Supplemental training

[Unregistered]

Yes, I agree. Parents should just relax and let kids do what they want regarding activities. We had out boys playing premier soccer, travel baseball and travel basketball for about two years. It turned out to be a disaster. My kids were miserable and I admit we as parents were too ambitious. Now the boys just play premier soccer and rec basketball and hang out with their friends playing manhunt, shooting hoops and playing pick-up soccer at the local elementary school and they are much happier. Burnout comes from parents pushing their kids too much (in my view).

The former Eastern European is right- pick-up, non-organized soccer doesn't burn kids out. It's just free play.

[Unregistered]

Reading your post, my first thought was that you didn't burn out because you were playing all the time with your friends in pick up type games. Very different from only/mostly playing in organized practices with drills etc.

It would be interesting to figure out why there's more overuse injuries with the US model (if in fact there is) than with the way you grew up playing.

Yes. There was a lot of pickup. Sometimes it was just me and a couple of friends and we would just juggle for hours. In Europe, most people live in apartments so as a kid I never had to go far to find another kid to play with. I did not learn the word car pool until I had my own kids a dozen years ago.

HOWEVER... by the time I was 10, I was playing for my local sports club (as were all my friends). The practices were brutal and the coaches were monsters. This is another difference I have noticed. Here everyone talks about which coach is nice or which coach works well with kids. In the old country, you would be laughed out of town if you said something about nice coaches or g-d forbid complained about something to the club.

Repetition? I remember doing the same drill for 2-3 hours non stop until we did it perfectly. No rest. No water breaks. I remember coaches calling me an idiot in front of the team and parents when I made a mistake. Was it abuse? Maybe. Did I ever make that mistake again? Nope.

Many clubs here have foreign coaches. However, they have American-ized their coaching. They would have very short careers if they coached the way they are used to back home. It's far more important for little Jack to not have his feelings ever hurt than to actually push him to become the best player he can possibly be.

I love this country and have lived here for over 30 years but damn does it frustrate me to see us try to be progressive but in reality we are moving backwards.

[Unregistered]

Yes. There was a lot of pickup. Sometimes it was just me and a couple of friends and we would just juggle for hours. In Europe, most people live in apartments so as a kid I never had to go far to find another kid to play with. I did not learn the word car pool until I had my own kids a dozen years ago.

HOWEVER... by the time I was 10, I was playing for my local sports club (as were all my friends). The practices were brutal and the coaches were monsters. This is another difference I have noticed. Here everyone talks about which coach is nice or which coach works well with kids. In the old country, you would be laughed out of town if you said something about nice coaches or g-d forbid complained about something to the club.

Repetition? I remember doing the same drill for 2-3 hours non stop until we did it perfectly. No rest. No water breaks. I remember coaches calling me an idiot in front of the team and parents when I made a mistake. Was it abuse? Maybe. Did I ever make that mistake again? Nope.

Many clubs here have foreign coaches. However, they have American-ized their coaching. They would have very short careers if they coached the way they are used to back home. It's far more important for little Jack to not have his feelings ever hurt than to actually push him to become the best player he can possibly be.

I love this country and have lived here for over 30 years but damn does it frustrate me to see us try to be progressive but in reality we are moving backwards.

We used to be like that too. It's not just Americans it is the world. Do you really think if you went back to your town that coaches still get mad and then run until you puke? Not likely.

[Unregistered]

We used to be like that too. It's not just Americans it is the world. Do you really think if you went back to your town that coaches still get mad and then run until you puke? Not likely.

I hate to over-generalize, but it is a US thing. No other countries ban headers, slide tackling, etc. I visit my relatives every few years and have nephews who play football. Yes, things have improved (they actually have grass fields). It is a little better organized. However, there is absolutely no coddling or handholding. Practices are intense, to say the least.

It's not a soccer thing, i think it's happening in other sports as well. It's certainly happening at schools. Dodgeball is now a banned activity in my town's elementary schools! At recess, the kids are not allowed to pick teams but have a teacher's aid organize fair teams (and prevent the same kids from being picked last). Do I even need to bring up participation trophies?

It's also not sports. The mass hysteria of banning nuts because some kid somewhere many years ago had a reaction. We are the ONLY country in the world that makes a snack an illegal substance that can't come within 50 feet of a school property.

This has gotten way off topic but as someone who immigrated at a young age and fell in love with this country, it does hurt me to see how things have changed. All of this will have profound implications for America's role on the global stage when these kids grow up.

