December Sports

[waverly]

I have a couple of questions for you all, and I was going to add it to the sports thread, but I saw we are in a new month.
1. DS has 2 hour basketball practices.  He is 9 and playing his first year in this rec league.  It seems a bit long to me because we always had 1 hour practices before.  How long are your practices for your sport for similar age kids?

2. DD wants to do Tae Kwan Do.  I think the place near us has where you can trial classes for the week.  She is happy to wait until next year though.  How do you like it?  I did it as a teenager in our home (family friend), but it wasn't something I was super into, just happened to be really convenient.  She wants to be a ninja and other kids in her class do it.

3. Neither of my kids expressed interest, but I really want to up their swim skill levels.  Should I do that with swim team?  Or is that too much of a commitment/ competitive if all I want is for their strokes to get better?  They can both swim, but their strokes are not great (ages 9 and 6).  The semi private swim lessons have helped, but it is a 16 year old teenager who is a bit flakey.  So looking for something better than that, but maybe better than the once a week Sat morning swim classes because they are crazy busy and the instructors and also not super great.  Should I look into something like Bear Paddle?  DH says no, but I figure I can at least try it once before ruling it out.  We keep trying to go through the park district but I feel like their swim program for lessons in general is not great.  It used to be better but later on it seemed like the instructors weren't as good and every week we had someone different, so we didn't even know who their instructor would be- all teenagers for the most part. I'm also not a fan of their overall manager, not for any major reason, she just isn't great at her job.  

4. Because of DS's ears he is balance challenged and anything involving wheels and skates are not great for him.  I've been trying to get him to ride a bike for 3-4 years.  He just mastered the scooter this summer.  Should I worry about teaching the kids roller and ice skating (the one time we went he was like a wet noodle) or just say this is not a life skill and move on?  As an adult, I went ice skating 3 times, and roller skating once. The roller skating place does have lessons that I could take DD, but not sure it is a priority.  DS doesn't seem interested and doesn't seem to have the ability.  DH and I did use to roller blade more. 

[186momx]

waverly,
1. DD's team gymnastics practices are 3 hours long. For reference the rec level 1 & 2 class are 1 hour 15 minutes and girls express class which is above level 2 but not pre-team is 1 hour 45 minutes. These classes are designed for kids 6+.

2. DD's friend tried Tae Kwan Do through the park district and didn't like it. She is 8 and was one of the younger kids in class. I think the park district classes are geared for the tweens-adult group and not for little kids. She has another kid in her class that goes to a dojo and enjoys it and has made a lot of progress.

3. Swim team here does a great job on stroke development but it is a time commitment with at least 2 days a week 90 minute practices. I don't know if that is the case in all swim teams.

4. I can skate okay, and can't ice skate at all. I don't think it is a life skill that your DS must have. DD can almost skate as well as I can and all she did was go to open skates and figured out how to glide holding onto the wall at the rink. DD is also 8.5 and can't ride a bike and I've stopped pushing because it was just stressing all of us out.

[186momx]

Fall competition season is over! Working the state meet was very exhausting and I won't ever sign myself up for every session the entire day. You need at least a session off to just walk away and breathe. I liked entering times into the iPad the best out of all the jobs I did.

Head coach wants DD to get her skills before the end of this month so she can enroll her into the first meet of winter/spring at the end of January. Being sick isn't helping but I'm hoping the forced break will give her some new energy. We still have practices over winter break.

[mustardseed2007]

1/2 We do Karate, mostly TKD but other martial arts as well are mixed in. It's DS' main sport and he's been enjoying it.
His TKD classes have just bumped up to 1 hour, 2 times per week.

3. In our area, the neighborhood swim team does a great job for improving the stroke of kids who can already swim, at least so I've heard. It probably depends on what's available in your area. It's not TERRIBLY competitive where we live, but certain kids are more competitive than others. For perspective, our swim team starts practicing in may after school, and then switches to morning practices at 8:30am-9:30 or 9-10am during June until mid July. It ends with the meet of champions in July, and then it's over. It's probably one of the least working-parent friendly sports in our area as well, with meets being during weekdays beginning at 4:30pm or something like that. We don't take part because of the schedule, and that sucks because it's sort of neighborhood bonding time.

4. No advice, neither of my kids can ride a bike without training wheels. I bought them scooters for christmas, which they didn't ask for. 


BTW, over thanksgiving I gave my kids the choice of cleaning the house with me or playing outside and they chose playing outside. The mild weather of the winter is the best for my weird kids. 


ETA: more words 

[mommyatty]

2. My kids flipping LOVE Taekwondo. DD, who is 7, is a rock star. DS, who is 5, thinks it’s super fun and watching all the kindergarten boys try to kick and block is maybe my top entertainment of 2019.

