We are not alone in the world of youth sports. Just replace the word "baseball" with "soccer" in this article.

http://es.pn/nOa8p4

Great article and insight!!! Should be mandatory reading for all academy and first year select parents

The premise of the article is that "elite" 10 year old athletes are only elite because they are more mature than their peers. There is evidence to support that theory:

http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED306679.pdf

However, I think that it's wrong to then jump to the conclusion that "elite" sports for pre-teens are bad. Elite/Select/Travel sports serve a purpose ... to offer a challenge over and above what's widely available. As a parent, one of our most important responsibilities is to prepare our kids for the challenges and adversity they will face in life. Youth sports is a great tool in that preparation. And it's great to have options at various levels of competitiveness.

Of course, there's potential pitfalls in setting the bar for our kids. You don't have to be an ego-maniacal parent to set the bar too high or too low. It happens all the time to most well-intentioned parents. That's a needle we are all trying to thread.

There's nothing inherently wrong with an "elite" sport level for pre-teens.

What becomes inherently wrong is sports for 10 and under become businesses run by pros who make full time income working part time teaching children a game. The emphasis shifts from fun, development and passion to win, win, and win to remain or become "the best." As they get older fine, at young ages it is really more about making money and exploiting parents instincts of wanting the best for their kids..

You do start wondering how many Michael Jordans the select soccer coaches cut....

my2cents wrote:What becomes inherently wrong is sports for 10 and under become businesses run by pros who make full time income working part time teaching children a game. The emphasis shifts from fun, development and passion to win, win, and win to remain or become "the best." As they get older fine, at young ages it is really more about making money and exploiting parents instincts of wanting the best for their kids..

That's a very cynical view.

The business exists because there is a demand for it. No one is being exploited. The profit margins are such that no one is going to get rich. So my feeling is that the people in the business are there because they love their sport and they love working with kids.

As far as win win win, I think most parents just want their kids to learn how to compete. Like it or not, our world is based on competition. I think by age 10, our kids are ready to start dealing with that reality.

At age 10, they "are ready to start dealing with reality?"

It's not until age 12 that they develop abstract reasoning and have the visual spatial ability to safely judge crossing a street.

I respectfully disagree soccerinsanity. Development occurs at various ages at that stage. I have been critical of many of JoS's posts in the past. However, I tend to agree with him/her on this issue. I suspect that there are a number of people who are exploiting the children or parents, though also believe that there are others trying to accomplish what JoS writes. We can all cite examples of both. This is not a black and white issue, gray area...

this has the ring of "when i was a kid "wishing. When sports was pure, just for fun, blah blah blah.

jack0fspeed wrote:

my2cents wrote:What becomes inherently wrong is sports for 10 and under become businesses run by pros who make full time income working part time teaching children a game. The emphasis shifts from fun, development and passion to win, win, and win to remain or become "the best." As they get older fine, at young ages it is really more about making money and exploiting parents instincts of wanting the best for their kids..

That's a very cynical view.

The business exists because there is a demand for it. No one is being exploited. The profit margins are such that no one is going to get rich. So my feeling is that the people in the business are there because they love their sport and they love working with kids.

As far as win win win, I think most parents just want their kids to learn how to compete. Like it or not, our world is based on competition. I think by age 10, our kids are ready to start dealing with that reality.

My cynicism stems from the demand that pays coaches of 6 thru 10 year olds more than we are willing to pay our teachers, firefighters, nurses and policeman. No one is getting rich but do the math and you will find most of the dues work out to about $75/hour. At that rate teachers would make about 100K, cops 150K.
Most kids start to develop a competitive nature on their own at about 12 to 14. Younger than that it is either learned from an older sibling, trying to please the folks, or is aggression not competitiveness.

My cynicism stems from the demand that pays coaches of 6 thru 10 year olds more than we are willing to pay our teachers, firefighters, nurses and policeman. No one is getting rich but do the math and you will find most of the dues work out to about $75/hour. At that rate teachers would make about 100K, cops 150K.

Yawn, you must be really cynical about the pros then . 100 million to dog torturer michael vick and other assorted athletes, The difference is that we don't have to pay soccer coaches. It is our choice unlike being robbed by politicians through taxes to fund pet projects and government unions.

my2cents wrote:My cynicism stems from the demand that pays coaches of 6 thru 10 year olds more than we are willing to pay our teachers, firefighters, nurses and policeman. No one is getting rich but do the math and you will find most of the dues work out to about $75/hour. At that rate teachers would make about 100K, cops 150K.
Most kids start to develop a competitive nature on their own at about 12 to 14. Younger than that it is either learned from an older sibling, trying to please the folks, or is aggression not competitiveness.

I don't know about the hourly rate, but I know that soccer coaches generally don't make enough for it to be a full time job. I'm sure the teacher equivalent of a select soccer coach ... a teacher at an expensive private school probably makes pretty good money.

Parenting runs the gamut on competitiveness. Some think you should do everything you can to keep your kid's world non-competitive. Some think kids need to be ultra competitive as soon as possible. Most of the time, each kid needs something different. We all get to raise our kids the way we think is best and then hopefully we don't screw them up too badly. All I'm saying is that it's good to have options.

duplicate - browser operator error

Ok, I can write this to please you:

At age 10, JoS is correct: kids might be ready to compete with each other and learn some of the world's realities,BUT, 100 years of research demonstrates that MOST kids do not develop abstract reasoning until APPROXIMATELY 12 years of age. What does that mean for soccer?

A player that hasn't developed abstract reasoning may not be very good at tactics and strategy until his brain further develops.

A player that hasn't developed visual-spatial ability to safely cross a street might not put the ball exactly where the coach would like it to be.

