Is fourth grade too early for ultracompetitive sports?

[TomM]

Is fourth grade too early for ultracompetitive sports?
http://www.startribune.com/sports/291323461.html

[imnofish]

Absolutely!  A few decades ago, I thought otherwise.  Time has revealed how mistaken I was.

[chuckref]

One word    YES

[madeyson]

As a parent of a 4th grader I would like to hear the positives and negatives - as I have learned over the past 13 years (I have an older child as well) I am not the perfect parent - always interested in learning form others. imnofish - what has changed your perspective over the years?

[Payton]

I believe the answer is yes, but particularly for wrestling given the physical and individual nature of the sport.  There was a recent post and numerous responses related to why kids don't wrestle.  I believe one of the bigger challenges is youth tournaments are not positive experiences for many kids.  Many of those participants form a negative opinion of our sport and never return.

I discourage inexperienced wrestlers in our kids' club from entering tournaments.  Some are not ready for the physical challenge from tougher kids.  Others might be tough enough, but they can't rationalize losing in their young minds.  In team sports, easy for them to assume they played well, but they lost due to their teammates.  Nobody else to blame in wrestling.

[boowrestle]

Depends on the kid.I have seen both the positive and negative effects when it comes to wrestling.

[Payton]

It definitely depends on the kid.  The question to me is does it benefit the sport overall?  I don't think competitive youth tournaments prior to middle school are helping grow the sport.  They may be great for the upper level youth wrestlers, but unfortunately, there are not enough of those to fill high school lineups.

Unfortunately, the trend in youth sports as indicated by the initial Star Tribune article is in the other direction.  As long as there is money to be made and parents afraid that their kid will fall behind, I don't see it changing.

[Ghetto]

Yes

Little league as we know it has gone the way of the dinosaur. It's all traveling teams and expensive weekend trips to Iowa, etc.

Kids want to play with their friends, etc. They don't want to drive four hours in a car to play anything.

I blame us. Our generation of parents. Me. We've allowed this to happen, because we don't want little Ryan to miss out on whatever experience we think will benefit their lives. What they want is to hang out, be with friends, and enjoy whatever they enjoy.

[beastmode]

In wrestling ,there are definitely 2 sides to this situation. Look at the majority of the elite wrestlers that will represent their teams next week in Madison. If you look at there Trackwrestling profile, you will see that by the age of 10 the majority of them were wrestling in the WWF State Wrestling series, the Greco/Freestyle State Series and usually some type of "Nationals" series...whether it be Corn Cob, Liberty, Gopher State etc. Then there is the other side that you hear each year in high school or junior high...What happened to Johnny from Wherever City, WI? He was an absolute stud! We can only assume why he's not on the mat but the first thing that comes to mind,if its not an injury is burnout. All kids respond to competition differently. As a parent of a fourth grader, its a difficult decision to make on whether to ramp up the competition level a bit versus the "practice makes permanent mentality. "

[MarkK]

The only kid I can think of that it might be good for is Jethro Bodine.  I don't think he made it out of the fourth grade.  for others ultra-competitive is not good.  When I was a kid the best competition was a pick up game down by the railroad.

[3boys]

4th grade is too early. I am glad my kids are done. I will say that it is also how you approach it as a parent. My youngest followed his brothers all over. Sometimes he would wrestle sometimes not. Won hardly ever through 5th grade. Became a very successful H.S. athlete and collegiate wrestler.So the point is he could have started in jr.High with competitions and still been successful I now believe.

[Oldtimer]

Depends on the definition of ultra competitive IMO.  4th graders at National level tournaments can be a good or bad thing depending on how the PARENTS respond to the kid on their performance.  It also depends on if the kid ASKS to go vs being PUSHED to go by the parents.  Expectations at that age are critical and the expectation should only be to do your best whatever the result and to find the best ice cream in the area afterwards.  I have seen burnout from kids but I believe it's more the expectation of the parent on the outcome vs the desire or age of the kid wrestling.

IMO

Bob

[foose4]

Depends on the kid....really it does.

My son asked me, yes ASKED ME to wrestle in Kindergarten.  His friend did it and said it was fun.  So we started on a great journey through wrestling that continues today.  I was a BB player so it wasn't even close to my idea to have a kid wrestling at that time.

We also did the community baseball thing for a few years (tee ball, coach pitch then kid pitch) and when that got to be not his thing, we left him move on and didn't make him do it.  He knew what he wanted to do, I didn't.

I did push my son to go to practice, even some meets.  But if we didn't push them in the proper direction they would want to watch TV, play video games and eat snack all day sometimes.

Am I a bad parent, don't think so.  Could we have done things differently, absolutely.  I am a lucky one that has a son that continues to work hard and strive to get better, but that is a internal thing not all kids have....he does.

Our son tried to qualify for state every year, and luckily....yes LUCKILY, he did not qualify until his 3rd grade year.  I do believe that it would have been absolute overload to be in that environment that young.

The other thing that our family had going for us was we did it together, with about 20 other families and about 40 kids.  A good bunch of kids in a great bunch of families all traveled together.   We made the days fun too, tried to stop for a group get together on the way home so the parents could have some drinks, the kids could play some video games, pool, bowl, etc.   It kept it fun, and that helped a ton.   It's always easier if you have 10-20 friends doing the same thing as you.

[harley]

https://stevenashyb.wordpress.com/2015/01/12/the-enemy-of-excellence-in-youth-sports/

Please read the whole article, very good article

[TomM]

My observation/opinion based on 34 years teaching/coaching and involvement in wrestling for 46 years:
Wrestling is NEVER NOT 'ultracompetitive'.  Every wrestling encounter between two individuals (in competition) is ultracompetitive.
Only in some controlled practices or training or demonstration is it not.
I believe 'kids' need to be emotionally and intellectually ready and prepared (read: matured) to be in 'ultracompetitive' situations and 'handle it', whether it be wrestling or other endeavors.
If they are not emotionally and intellectually prepared (mature enough) attrition is accelerated (more kids quit sooner and more often). We can all give countless examples.
Overall, in my experience, my wrestlers who began wrestling in 7-8-9th grade (ages 12-13-14) were far more excited, coachable, motivated, driven overall than wrestlers who had been through the 'grind' of wrestling since 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 years of age. Granted, there were some exceptions, but they were few.
In my opinion, for wrestling, this emotional and intellectual maturity occurs about 7th or 8th grade for the general population.  I believe kids and wrestling are best served when kids begin 'out of town' competition at 12 or 13 years of age.
This does not serve the monetary collection system and accolade system currently in place using younger kids as the vehicle, so I don't see it changing.