Are our Children's sports too competitive?: I agree with you, Taymon. I have a 12 year old who is very natu

» Theresa_C - I agree with you, Taymon. I have a 12 year old who is very natu

I agree with you, Taymon. I have a 12 year old who is very naturally athletic. He started walking when he was 9 months old (I'm not kidding!) Just a couple of steps, but it wasn't long after that that he was running (on his toes, I remember). Anyway, he has always been advanced in coordination and is tall for his size (5' 9"), and I have such high hopes for him in the sports field. One thing he seems to be missing is the real competitive spirit. Now this is good in a way, because he never gets angry or ruffled when he strikes out, for instance, in baseball, or with what happened yesterday, when three batters in a row hit home runs off him pitching. He just kind of laughed, because he realized that they were playing in a really small field with the center field fence at 195 feet. He had hit a grand slam home run in the same field the day before. He knew in any other field those hits wouldn't have gone over and would have most likely been caught. His coaches told him to THROW strikes, so he did. He had no problem with it. He is only concerned with if he plays well. (but he's also a team player and knows there's no "I" in team.) *GRIN* The only problem I have with that is that since he isn't fanatic about it, if it becomes too much work for him, he loses interest. (This happened with Basketball.) Baseball has always been a really fun thing for him, but since he was invited to join this elite team a couple of weeks ago he's had to WORK at it for the first time. And last night he was so worn out from playing two games in a tournament out of town, that he came home last night aching, tired, and said he didn't want to play their last game today.

Do I just sit back and let him drop out at this point? It would ruin any future he'd have in baseball in our town, including high school.

-- posted by Theresa_C