So a 10 year old's "reality" might be that they just need to grow and have fun at whichever soccer level is appropriate for the individual before dealing with ALL of the harsh realities of adult and high school soccer. Better?

Soccerinsanity wrote:Ok, I can write this to please you:

At age 10, JoS is correct: kids might be ready to compete with each other and learn some of the world's realities,BUT, 100 years of research demonstrates that MOST kids do not develop abstract reasoning until APPROXIMATELY 12 years of age. What does that mean for soccer?

A player that hasn't developed abstract reasoning may not be very good at tactics and strategy until his brain further develops.

A player that hasn't developed visual-spatial ability to safely cross a street might not put the ball exactly where the coach would like it to be.

So a 10 year old's "reality" might be that they just need to grow and have fun at whichever soccer level is appropriate for the individual before dealing with ALL of the harsh realities of adult and high school soccer. Better?

I hear you.

But I also know that at some point between 13-15 their brains flood with hormones and they stop listening to their parents. So I'm inclined to err on the side of being early rather than late.

LOL! Here's a tidbit to insult your teen with: the only time a person "loses" brain cells is the teenage years! Just don't ask them if they've lost their mind, because the answer is YES!

(It's part of the growth process...as new connections mature, the old ones are lost)

the reality is everybody on this site(myself included) and that has their child playing "select/competitive/club" soccer is guilty of this article!!!


but oh well its the "american way"

omega striker wrote:the reality is everybody on this site(myself included) and that has their child playing "select/competitive/club" soccer is guilty of this article!!!


but oh well its the "american way"

Very true!

I wonder why we as parents let that happen.

Seinfeld4 wrote:

omega striker wrote:the reality is everybody on this site(myself included) and that has their child playing "select/competitive/club" soccer is guilty of this article!!!


but oh well its the "american way"

Very true!

I wonder why we as parents let that happen.

cause we are winners!

omega striker wrote:

Seinfeld4 wrote:

omega striker wrote:the reality is everybody on this site(myself included) and that has their child playing "select/competitive/club" soccer is guilty of this article!!!


but oh well its the "american way"

Very true!

I wonder why we as parents let that happen.

cause we are winners!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNUr__-VZeQ

plantit wrote:

omega striker wrote:

Seinfeld4 wrote:

omega striker wrote:the reality is everybody on this site(myself included) and that has their child playing "select/competitive/club" soccer is guilty of this article!!!


but oh well its the "american way"

Very true!

I wonder why we as parents let that happen.

cause we are winners!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNUr__-VZeQ

omega striker wrote:

plantit wrote:

omega striker wrote:

Seinfeld4 wrote:

omega striker wrote:the reality is everybody on this site(myself included) and that has their child playing "select/competitive/club" soccer is guilty of this article!!!


but oh well its the "american way"

Very true!

I wonder why we as parents let that happen.

cause we are winners!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNUr__-VZeQ

Catch a clue bro.. As in the horror we subject our kids to .. it's called sarchasm.

There are some things that go on in select baseball that you don't see a lot in soccer.

In soccer the main focus is on our weekly league games, with some tournaments now and then. In select baseball, they are the other way around. They have league play, which is more or less a training exercise for the tournaments. Their big focus is on the travel tournaments. They go to lots of tournaments - and they are all expensive.

Also, moms, dads and brothers and sisters have to pay to watch the kid play. I hadn't heard of the searching backpacks, but it doesn't surprise me. The whole thing is a very blatant money collection exercise.

We gripe about the $7 that we have to pay for PHP parking every now and then. (And I am a chief griper!) But imagine having to pay $20-30 every weekend just to watch a game.

OnTheSurface wrote:There are some things that go on in select baseball that you don't see a lot in soccer.

In soccer the main focus is on our weekly league games, with some tournaments now and then. In select baseball, they are the other way around. They have league play, which is more or less a training exercise for the tournaments. Their big focus is on the travel tournaments. They go to lots of tournaments - and they are all expensive.

Also, moms, dads and brothers and sisters have to pay to watch the kid play. I hadn't heard of the searching backpacks, but it doesn't surprise me. The whole thing is a very blatant money collection exercise.

We gripe about the $7 that we have to pay for PHP parking every now and then. (And I am a chief griper!) But imagine having to pay $20-30 every weekend just to watch a game.

Simple .. Just pedal some Roids to the over zealous parents and ya got the cost of admission covered.

plantit wrote:

omega striker wrote:

plantit wrote:

omega striker wrote:

Seinfeld4 wrote:

omega striker wrote:the reality is everybody on this site(myself included) and that has their child playing "select/competitive/club" soccer is guilty of this article!!!


but oh well its the "american way"

Very true!

I wonder why we as parents let that happen.

cause we are winners!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNUr__-VZeQ

Catch a clue bro.. As in the horror we subject our kids to .. it's called sarchasm.

lol gotcha!

OnTheSurface wrote:There are some things that go on in select baseball that you don't see a lot in soccer.

In soccer the main focus is on our weekly league games, with some tournaments now and then. In select baseball, they are the other way around. They have league play, which is more or less a training exercise for the tournaments. Their big focus is on the travel tournaments. They go to lots of tournaments - and they are all expensive.

Also, moms, dads and brothers and sisters have to pay to watch the kid play. I hadn't heard of the searching backpacks, but it doesn't surprise me. The whole thing is a very blatant money collection exercise.

We gripe about the $7 that we have to pay for PHP parking every now and then. (And I am a chief griper!) But imagine having to pay $20-30 every weekend just to watch a game.

Imagine having to pay anything to watch baseball. The horror.

Do you guys really worry about this stuff?

FlatBack4 wrote:Do you guys really worry about this stuff?

are you serious?

Imagine having to pay anything to watch baseball. The horror.

I would pay to NOT have to watch baseball........

not sure if u guys have seen this but its pretty funny and oh so true...