help our small children find balance. I wouldn't dream of holding back a 14-year-old passionate about something.
But in this thread, there is a "regular" sports schedule for elementary school children being discussed, and it is specifically 3 - 6 times per week on one sport per season.
And yes I do think that's excessive.
Quote:
Little kids don't really train the way older athletes train. They learn skills. I don't see what the big deal is with a 3X a week activity. There are 4 other days to do other things (or nothing).
I would argue that a 5/6 year old needs way, WAY more time to choose activities and to practice general skills like running around corners in a house or fail to build a birdhouse, than she does in soccer skill training where an adult is saying, "do this, do that".
I think 3x/week structured towards one activity is too much for a kindergartener, and 5x/week far, far too much for a first grader.
Obviously we disagree, and there is probably not much more to say, but I wanted to clarify where I got 5x/week and other points from.
I read both articles that you provided links to. There is no comparison to what the OP was describing and the situations described in those articles. There are so very real injury situations mentioned in those articles, in particular baseball pitching. The sports with the highest incidence of overuse injuries at an early age are gymnastics, figure skating and tennis where very young athletes are most likely to be spending a lot of time in practice.
There is also a lot of talk about specialization in what sport but I have not seen it in my area. My one daughter did basketball and track, and did not start playing soccer until she was asked to play in 10th grade. We have a very good local high school basketball team and many also football. In the spring they do baseball, track or lacrosse.
Most of the kids featured in those articles started out like the OP's kid is starting out: very young with three days a week, then five in 1st or 2nd grade. That's how it starts.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