4. Skating is not a life skill. Neither is bike riding. Unless you live in the Netherlands. Then maybe, MAYBE, you need to ride a bike. Let it go.

[mae0111]

1. 2 hour practices start up for travel basketball in 4th grade here (do 9/10). DD1 wanted to play, but I couldn’t make it work. I think it’s excessive. Her practices would have been 2X per week 20 mins away, and 2 games each weekend 30 mins away. DH is unreliable during the week, and I just couldn’t do it. So she’s playing town rec instead. I feel like it’s impossible to just have fun in a sport nowadays. So many kids are quitting as a result.

2. No one has ever asked for karate, but I would try to find a spot if there was interest and it didn’t interfere with something else.

3. I also tried to find a swim team to help the kids with their strokes. Everything here seems hypercompetitive, and all the swim teams required 4x weekly practices (1.5 -2 hrs each) and meets every Saturday. It didn’t leave room for anything else. I gave up. That isn’t worth it to me.

For DD1, everything has to work around therapy and piano. DD1 is not an athlete, but she is a musician. We won’t stop piano for anything else, and she really wants to pick up a second instrument. But DD2 is showing a lot of interest in soccer. I don’t know how to fit it all in.

[divanerd]

My son just finished soccer and we are in swim lessons. Not certain we will do anything else until Spring once swim ends.

We still have Cub Scouts...

[sandandsea]

DS is 7. Soccer is 1.5 hours twice a week followed by a 1 hour goalie practice. He’s on a comp team so it’s more than the rec team practices. Basketball is once a week for 1.5 hours.

I would do swim lessons. Not a team. The teams here are intense with several practices weekly and competitive meets.

[mustardseed2007]

To let you know how much DS enjoys martial arts, I have been considering sending him to a conditioning program for kids at my gym so he can be in better shape and therefore be better at karate. He has a a hard time keeping his balance, which I'm pretty sure is related to poor core strength. They do a tiny bit of conditioning in each class but it's more like their warm up. And this is a silly idea in many ways because the program we are in is more about confidence building than being competitive but then again, I think it would be good for him.

I've been ignoring that thought for a while because it seemed like me being crazy mom, but DH brought it up at DS' last belt test and I was like....that's an interesting idea DH...you know the gym has this class for kids....

[waverly]

Thanks everyone. I’m going to go back and reread the responses again. I was thinking of attempting the biking every year but I might push that back 2 years. I was thinking life skill but you are right if you can’t bike there is always walking, the car and public transit so really it’s not.
The ice skating is an event for cub scouts that I had to say no to. My mom was bragging about how she taught us to roller skate but honestly I think roller skating might have been more of a thing way back then. It’s not super close by or popular with the kids here. I might take DD again if we have nothing else to do just to get out of the house, but I won’t worry about DS. My mom didn’t have kids that weren’t typically developing so I guess we’ll chalk this up to something she cannot understand.

This is rec basketball so the practices are only 1 time a week. Some coaches might do 2 times a week but luckily our coach isn’t super ambitious. 1 game in Sat but games don’t start until mid January so it’s only 1 time a week right now.

Swim team is all year round so I have to see what’s up. When I originally looked I thought too much s commitment but the swim classes seem so slow.

[covergirl82]

waverly, DS is 10 and his rec basketball practices are an hour. Even his club team practices are only an hour.

DS has 2 more rec basketball games and then rec bball will be done. He'll have a few practices for his club bball team before Christmas break, and then after Christmas break he'll pick back up with club bball and his travel baseball team will start (indoor) practices.

DD is still doing hip hop dance. DH and I would like to see if she might be interested in trying a lacrosse clinic this winter to see if she'd be interested in trying it.

[madringal]

My girls swim for a swim team and it is highly competitive. My oldest swims for 3 hours a night (she's 11) and my 7 year old swims for an hour each night. BUT - that's because that is what we choose. Most swim teams allow you to make it what you wanted to be. If my kids only wanted to swim for an hour a night 2 days a week, that would be totally fine. If they never wanted to do a meet, they would never have to. So, I suggest you email your locals swim team and ask. Ours also does 3 week trial sessions all season, so you can get a feel for what it is like before having to commit. As a non swimmer, no one is going to expect your kids to jump in full force. USA swimming (our national parent organization) is all about encouraging swim safety, just getting kids in the water and learning the mechanics. They do not expect kids to all want to swim competitively.

[madringal]

Like I mentioned above, my oldest swims for 3 hours/5 days a week. She loves it, and has swam at this level since she was about 9/10. This season is off slow, like most of her fall seasons are. She is at peak yardage, but coming in at around her best times at meets so that's good. Her next meet is next weekend, so we should be seeing some small time drops.

DD2 finally has her cast off her arm (broke it at gymnastics back in October). So we have her back at swim practice hoping to help her get some strength built up. She won't be going back to the gym until January at the earliest.

