<p>I dunno. Maybe my kids are jelly bellies! They are slim but maybe they are weak. </p>
<p>They just didn’t want to play a sport a gazillion hours a week. It wasn’t their thing. I was acutely conscious of the “well rounded” thing and tried to get them to “realize their sports potential” but to their credit they told me to buzz off. So they got themselves into really good schools and are really engaged in their lives and don’t seem to be really fat.</p>
<p>Now I’m kind of glad I let it go – the whole sports thing – and didn’t insist they keep on with it. I know parents who did.</p>
<p>My sense is that some kids are really talented at a sport AND really enjoy it and yes, it makes sense for them to pursue it to college and perhaps even professionally. But there are gazillions of parents who seem to get obsessed with having sports star kids – and it can be kind of ugly.</p>
<p>The hard part for parents is to recognize when the dream is unlikely to become reality. If the child finds joy in the attempt - well, that’s important. I understand the dilemma a little bit because one of my kids danced at a well-regarded ballet studio until college, and several of her friends decided to pursue dance as a professional career. Now, as a parent, that is a leap of faith I’m glad I wasn’t asked to make.</p>
<p>My oldest son if he was fit at all, was fit by walking. In college he lived over a mile from classes and he walked. Unfortunately now he’s way to close to a shuttle stop for his job, but he does walk more than most people (especially in California) because he still hasn’t gotten around to getting a driver’s license. He’s still not fat, because he doesn’t overeat.</p>
<p>Younger son has taken up Krav Maga (Israeli martial arts) pretty seriously for the last two years. He looks pretty buff.</p>
<p>Neither kid did a sport in high school. They both played soccer in elementary school, and had tennis and swimming lessons. Younger son also took riding lessons for a couple of years. We took them hiking and kayaking. I figure they have the foundations for physical activities of their choice now that they are young adults.</p>
Yikes. As opposed to playing an instrument, dancing, singing, collecting stamps, reading romance novels or about 1000 other things people do with their time? </p>
<p>I do not remember the exact ratio … but it is something like this … on average, for every 30 minutes of exercise a person gets they live a minute longer. So in our family exposing our kids to physical activity was a priority. It stuck with 2 of 3 kids.</p>
<p>3togo, I mean the extraordinary level of worldwide enthrallment over the sports. Sure, there are lots of questionable applications for our time and energy. But my DH has been living and breathing THE OLYMPICS for weeks and I really question the sacred aspect of the whole thing at this point. Seriously. It doesn’t cure cancer or feed the hungry or make solar energy viable. And I would not put it up there with music or other actual art forms. But this could be a matter of individual aesthetic. So maybe that’s the right way for me to “get it.”</p>
<p>^What is the “value” of playing the piano? Really? For the enjoyment of listeners? If pleasure for others is a valid “value” and your H got a lot of pleasure (presumably) out of following the Olympics, then that is as valuable as if he spent 3 weeks listing to concertos, eh?</p>
<p>I have that feeling about the thread Dressing Young. It has been going on non-stop since 2009, has 359,000+ views and 6100+ posts! But this could be a matter of individual aesthetic, I guess.</p>
<p>I’m not at a all a rabid sports fan, but I think one of the points of running super fast or swimming super fast or any other athletic endeavor is to give the rest of us something to marvel at. When we watch the Olympics or any other high-level sport, most of us are thinking, “Human beings can do that?” Which makes for a nice antidote to much of the other stuff human beings do.</p>
<p>Watching a great athlete can be as elevating as watching a great dancer, or hearing a great musician. Few of us are curing cancer every day.</p>
<p>No. You pay for such things only if you have the money and the kid has the joy. If neither are there, don’t do it. We have been the gymnastics route ourselves. DD went up to level 7 and stop in 6th grade. She was just too tall for gymnastics. Then she went on to fill the void and do other sports year round. It was about being physically fit, social activites and keeping busy. I could have paid for two years of college for what I spent on her activities. She would not be the person she is today had she not had that outlet.</p>
<p>I completely agree with momof3. As long as the child enjoys the sport and you can afford the expense I say let them play as long as possible. I will add that we steered our athletic child to a sport that also fit our sensibilities and that we both enjoy watching. </p>
<p>Our daughter enjoys being part of a team and thrives on the structure and physical outlet that her sport provides. She’s physically sure of herself and confident about her body which is a great gift for a 15 yo girl.</p>
<p>I’ve posted this before, but what is wrong with doing sports even if a kid doesn’t plan to go pro or is not aiming for the Olympics? The sports endeavor itself has value. Both my kids did a lot of sports from a young age. My younger one gave up sports around age 13 to put all her eggs into performing arts. My older kid did both sports and performing arts, and was a three season varsity sport athlete in high school and went onto doing one of her sports on the varsity level four years of college (deeply passionate about this sport, which is also a lifelong activity that can be done, but not competitively), and has even coached the sport on the college level, even though her career has nothing to do with her sport. She surely was never aiming for the Olympics or a career in her sport. </p>
