Seeking advice on raising high level athletic children

Credentials- Athlete: College D1 runner - Profession- HS teacher/coach - Parent-two sons captains of HS teams (neither competed in college - both have professional degrees.)

I want to commend several contributors who suggested that the initial poster allow his kids to have fun and experience multiple sports. When my youngest was home for a visit in his twenties, he thanked me for encouraging him to play multiple sports as a kid. He shared that it gave him the confidence as a young adult to join a variety of co-ed recreation leagues, and met numerous friends in those leagues.

Lastly, years ago, one of my exceptional high school athletes wrote me a note when she was a senior in high school. This First Team All State athlete was apologizing for not living up to expectations. She had earned a D1 scholarship like her parents wanted and by all accounts had exactly the type of running career the initial poster wants for his kids. I was broken hearted and had a long talk with her about how she was much more than how fast she ran. We cried and shared our thoughts. It has been over twenty years since that conversation and we still keep in touch.

This goal for all parents and coaches is to invest in raising mentally healthy adults.

Two of my children really don't enjoy running but they stuck with it to get a scholarship. Not everyone enjoys everything that they are good at.

schooling wrote:

Unless we’re only talking about distance running which is cheap to train for, you’ll spend way more money on youth club swimming, gymnastics or soccer than your child would ever get back in the form of scholarships.

That's a great point. Youth hockey is a big thing around here. Kids start at 6 or 7 maybe. They're heading out at 5 AM to practice because that's when their team can get time at the rink. The parents pay registration fees for multiple teams, entry fees for tournaments, lots of them, for gas, hotels, and meals, when the team travels, for gear, and maybe stuff I'm missing. When I've asked the parents why they do it they mostly say they're hoping their kid gets a scholarship. If they took all the money they spent on hockey and put it into some high yield thing they wouldn't need a scholarship to pay for college and they'd be sure the money was there.

young dad wrote:

Two of my children really don't enjoy running but they stuck with it to get a scholarship. Not everyone enjoys everything that they are good at.

That's fair.

I'm a D3 runner, but pretty high up. I have a sub 25:30 PR in cross, meaning I could run D1 if I happened to be at a D1 school.

My story is pretty weird. I wanted to play football really badly since I was super young. I would watch a couple games every Sunday and practiced all the time. Problem was, my parents wouldn't let me play high school football. Instead, they forced me to go to swim practice four times a week. I absolutely hated swimming, but they had this idea that it would keep me fit because it's low impact, high cardio, uses full-body muscles, and not dangerous at all. Anyway, when I got to high school, I finally got to choose my own sport, so I picked cross country and track since I figured the window of opportunity for baseball and basketball had already closed since I hadn't played the two sports competitively before. I had a chip on my shoulder, and I just really sunk my full effort into the sport. I ran around 20 minutes 5K freshman year as my first time running more than 5 minutes at a time before. I ran over the summer before sophomore year, 35 miles a week every single week. Got down to a 17:15ish 5K by championship season sophomore year. Then shaved down into the 16s by senior year. I picked my school for academic reasons, and they happened to be D3 so I joined the teams as a walk on. Kept chipping away with consistent high mileage and eventually got down to sub 25:30 for the 8K.

I still wish I could've tried football so badly, so I would say let your kid play whatever sport he wants. Even football if he really wants to. Other than that though, just let him grind on his own. Like you said, don't baby him tell him like it is. If he's slow, tell him to run more miles and do harder workouts.(or whatever the equivalent is in other sports) And if he needs a little push there's nothing wrong with that. At the end of the day, you kind of just have to let it happen. Self-motivation is the only way, but your job as a parent is to expose him to the different sports to spark that motivation. Good luck!

I am surprised by the amount of people saying stuff like "the kids need to have the drive naturally". I believe in nurture over nature. Lazy half-a$$ed parents usually have similar kids.

I do appreciate all of the feedback.