[mae0111]

Both girls start basketball this Sunday. I’m coaching DD2’s team, and DD1 has a skills session at the exact same time across town. The skills session will determine the her team - the coaches will attend and then have a draft immediately after.

DD2 also starts soccer training in a couple of weeks. Then after New Years she starts a second soccer training. So we will have DD1 therapy on Mon, soccer tues and Wed, piano Thurs, basketball Sun, and probably another day of basketball in there somewhere. Should be interesting 😳

[mommyatty]

2 more volleyball weekends until it’s over. It’s playoffs/tournament time. DD desperately wants it to be over. I do too. And I feel so bad because her coaches are so awesome and have been great with all the girls. But the girls (except their daughters) are snotty and pretty cliquish.

[edwardo123]

My oldest (10) has swam year around since she was 5. The first 3 years were low key. She had the option to attend 5 hour long practice, but we just did 2-3. St 8, she asked to do more and joined the competition team with 6 practices a week for 90 minutes. She loved it and is now practicing for 2-3 hours five to six times a week. If she wanted, there are options with less time commitments at her club and in the area. These low key options exist through high school.

My youngest is doing stroke school twice a week for 45 minutes. This costs the same as one 30 minute class at Goldfish Swim School. I would definitely look into swim team, just be up front when you visit on what your desired commitment level is..

[traveltheworld]

DS, 7, is in the pre-competitive program with a swim team. It's twice a week for 50 minutes, which seems low key enough. We really like it. He can stay in this program till he ages out at 9. Then he'd have to join the competitive team, and that's 1.5 hours 4 times a week at the "lowest" commitment level. Unless he suddenly changes his mind, I don't foresee us doing that. But for now, the swim team has been great. We are going to put DD in the same program as soon as she turns 5.

[mrspez07]

waverly
1. My boys (7 & 10) play b-ball in the City’s rec league, practices are 1x a week and 45 minutes long. I think it’s a perfect timeframe for the younger set, but the older could probably benefit from an hour. 2 hours for rec seems a bit crazy, especially if it’s more than once a week.

3. Swim team seems like a big commitment unless your kids are asking to do it. My kids made huge strides in swim skills by spending a few months with private weekly lessons, and then have gotten better just by swimming and playing in the water with friends. They weren’t getting better with group lessons and it wasn’t safe for their ages.

[mae0111]

DD2 started basketball today. She was very nervous, cried a bit, got very frustrated when the ball didn’t go in, but once the game started, she got right in the mix and had fun. She told me after the game that she didn’t think she would like it, but that she was really happy to be playing. 😊

DD1 had a skills session at the same time, and the draft was held immediately after. I’m waiting to hear about her team. She’s hoping to be with a friend from school, but I care less about that. She knows a bunch of kids from last season and softball. She will be fine either way.

[186momx]

Question about private lessons
Before when DD has done private lessons at gymnastics by the end of the 30 minutes she was exhausted but you could see real progress on whatever skill they have worked on. I remember last November that she went from not kicking over from bridge to kicking over with straight legs in the 30 minute lesson and DD always came out of the lesson with a ton of confidence Fast forward to this month where she is having privates with her current coach to try and get her last few skills so she can compete come January. 30 minute lesson, DD has tons of energy after, I'm not seeing any progress during the lesson or the next day at practice, and DD feels completely rotten after the lesson like she just sucks at everything. Head coach said we needed to do lesson with her current coach, yesterday was our 4th lesson and no progress. Am I being "that mom" if I talk to head coach and say it isn't working and can she help arrange lessons with a different coach?

[sdlaura]

186momx, no, I don't think you're risking being "that mom." If it were me, though, I might take an interim step of talking to the head coach about your concerns before I say it isn't working. And ask questions like "what should we be looking for in terms of progress?" and then jump to switching if the answers aren't satisfactory/you don't see improvement soon.

[mommyatty]

186momx- you’re the PAYING CUSTOMER. You have every right to expect results. Some of it may be increased stamina/harder skills/whatever, but no, you’re not being out of line to say “uh, this doesn’t appear to be doing any good. Can we change our approach here?”

[madringal]

Ugh, with much drama and fanfare - our middle daughter (7 yo) told us she doesn't want to swim anymore. "It's boring and not my thing, mom." She just wants to do gymnastics. We've always told her she doesn't have to be a swimmer, but she does need to learn to swim. So she can stop swim practice once she can safely and confidently swim 50 yards. But guys...I don't want her to quit swim, lol! And I really, really don't want to be a gymnastics mom. I love being a swim mom. I know virtually nothing about gymnastics, and I don't want to learn! And that doesn't even get into the injury stuff. Shes already broken two bones and required SURGERY because of gymnastics. She's been out 2 months now because of it. How do I steer her to something else? We have tried everything - tennis, XC, soccer, dance. She refuses to try cheer, or anything else with a ball. She LOVES, LOVES, LOVES gymnastics and is pretty talented at it.  She's pretty much a natural. 