<p>Being an athlete has been enriching to her her growth over the years. Benefits include fitness, drive, motivation, intense training/preparation, competition, sportsmanship, collaboration, leadership, time management, fearlessness, friendship bonds, teamwork, and much more, on top of a lifelong pleasurable pursuit. </p>
<p>Sewhappy, I do not understand your point of view as to sports not being worthy in terms of what they add to the world. For one thing, for participants, it adds many things I just mentioned above. But also spectators enjoy watching athletic competition as a pastime. Surely pastimes matter in addition to curing cancer and solar energy? Also, sports also often involve spirit for a school community, a city or a country. How is it so different than what people gain by watching the arts? Our lives are enriched by these sorts of things. I would hate to see a world where these things did not exist for both participants and spectators.</p>
<p>I’m going to bow out with these thoughts. I believe in the mind, body, soul approach to life. As a parent I have few goals for my kids … but tough goals … I hope for them to be educated and curious, I hope they are helpful and good people, I hope they are active, and most importantly I hope they are happy and fulfilled. </p>
<p>That could take many forms. Hopefully not grinding away at a job they hate and then coming home and staring at a TV for hours every night. If they follow the classic arts that’s great, if they are activists for a cause that is great, if they follow sports that is great, etc. We tried to expose them to as much as possible … hoping they find things they find fulfilling (and that outrank sitting in front of the TV).</p>
<p>In our high school, the music dept. folks think they’re the cat’s pajamas and that what they do is far superior to what the athletic dept. does. I think this antagonism is pretty common. But you’d be hard pressed to convince me and many others in the general population that the time, effort, and money consumed by marching band makes sense either. Valuable resources are wasted on elaborate and often silly costumes which must be changed every year. How worthwhile is spending hours learning to wave and twirl big flags, whose colors and patterns represent nothing of significance? And please explain the value of practicing tossing fake guns into the air. How is that superior to any sport? And frankly, 95% of high school musicians in concert band or orchestra spend hours rehearsing for two concerts a year that only their parents and grandparents attend and then they stop playing their instruments once they graduate. Just as futile.</p>
<p>Another thing…it is not either/or…it is not like a kid doing sports means no focus on academics or career. My kid who was an athlete her entire life in a very time consuming fashion, was also valedictorian in high school, went to an Ivy league college and two top graduate schools and is achieving very well both academically and in her career field (top firm in her field). Sports have been a big part of her life. </p>
<p>My kid who focused on the arts over her sports once she was 13, was also an excellent academic student and went to a top university in her field. In her case, her EC endeavor became her college major and career and life’s work. But she is also academically inclined. She is 23 and even on a university faculty as well as a performing artist.</p>
<p>In some high schools it is the music or drama department, in others it is athletics - someone thinks their program is more important than all the others. In rality they are all valueable to the kids they serve, and to some degree to the community in general.</p>
<p>Concert band and Orchestra only have a couple of performances per year, but the students spend the year preparing for those performances - if they also have a competitive marching band, they have a performance every week, just like the athletes have games every week. If we’re going to claim that valuable resources are wasted on marching band, then we must also question the resources for a play that has only 2-3 performances. I don’t know about other schools, but our Band is largely self-supporting. Yes, the school provides the Band Uniforms (which in our case are finally being replaced after 20 years), but they also provide uniforms for the sports teams. The Music Boosters pay for the costumes for the flag squad, not the school system. When we go to a big competition, again the Music Boosters cover the cost through fundraising. If you don’t want your money used, you don’t support them. Meanwhile, the school pays the costs of all athletic competitions. We recently instituted a “pay to play” system, but even that only covers a small portion of the costs - the marching band is part of the Band Director’s job, but Athletic Coaches are paid independent of the teaching jobs.</p>
<p>Not everyone is going to value every extracurricular activity, and may question why tax money is paid to support the ones they don’t support, but it is a slippery slope when we start picking one over the other. Most of these activities give the students a chance to work as a team (rather than competing with each other for grades and class ranking). They build leadership skills, and learn to work with others. If they also provide entertainment for the community at large, great - but that is a bonus.</p>