To clarify, I'm not going all-in on trying to make my kids D1 athletes. I'm trying to figure common denominators/approaches that parents take that results in having kids that perform at a high level. And to do it in a healthy way, I'm not willing to sacrifice everything to make my kid a sports stud by the 3rd grade.

I get it some kids are gifted, come from crap households, and just manage to compete at a high level. However, after reading many of these replies, I believe more kids come from households where the parents instilled some type of work ethic in the kid whether the kid realizes it or not. Many said they also had high standards for academics.

I'm trying to actively change the approach I'm taking as a parent because I believe my kids will only be as good in life/sport/academics as the foundation I lay for them. My parents didn't lay the greatest foundation for excellence in anything, I'm trying to change my family narrative by not just repeating what I learned growing up.

It's still called the American dream right!?

Don’t live your life through your kids

It's such a fine line. You have to "push" your kids a bit to improve and try at anything. But as soon as you hear the word "push" in the context of sports everyone gets all butt hurt. If I am "pushing" my kid to be better at math no one has a problem.

There are healthy ways to work with your kid to continue to enjoy sports as well as get better at them. Some parents go the way of doing nothing and some go completely over the top and push them until they hate it. It's finding that sweet spot in between that is the key.

I feel like my wife and I got it pretty close to right and both our kids are currently competing in college on scholarships and they still enjoy it.

At this point, just let them play. Nothing you do at age 6 or 8 will help them.

I got participation trophies as a kid and I'm the same age as Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Roger Clemons, Reggie White and some of the most fierce competitors ever. It's a non issue. Getting or not getting a participation trophy won't affect anything either way. 99% of the playing we did was without any trophies or adults watching. I was a D1 athlete btw.

This is at least the 3rd thread along these lines in the past few days. Here are my previous responses:

----- Dad considered moving schools for grade school sports

Don't worry about it. Don't make the decision just on sports.

There's some correlation between athletic "talent" before puberty and after, but not a lot. And when he moves up to junior high it'll be a whole different pecking order. Grade school sports are dominated by kids whose parents care a whole lot about it along with a few natural athletes. Junior high those kids are still there, especially those who held their sons back in school so they'd be older and better at sports, along with the kids who develop early. Think about when you were in junior high, wasn't the kid with the mustache in 8th grade the best athlete? And he was probably a chubby little guy by 12th grade.

Senior high post-puberty talent takes over. Of course it depends on the school, especially how big it is.

We got sick of youth sports in 6th grade and my son didn't do any organized sports in 7th and 8th grade. Got into skateboarding with his buds. He did go out for football and basketball in 9th grade and got grabbed for track. Of course it helps when you can dunk at age 13. Played varsity football and basketball at a large school in high school but excelled more in track. Was a D1 All-American in the decathlon in college.

Meanwhile a lot of those kids whose parents were super into sports in 6th grade didn't even play high school sports. They lost interest and/or didn't have the talent. This was at a big school. I hear from kids who went to small schools where everybody got to play everything and that sounds so much better. It's a shame when kids who love sports don't have the opportunity in high school.

So if the other school has a good group of kids who are into sports and it looks fun, go for it. Pursue fun and don't worry about "development". Junior high shuffles everything as does high school, so it's hard to predict.

Enjoy it and don't take it real seriously. Watching my kids participate in sports has been one of the great joys in life, but when I see 6th graders now I think "did we really get so worked up about these little kids playing a game"?

----- Tell me about your parents if you were a D1 athlete

I was a D1 high jumper, so I guess that counts. I had wonderful parents who didn't care a bit whether I did sports or not.

I was real involved with my son's sports but never pushed. He didn't do sports in junior high but did high school football, basketball, and track. He was a D1 All American in the decathlon but mostly on natural talent. Would obey a coach and give it his all with a good attitude in practice but not self-motivated, never did anything during breaks and summers. Maybe I should have pushed more and instilled more motivation, but it turned out okay.

https://www.bobbigelow.com/just-let-the-kids-play.htm

coachy wrote:

It's such a fine line. You have to "push" your kids a bit to improve and try at anything. But as soon as you hear the word "push" in the context of sports everyone gets all butt hurt. If I am "pushing" my kid to be better at math no one has a problem.