I have been slowly buttering her up to the idea of diving. All the bouncing around she loves, but without all the crazy gymnastics moms and team shenanigans.

[186momx]

madringal, I'm sorry. If I remember right didn't your DD just move onto the competitive team before she got hurt. It is the middle of competition season so would she be able to go right back to where she was at or would they move her back down to build up strength and get her skill base back? Could you tell her she can do rec gymnastics but you want to hold off on competing until X age? I like that DD does gymnastics at the gym and not at the trampoline park or in the back yard. The only younger kids at our gym that seem to get hurt is when they do stuff outside the gym like broken arm on the home trampoline, broken ankle during PE at school playing indoor soccer. Not saying they haven't had injuries happen at gym but very seldom is it the lower level girls. At least at our gym there seems to be very few "crazy gym mom's" thank goodness. I was so surprised watching the other teams parents at the state meet a couple weeks ago and am so happy our parent aren't not that intense let alone our gymnast. One team got in a fist fight over the team trophy!

My mom was a gymnast and refused to let us kids do gymnastics. I took swimming up in high school, my sister started at age 6 and kept at it through college. My mom learned how to be a swim mom. DH would love DD to drop gym and take up swimming but she hates the smell at the pool.

[madringal]

186momx, She had just moved to level three but was not on the competition team yet. She got hurt at like her 2nd level 3 practice, lol. And, here is the thing with this kid. She is a freaking ball of energy. And originally that's why we knew swim would be good for her. It bananas expensive to do gymnastics 5 days a week. But for $100/month she can swim an hour a night, 5 days week. It's been a great energy release for her. And right now, it's great therapy for her arm. And she has to have that outlet in the winter. So now, without swim, she won't have that. So just 1 day of rec gymnastics isn't going to be enough for her. And I just won't pay the money it takes to do classes 3-4 days a week. I might look around to other gyms and see what our options are. I wasn't terribly found of the one we go to although they are supposed to be the best around.

And lol, that your daughter hates the smell of chlorine. We always joke that it is the official smell of our family!

[186momx]

madringal, my sister and I always called it "ode to chlorine" when anyone asked us what lotion/perfume we wore.

I just dropped DD of at practice last night. I needed some alone time to wrap gifts so it was perfect. I get to practice and at DD's next water break she comes up and says "Mommy Ms P took the mini tramp for the pre-school this week so Coach JA had to let me do vault with them it was awesome" with the biggest smile on her face. Going to drop into power tumbling tonight and hopefully talk to head coach when our coach JA isn't at the gym about how things aren't getting better. DD also wants to schedule a private with the power tumbling coach for winter break since her schedule will be open since there is no school.

[covergirl82]

186momx, madringal, I was on my high school swim team my freshman year, and I definitely remember the persistent chlorine smell...

DS is doing some private lessons for baseball for pitching and hitting. He definitely needs more help with hitting, but I'm hoping both help him be a stronger player this spring.

[madringal]

Well, the swim meet this weekend was a freaking nightmare. DD2 swam in the morning session with the 10U (she's 7). And in the first heat of the first event, the fire alarms went off. Have you ever seen 200 kids under the age of 10 leave a pool deck? And then their 200+ parents scramble to get anything to keep their kids warm because its 30 degrees out. Because besides the fact that 8 kids were in the pool and had to be stopped (which is no small feat in and of itself) every other kid had just completed warm ups so they are all soaking wet, in bathing suits, and barefoot. Almost all the little, little ones (DD2 included) were hysterical and crying. Thankfully, I was on deck bc I was working the meet so I got to DD2 quickly, but I couldn't get her to calm down. And then of course, as soon as we were all outside, we were cleared to go back in. Ugh. DD2 then proceeded to cry basically through the rest of the meet. She was just miserable, so yeah, she's done with swim meets.

DD1 had an ok meet - all season best times, but no actual time drops. So she was pretty disappointed. On to the next one.

[covergirl82]

DS's last rec basketball was Saturday (12/14). DH was the head coach (and DS's best friend's dad was the assistant coach) and he is not sad to see the end of the season. Each game we told DS ahead of time to have fun and just use the game as practice, and to not get worked up over his teammates' errors (a lot of the kids are new to basketball, which is fine, especially since they are only 9-10 year olds). Each game, DS would start out fine, and then by the end of the game be all worked up and visibly showing irritation and attitude about his teammates' errors. DH and I need to figure out how to get DS to stop with that attitude. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

[mae0111]

covergirl82, that attitude gets a kid benched if I’m coaching. One warning, then benched.

So if your DH is still coaching, maybe that’s good because he can address sports behavior at sports.