What is wrong with society

This is a post on my towns local FB page.

Your 8 year old does not need private lessons!!!

This has always existed in some form, my little sparky is special and he needs every opportunity to do his best. Then when he doesn’t make the pop warner travel team, it’s because his coach sucked.

I think parents get wrapped up in these mega contracts and envision that for their kid. Truth is that .000001% of boys that touch a football will ever be in the NFL.

If you talk to people that really pay attention they will show that youth sports have little to no effect on somebody being successful in high school and beyond.
And at 8 years old your kid should be doing multiple activities to decide what they like.

I agree. I think every kid in my area started playing park district soccer at age 5. It was cheap, one or two hours of practice a week and a game Saturday morning. Not very competitive but introduced kids to team sports and gave them some exercise. When kids were a little older they’d find something they liked to do, some on the park district league or the more expensive and more competitive travel leagues.

When my daughter was coaching a volleyball team (15 year olds) one of the dads said he would pay her to provide one on one coaching for his daughter. I told her and she said no. She said the girl didn’t have the passion for the game and wouldn’t take coaching at practice, so he’d just be throwing his money away.

In that sport maybe, but sports taught my kid a LOT about life and being a good student. Title 9 sports were not moneymakers at colleges, but the players had to maintain a B average (most were on the Dean’s list).

My son was captain of the cross country team for 2 years and it taught him a lot about leadership in the real world. 5am wake ups for practice in the summertime will make a man out of you.

Many people live through their children. My uncle passed away and I will be attending the funeral but he and his wife were perfect examples of this.

His son played football and wrestling. He didn’t have an interest in either and wasn’t big enough to really play at a school like Blue Springs.

My uncle was 6’5 and probably 240 most of his life with only a gut later in life. He was a massive man of muscle but he didn’t grow until 18 or so. So he was trying to live the childhood he wanted with his kid.

My aunt wanted her daughter to be a cheerleader. My cousin was built more like her father. She was a stout girl and she wasn’t going to be a flyer.

That is why you see so many people doing this like lessons at 8 for a quarterback. They’re trying to live through their children.

The problem is it eventually catches up as the child doesn’t want that life. As you said find what they like and let them do that.

Agree with you all. Youth sports isn’t just about “sports”. There is so much more to it and to seek QB lessons for an 8 year old is asinine.

One funny thing, I have mentioned before that my son used to do ballet.
He started with purpose getting better at baseball but quit baseball the next year and did ballet for 3 more years. And ballet is something that actually made him a better wrestler.

Yup. Can’t ever make a horse drink.

Kiddo has to have the passion & initiative, or else these pushy parents are lighting a delayed fuse.

My uncle was so mad when his son quit football. He said he could have played nfl. My cousin was like no, I wasn’t good enough and I wasn’t big enough.

My uncle never understood why his kid gave up his fathers dreams.

I may not always like my family but I love them in my own special way

When my kid was 18 she was an assistant coach for a club volleyball team of 15 year olds. My kid was a great middle hitter, and one of the dads asked me if she would be willing to coach his daughter with one on one lessons. I mentioned it to her and she said it would just be a waste of his money since she had zero passion for the game. She was tall…that was about it.

She tried to teach her a play called a “slide” (which my kid was one of the best at). The kid just kept doing what she felt like. Finally my kid told her that they were going to work on a slide…they could work on the one she wanted to run, or they could work on one that a college recruiter would want to see…the choice was hers.

It is not just sports either. My mother absolutely loved music and never realized that not everybody had the same interest or passion as her. My parents told me in middle school that I was going to play a musical instrument. I did not want to, but that did not matter. I played for two years and was flat-out mediocre at it. I had no interest or passion and was doing it only because I had to. My mother used to love going to the school concerts. I did not feel the same way.

To my parents’ credit, when I got to high school and told them I did not want to be in band but wanted to go into ROTC instead, they let me make that decision. My father later told me I did the right thing, since I was not into band that much and really didn’t enjoy it. My mother would never acknowledge that same point. I ended up doing really well in ROTC too.