There are healthy ways to work with your kid to continue to enjoy sports as well as get better at them. Some parents go the way of doing nothing and some go completely over the top and push them until they hate it. It's finding that sweet spot in between that is the key.

I feel like my wife and I got it pretty close to right and both our kids are currently competing in college on scholarships and they still enjoy it.

You're right. An earlier post used the word "nudge" which is probably a much better word than "push."

Ultimately you as the parent will know best what your child needs. Happiness is my barometer, in most instances. But I also know my child hates doing homework and does not like the idea of having chores. But both I view as important and set her up for long-term success.

brien evans wrote:

All the replies up until this very reply are from losers with kids who are going to hate them later on in life for making them mediocre at everything.

Sure. Don't push your kids. Be their friends. In other countries where they don't have this pussification of society, they are pushing their kids, and they're eating our lunch.

Your kids are going to lose out on scholarships to Nambian runners, Australian kickers, and Ukrainian tennis players.

You all caused this.

I often agree with you Brien. While I think those super-difficult spelling bees are overrated and kids would do better working on other skills, something tells me you didn't win a spelling scholarship. Maybe your parents or guardians should have pushed you harder.

AXC wrote:

I know as a youth baseball player I wasted a lot of at bats trying to draw a walk or bunt for a base hit when I should have been focusing on actually hitting.

You didn't waste anything. You were being a good teammate, having run and helping your team try to win.

Windhoek wrote:

brien evans wrote:

All the replies up until this very reply are from losers with kids who are going to hate them later on in life for making them mediocre at everything.

Sure. Don't push your kids. Be their friends. In other countries where they don't have this pussification of society, they are pushing their kids, and they're eating our lunch.

Your kids are going to lose out on scholarships to Nambian runners, Australian kickers, and Ukrainian tennis players.

You all caused this.

I often agree with you Brien. While I think those super-difficult spelling bees are overrated and kids would do better working on other skills, something tells me you didn't win a spelling scholarship. Maybe your parents or guardians should have pushed you harder.

Sick burn, bro.

Gonna go cry into a pile of money. Be back later.

rojo wrote:

AXC wrote:

I know as a youth baseball player I wasted a lot of at bats trying to draw a walk or bunt for a base hit when I should have been focusing on actually hitting.

You didn't waste anything. You were being a good teammate, having run and helping your team try to win.

It kind of is a waste though. Because to advance in baseball the most important thing is being able to hit (unless you're a pitcher). So if you don't focus on hitting you're selling yourself short in the long run. Yes you need to be able to bunt and walk too, but those are Secondary.

Trying too hard to bunt or walk is an example of a near sighted, win-now strategy that will work great at young ages but will limit long term development. Similar to always playing long balls in soccer.

Great advice

Give them ivermectin and NAD drips daily.

Parent of a few D1 athletes here.

I just suggest remembering you are raising kids, not athletes. Athletics is a tool to help them develop various good qualities, like a work ethic and goal setting. But kids are just so different it’s hard to generalize.

Lots of good advice on this thread, but each kid is different. One of my kids had to be pushed a lot to even do sports, and then thrived if the sport was kept low key with an emphasis on the social aspects. As an adult loves competitive sports and works really hard at it, but might not if we either hadn’t forced participation or had pushed competitiveness.

Another wanted to do sports year round and looked for constant input from us and coaches on how to be improve. The second kid thrived if we were really involved and struggled if we stepped back.

I would guess you find pros with both of those personalities.

Regardless of the kid though, in the background you can make sure they have all the tools they need to succeed. Good coaching, good team settings, good equipment, etc.