<p>Regarding the original question - everything should be about balance. If the child truly is talented, is the child passionate about it? Can you find a balance with other things like academics, that will serve the child for the rest of his or her life? I don’t know what Gabby Douglas plans to do with her life, but I do recall an interview with Missy Franklin - she has one more year of HS, and wants to swim in College, to the point that she’s being very careful about sponsorship offers. Perhaps your child’s talent will aid in the process of getting into that dream college, even if it eventually leads elsewhere. Or maybe it will lead to a related career. I wouldn’t count on something like the Olympics, but there are other steps along the way, and useful skills to be learned.</p>
<p>Not a parent, but as a lifelong gymnastics follower, I don’t think Chow would have taken Gabby if he didn’t think she had “it.” Gabby’s actually a very inconsistent performer. I had to hold my breath the whole time she was competing beam (she fell a whole bunch of times at Visa’s–the televised national competition for elites–in 2011). When she finally started hitting in competitions, I was thrilled. I nearly cried when she won her AA title. But Chow knew that he had a very unfocused but talented young woman to deal with, so I don’t think he would have encouraged the move had he felt that she wasn’t going to make it. Of course, that’s just my opinion on this particular situations; there are other coaches who would not have that level of integrity. </p>
<p>I agree with previous posters: I come from an artistic family where sports were considered “dumb people’s activities” (yes, I have relatives who actually told me that when I was a child), but I still see the value. Sports help teach life skills, like confidence, working with a team and the importance of staying fit. Learning how to win or lose gracefully and focus on performance over results is incredibly useful for young people (these are huge skills), and I can’t think of many ways to teach them to young children outside of sports. </p>
<p>At the same time, the odds of any young athlete making the Olympics aren’t particularly great, but there’s so much between a Level 4 Compulsory Meet at a local gym and the Olympics. Even if a kid goes nowhere as an athlete, what’s wrong with doing it for the sheer enjoyment of doing it? Of all the things a kid could do for fun, I think athletics would have to be one of the best (as would arts, but I see no reason why it’s either/or). </p>
<p>Of course, high schools often become arts vs. sports. So I didn’t do either in high school. I did them outside school, though.</p>
<p>ETA: In 2008, Gabby was essentially a nobody competing out of Virginia Beach and Chow told her mom that he wasn’t sure he could have her ready for London, but they’d all have to work their hardest to make it happen. She’s only been really noteworthy in the sport in the last year (after 2011 Worlds).</p>
<p>I concur that EC’s have value to those who participate in them, whether others agree or not. However, on College Condidential, far more people question the value of dedication to sports than question the value of music and other arts. The underlying feeling seems to be that music and the arts are more noble or more educational. My point is just that some kid who dreams of stardom but sings like a sick hippo for hours a day is no better than the kid who thinks he’s going to be the next Peyton Manning but can’t throw a decent pass no matter how long he practices.</p>
<p>Like many people, I think sports are overemphasized in US society in general and especially in high school and college, especially college admissions. </p>
<p>The Ivies, for example, reserve about 15% of each class for athletes. The stats of those athletes are lower than those of other students. (The Ivies do limit how much lower the stats can be.) It would be very rare for a performing arts student to be admitted with lower stats–you’d have to be a YoYo Ma or Clare Danes to qualify. In the aggregate, students in the orchestra do NOT have worse stats than the rest of the student body.There’s simply no need for the Harvard or Yale student orchestras to recruit young musicians–they’ll get enough without making any effort. </p>
<p>Moreover, in some sports, almost everyone is from an extremely advantaged background. Look at where the kids on the golf, water polo, equestrian, squash, field hockey, sailing, etc. teams went to school and live. They tend to be affluent. So, athletic recruiting lets in a lot of kids who have worse stats even after prep courses or even private tutoring. </p>
<p>Moreover, sports parents tend to think that sports teach lessons like playing on a team, how to win and lose, etc. that can ONLY be taught through sports. Plus, too often they fail to recognize that other activities require as much time and dedication. (We used to laugh because my offspring’s high school required parents of sports team members to sign a form acknowledging that this was a “time intensive” activity and it might impact their child’s grades. No such acknowledgment was required for my kid’s EC–which required MORE time. That was simply because the administration hadn’t a clue how much time it took. )</p>
<p>I do think it’s as bad for a kid who can’t sing to dream of B’way as for a kid who can’t throw to think he’ll be the quarterback of a NFL team. But, I haven’t met a whole heck of a lot of singers’ parents who tell me with a straight face “oh, (s)he’s going to get a singing scholarship and that will pay for college.” I’ve met a heck of a lot of sports parents who say that sort of thing. And that’s at least in part because there are more athletic scholarships to college than singing or acting scholarships to college.</p>
I did them outside school, though.</p>