With my daughter it was the reverse. She was in band through elementary school. She wanted to take both band and Chinese in middle school, but she could only take one elective. Both my wife and I though Chinese would be better for her, and she was going to do that. Then, at her last elementary school concert, she said she was reconsidering and wanted to stay in band. We let her make that decision, and that was the smartest thing we did. She excelled at it and really enjoyed it.

I remember on the old CHB when KC talked about how they had a volleyball game between the parents and kids and how he felt so old playing against his daughter and her peers. I remember him wondering if he was doing anything wrong enjoying this through his daughter. I said that if his daughter was playing volleyball because she wanted to and she enjoyed it, there was absolutely nothing wrong with him being along for the ride and enjoying it too.

I wouldn’t say I ‘live’ through my children but I pick up hobbies and interests through my children when it’s mostly the other way around. When my son was 8 years old I’d take him to a little running club before school, kids and some parents would run around a track while a DJ played cheesy motivational music. I ran two miles with my son and realized running wasn’t all that hard, 8 months later I ran my first marathon. My son will teach me how to fly this summer, before he started flying I just had a casual interest in getting my license.

My daughter has a love of history and philosophy that’s rubbed off on me a little. And she’s turned me on to alternative music and bands that a 53 year old doesn’t typically listen to. The younger women I used to date thought I was pretty hip for an old white guy.

Ditto. I had no interest in playing an instrument. Turns out I was very good at it but I didn’t enjoy it.

Sine I had no passion, it was miserable. Two hours every day I had to practice.

My mother was upset that I lost first chair. I was better than the other person but i didn’t care.

She’d practice 5 hours a day and have private lessons. She loved being in band.

Luckily I only had to do it two years.

Only once could I say I was trying to live thru my kid. I was set straight by a coach. At 15 my kid was invited to play for an elite club team. We went to games and she rarely played. I approached the director of the club (my kid was adamantly opposed to this) and asked why she wasn’t playing. The director looked at me and said that if she had issues with playing time, then she should be the one talking about it - not me. I left…tail between my legs and never asked again. But before long she started playing more and more, and eventually ended up being a key player in their run at nationals. A couple of years later I saw that director at a tournament and I thanked her for setting me straight. She was taken aback…few parents seemed to appreciated what she was doing.

But I credit volleyball with getting her thru a pretty rough patch in her life. Her mom and I were divorced…I moved us to a different area of town. She was not at all happy with me and rebelled quite a bit. One day she came home from school and said I shouldn’t bother with going to the game since she wasn’t going to play. I asked why and she gave me some lame excuse about “closing her blocks”. I called her high school coach and prefaced it by saying any decisions were the coaches and the coaches alone, but I was curious if she really wasn’t closing her blocks. Rosa told me that wasn’t it at all…Molly was just going thru the motions at practice and not really trying, so she wanted to send a message by benching her. Turned out the benching was for one set…not the whole match. When my kid got back in, she was on fire (pissing her off is a surefire way to make her unstoppable). And from that moment on, she did not rebel with the team, the school or with me. At the end of the season I wrote Rosa a note and told her that she gave me my daughter back. that she got thru to her in a way I never could. I saw her later and Rosa thanked me and teared up, saying she never got a letter like that. So sports taught her a lot about life.

On a lighter note, my mother in law loves softball/baseball.
My kids are into other sports.
My nieces play softball so my mother in law constantly comments about their achievements on FB.
It chaps my sons ass that she barely acknowledge him and his sisters sports. He REALLY loves his grandma so he won’t say anything, but he vents to me about it.

Even when bored, Winter is still the best at something!

That sounds like a good letter for Ask Amy. :smiley:

I just happen to be good at playing the one instrument. Being the top in 7th grade isn’t a special accomplishment. Practice anything for 14 hours a week and you’ll get decent at it.

I am not sure I would have ever got much better since it wasn’t my interest.