[Unregistered]

Having lived in Eastern Europe till age 13, I agree. From age 6, I played football before school, during school, and for several hours after school. EVERY DAY. In summers we had no camps... we played football sunrise to sunset. When I came to the US, I was shocked to make my HS varsity team as a freshman and years later played D1. I was at best middle of the pack of my friends back home but here in America I was considered good. I could not believe that all of my American teammates played other sports throughout the year. When I went over to teammates homes, we shot hoops or we threw around an American football. In college, I could not believe we actually had restrictions about how many team practices we could have.

NONE of my friends back home burned out. None had injuries-despite playing on fields most people on TS would cringe to see. Burn out is such an American phrase. You will never hear those words outside this country.

If your son loves the sport, let him play till he no longer wants to play. If he gets "burned out" help him find another sport or activity he will love just as much.

Oh... If you want to give him supplemental coaching, teach him to do headers. As a u12 that's another thing Americans have banned.

I,I,I,I ....Boy are you full of yourself, haha
Did you walk through 40...no 50 inches of snow to school that was 10...no, 20 miles away too?
You paint yourself like Drago from Rocky....Us weak Americans can't do, play like us. You cringe at how I lived and "I must break you"...HAHA

[Unregistered]

I hate to over-generalize, but it is a US thing. No other countries ban headers, slide tackling, etc. I visit my relatives every few years and have nephews who play football. Yes, things have improved (they actually have grass fields). It is a little better organized. However, there is absolutely no coddling or handholding. Practices are intense, to say the least.

It's not a soccer thing, i think it's happening in other sports as well. It's certainly happening at schools. Dodgeball is now a banned activity in my town's elementary schools! At recess, the kids are not allowed to pick teams but have a teacher's aid organize fair teams (and prevent the same kids from being picked last). Do I even need to bring up participation trophies?

It's also not sports. The mass hysteria of banning nuts because some kid somewhere many years ago had a reaction. We are the ONLY country in the world that makes a snack an illegal substance that can't come within 50 feet of a school property.

This has gotten way off topic but as someone who immigrated at a young age and fell in love with this country, it does hurt me to see how things have changed. All of this will have profound implications for America's role on the global stage when these kids grow up.

Right. We ban headers for little kids because of the head injuries to girls. Most old-country places just continue to fix this issue by continuing to ban soccer for the masses of girls. I am all for slide-tackling as well. Just make sure to red-card the 7 year old that wipes the kid out from behind and then make his team play short-handed. Heading and slide tackles are such a small part of the game. I don't like changing the game either, but it really doesn't affect it that much.

[Unregistered]

I,I,I,I ....Boy are you full of yourself, haha
Did you walk through 40...no 50 inches of snow to school that was 10...no, 20 miles away too?
You paint yourself like Drago from Rocky....Us weak Americans can't do, play like us. You cringe at how I lived and "I must break you"...HAHA

I hope your kids are learning to speak Mandarin, Russian, or Hindi. At current course and speed, they will need it to communicate with their bosses.

[Unregistered]

I hate to over-generalize, but it is a US thing...

This has gotten way off topic but as someone who immigrated at a young age and fell in love with this country, it does hurt me to see how things have changed. All of this will have profound implications for America's role on the global stage when these kids grow up.

While I agree with the general trend of over-coddling American kids, I have no issue with nut allergy issue. If a kid can die, yeah it's ok if mine skips his PB&J until the allergic kid is old enough to handle issues when they arise. If you've ever seen an anaphylactic reaction it's not something to mess around with. Older kids know what to do and what questions to ask. Little kids is different.

[Unregistered]

I hate to over-generalize, but it is a US thing. No other countries ban headers, slide tackling, etc. I visit my relatives every few years and have nephews who play football. Yes, things have improved (they actually have grass fields). It is a little better organized. However, there is absolutely no coddling or handholding. Practices are intense, to say the least.

It's not a soccer thing, i think it's happening in other sports as well. It's certainly happening at schools. Dodgeball is now a banned activity in my town's elementary schools! At recess, the kids are not allowed to pick teams but have a teacher's aid organize fair teams (and prevent the same kids from being picked last). Do I even need to bring up participation trophies?

It's also not sports. The mass hysteria of banning nuts because some kid somewhere many years ago had a reaction. We are the ONLY country in the world that makes a snack an illegal substance that can't come within 50 feet of a school property.

This has gotten way off topic but as someone who immigrated at a young age and fell in love with this country, it does hurt me to see how things have changed. All of this will have profound implications for America's role on the global stage when these kids grow up.

Feel free to go back

[Unregistered]

Feel free to go back

Now it's time for the ignorant, xenophobic person to have his/her turn.

[Unregistered]

Now it's time for the ignorant, xenophobic person to have his/her turn.

You mean like pointing out how vastly different (for the worse) our country is than 30 years ago while the rest of the old world flourishes??

