Are Kids Sports Becoming Too Demanding?

It's Saturday morning. I'm up early, I'm showered, I got my stuff together and I'm ready to go. I jump into my car and I'm off. Am I headed out for a round of 18? Nope...not even a round of 9. Instead, I'm headed to my kids soccer games.

That's right...another season, another sport. In the winter, it's basketball. For the spring and summer, it's baseball. Now the fall comes...and it's soccer.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that my kids want to participate in sports! It's much better than them sitting around the house everyday playing video games or doing nothing at all. But I wonder to myself if some of these little league sports are going too far. Now I don't wonder if the kids are going to far. They want to do different things and play different sports, which is great! What I wonder (and worry) about are the sports themselves. Specifically the schedules.

Last year I wondered whether I should get my kids involved in golf due to the opportunity for a college scholarship. But now I'm not so sure. I mean, maybe they can wait until high school before they start playing anything else competitively.

Did you play little league sports? I did. Baseball and basketball. When I got to high school I traded those in for football and track. But it wasn't until high school that I remember my sports schedule ever being what it is for my kids! When I played little league baseball, I remember playing games on Saturdays and having, maybe, a practice a week...if that. Basketball was the same...a game on Saturday mornings with practice one night per week. But these days? These kids should be getting paid for the amount of time required to participate in these sports. Or maybe the parents should anyway.

The schedule can be bad enough with just one kid, but two or more? Insane. I'll show you what I mean:

Lets start with basketball. Once again, when I played it was one game on Saturday mornings and practice one night a week. This stays pretty much the same, but with two kids. Therefore, we have practices two nights a week in two different locations and games are again every Saturday. However, the first game can fall anywhere between 8:30-11:30 am, while game two can fall anywhere between 1:30 and 4:30 pm. And of course, the times change every week.

Let's move on to baseball. Luckily for my wife and I, this is not so bad because our boys played on the same team. But they won't next year. So we have to enjoy the games on Sunday mornings or afternoons and practices at one location two days per week. Next year, who knows? Practices as much as four days a week and games on Saturdays and Sundays?

That brings me to soccer. Practices are every Monday and Wednesday originally scheduled "from 5:30 until it's dark." This has since been revised to end at 7:00. But games are every Saturday AND Sunday! Really? Is it really necessary to play games on Saturdays and Sundays? See, this is why Americans don't like soccer. Right from the start, it's just a pain in the rear. Well, that's not really true. Americans don't like soccer because it's boring.

But far and away the worst was, of course, my favorite sport...football. For the entire month of August, practice is every night Monday-Friday. Every night. Once the school year starts, it's down to three nights per week with games every Saturday morning. What's worse is, while in all of the other sports the competition is entirely in town, the football games are played against other rival towns. This at times requires travelling up to an hour away to play the game.

Now, I have no idea what a golf schedule for kids is like. I never looked into it. I didn't play myself when I was a kid. I didn't even play in high school. But if it's anything like these other sports, I'm not sure how we would be able to handle it!

But, it's a fun sport. It's a safe sport. And it's a sport you can play for pretty much the rest of your life. So if adding this to the list of sports the kids choose to play is necessary, then my wife and I will do what good parents are supposed to do. We'll suck it up for the kids and find a way to make it happen. But I gotta tell ya, these little league sports are getting a little bit out of control...

Swing 'til you're happy...if you can find the time!

Posted in: baseball,basketball,football,golf stinks,golfstinks,high school sports,little league baseball,little league sports,soccer