I am normally a firm believer in letting the coaches make their decisions w/o interference. If they bench my DD so be it, if they decide she should be defense vs striker, or whatever so be it. But I find myself having to interfere and wondering how far I should go.
DD has just turned 9 and is playing u10 club soccer on a B team. We have the same coach as last year and roughly the same team makeup. Last year seemed mostly about development and fun.
This year after tryouts he said DD had potential for multiple positions and one of those was keeper. He wanted her to be one of his 3 main keepers and wanted her to do some keeper training. I was fine with that because she seemed to like it well enough.
Fast forward 6 months she has been keeper for at least 1/2 of every game (17) and her playing time on the field has been cut to 15 min. Since she gets so little playing time and spends part of regular practice doing goalie training her improvement has lagged her peers. More importantly she is not enjoying the game anymore (tho she still likes practice). She is very stressed out and has come home crying from the pressure of letting in a goal.
I have told the coach she isn't enjoying it anymore, does not want to play goalie so much.
I fear she will burn out/quit and it will be moot anyway. Plus I don't think its fair or natural to ask a 9 yr old to bear this burden the entire time. He feels we made a commitment to the team and is basically asking her to suck it up.
what do you think?
DD has just turned 9 and is playing u10 club soccer on a B team. We have the same coach as last year and roughly the same team makeup. Last year seemed mostly about development and fun.
This year after tryouts he said DD had potential for multiple positions and one of those was keeper. He wanted her to be one of his 3 main keepers and wanted her to do some keeper training. I was fine with that because she seemed to like it well enough.
Fast forward 6 months she has been keeper for at least 1/2 of every game (17) and her playing time on the field has been cut to 15 min. Since she gets so little playing time and spends part of regular practice doing goalie training her improvement has lagged her peers. More importantly she is not enjoying the game anymore (tho she still likes practice). She is very stressed out and has come home crying from the pressure of letting in a goal.
I have told the coach she isn't enjoying it anymore, does not want to play goalie so much.
I fear she will burn out/quit and it will be moot anyway. Plus I don't think its fair or natural to ask a 9 yr old to bear this burden the entire time. He feels we made a commitment to the team and is basically asking her to suck it up.
what do you think?
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