Raising children in today’s society is not for the faint of heart. Raising children has never been easy, but it is especially difficult in youth sports today. Coaches and parents are putting a lot of pressure on our young sons and daughters. The pressure to succeed in sports at such a young age is taking the fun out of the sport by making it all about winning. A Personal Perspective My own interaction in youth sports has been many: As a parent, participant and an observer. My experiences as a child in youth sports were mostly positive. In my early days of sports in school, all children were encouraged to play for their school, skill level did not matter. There were no tryouts and no one …show more content…

A parent needs to read the signs indicating that a child wants to be on an elite team. If a child needs prodding to get ready and go to practice, the child who consistently does not want to go may not be suited for an elite team.
Sometimes, the kids who complain about doing things outside their comfort zone just need a little push to discover they enjoy whatever it is they are so adamantly opposed to doing. But, after a season of being on an elite team, it should be apparent whether or not the child wants to continue with the sport at a higher level. I always make it clear to my son that he can play whatever sport he wants and at whatever level he wants. In his fifth year of hockey, he decided that he didn’t want to continue to play travel hockey despite his obvious skill level and the prodding of several teams trying to convince him that he “needed” to continue or he would fall behind. We laughed about the coaches who had told him this. I asked, “fall behind in what?” I had never been a parent who thought my son was going to be a professional hockey player. My goal was to involve him in sports that he enjoys and that would allow him to grow and experience the life lessons that sports can teach. At that point he loved hockey, but just didn’t want to have it take up so much of his social time.
The following year the travel hockey flame was rekindled and he was more