My 4.5 year old was born a month before COVID happened, so as he gets older I also think about how much time has passed since the Covid shut downs. Time is a thief - the days are long and the years are short!
My 5 year old scored his first goal in a soccer game this weekend. He's not aggressive on the field at all so my wife and I were thinking it wouldn't happen at all this year (which is totally fine as he loves to run around and kick the ball). He was in the right place though and made a great kick to score. His teammates rushed him and were screaming his name and trying to lift him up. My heart exploded.
Omg same recently! My daughter would literally run away from the ball for weeks but she finally scored her first goal and was so excited about it. She kept saying “I heard someone say ‘go Melanie!’” It was so adorable.
I can't wait till Ivan plays some organized sports - I don't care if he's good or not but it'll be good for developing more social skills and teamwork skills and I just hope he has fun.
My kid tried soccer and football when he was younger, now that he’s 10 he just finished his second year of baseball. It’s a lot of fun.
I wish my parents didn’t let me play tackle football before my brain developed. This is back when pee wee practice tackle drill involved encouraging kids to smash each other helmet to helmet. I definitely had multiple concussions before the age of 12. From the things I’ve read I probably really fucked up my brain
Basically any other sport Elliot wants to do in the future we'll obviously encourage, but my wife and I are in agreement that tackle football is just a hard no.
I thought about bringing up this topic before but didn’t know if your kids were old enough but has anyone entered into youth travel sports yet? My god, it’s cutthroat, and insanely political already. My son just turned 10 (4th grade) and is on his third season of travel baseball, third season of travel soccer and second season of travel basketball and it’s all insanity. Parents are nuts, coaches think they’re coaching varsity high school programs, even some of the kids already are huge assholes because they take after their parents. Unfortunately, where we live, there aren’t many rec options for many sports so travel is almost the only way to go. Just sucks because it’s like taking all the fun, growth and development away from literal kids. Not to mention, these kids are going to be burnt out by the time they are 12/13 years old, and potentially quit before they actually hit their peak/potential.
I was on the absolute worst travel baseball team (as in, we sucked, not that it was a toxic environment) and loved every second of it. From what I hear, my niece's travel softball team has a solid coach so they aren't too crazy, but some of the teams they play against definitely are.
I played travel as a kid, and it’s totally different now than it was 25/30 years ago (or, as a kid, I just didn’t realize it).
I honestly don't even know what travel sports are, is that a privilege of living in California or is that because I never really was in competitive sports outside of high school
Fellow Californian, My wife and her sister played travel ball softball and they loved it. Plus my wife got a scholarship from it but yeah definitely not my thing. Some coaches and kids are assholes in every sport
My gf has kids on a travel soccer team and it’s pretty toxic. The coach acts like it’s professional sports, the best player is a bully, and the parents suck and yell at the kids.
So when I was in high school and we played against other schools, and I traveled to them, I guess I was in travel sports?