[Unregistered]

While I agree with the general trend of over-coddling American kids, I have no issue with nut allergy issue. If a kid can die, yeah it's ok if mine skips his PB&J until the allergic kid is old enough to handle issues when they arise. If you've ever seen an anaphylactic reaction it's not something to mess around with. Older kids know what to do and what questions to ask. Little kids is different.

as the hubby to an immunologist, gotta chime in on a topic that she and her colleagues talk about day & night. nut allergies are what doctors call mass psychogenic illness. its when a relatively minor illness becomes an epidemic due to the masses having irrational fear for the illness. nut allergies are real and symptoms can range from itching to anaphylaxis to death. thats what causes fear - here are some facts (my wife has handouts she gives parents):

-fewer than 200 food-related allergy deaths occur in the us annually (for all foods including shellfish)
-even severely allergic patients need to consume a massive amount of nuts to die, even anaphylaxis requires much more than just contact or residual quantities
-rather than avoiding nuts, numerous studies have proven that gradual exposure to nuts will reduce symptoms and in most cased eliminate the allergy
-there is a strong correlation between ethnicity/income level and nut allergy diagnosis... meaning Kaden in Greenwich is 11x more likely to have an allergy than Pedro in Bridgeport

simply stated, more people die from coconuts falling from trees each year (around 180) than from ingesting tree nuts (fewer than 100).

while off topic, it does connect to the point about our society going nuts (pun intended) about protecting our kids from real AND perceived dangers.

[Unregistered]

Right. We ban headers for little kids because of the head injuries to girls. Most old-country places just continue to fix this issue by continuing to ban soccer for the masses of girls. I am all for slide-tackling as well. Just make sure to red-card the 7 year old that wipes the kid out from behind and then make his team play short-handed. Heading and slide tackles are such a small part of the game. I don't like changing the game either, but it really doesn't affect it that much.

On the headers - most of the world teaches and stresses playing with the ball at your feet, and if it's in the air, taking it down and controlling it. Heading at 4-10yo isn't really what they're going for. Oh, and they don't usually have their little goalie launch a punt or goal kick as hard and far as he can every time. Playing out of the back would eliminate a lot of this nonsense.

If I could BEG for one change at kiddie soccer, it would be to quit it with the throw ins. Or at least not call illegal throws. Let the kid kick the ball in. That is something they do in Europe. Nothing worse than 40 throw ins a game with half of them called illegal. Ugh.

[Unregistered]

as the hubby to an immunologist, gotta chime in on a topic that she and her colleagues talk about day & night. nut allergies are what doctors call mass psychogenic illness. its when a relatively minor illness becomes an epidemic due to the masses having irrational fear for the illness. nut allergies are real and symptoms can range from itching to anaphylaxis to death. thats what causes fear - here are some facts (my wife has handouts she gives parents):

-fewer than 200 food-related allergy deaths occur in the us annually (for all foods including shellfish)
-even severely allergic patients need to consume a massive amount of nuts to die, even anaphylaxis requires much more than just contact or residual quantities
-rather than avoiding nuts, numerous studies have proven that gradual exposure to nuts will reduce symptoms and in most cased eliminate the allergy
-there is a strong correlation between ethnicity/income level and nut allergy diagnosis... meaning Kaden in Greenwich is 11x more likely to have an allergy than Pedro in Bridgeport

simply stated, more people die from coconuts falling from trees each year (around 180) than from ingesting tree nuts (fewer than 100).

while off topic, it does connect to the point about our society going nuts (pun intended) about protecting our kids from real AND perceived dangers.

Doesn't matter - the fear of lawsuits and the reality of dealing with aggressive parents is enough to get districts to take action* . Parental fears are largely justifiable from an emotional standpoint - you can put all the numbers you want in front of them you want but it's their CHILDREN. Even with all your family's knowledge can you honestly deny you might be a tiny bit nervous if your kid had an allergy like that? The other problem is some people can have modest reactions a few times that suddenly turns dangerous (I had that happen with bees as I got older). There's no way to predict who that will happen to, heightening the fear

*Many public school districts have created "safe" classrooms and areas in lunch rooms rather than outright bans. Some families do a better job of teaching their kids how to handle it while others coddle them and hover too much - that is also part of the overall societal issue. My wife works in higher ed. The stories she has about hovering parents of college students are unbelievable. My kids think it's hysterical when they see parents of their friends do things that they know their friends should handle on their own.

not the op btw....

[Unregistered]

Right. We ban headers for little kids because of the head injuries to girls. Most old-country places just continue to fix this issue by continuing to ban soccer for the masses of girls. I am all for slide-tackling as well. Just make sure to red-card the 7 year old that wipes the kid out from behind and then make his team play short-handed. Heading and slide tackles are such a small part of the game. I don't like changing the game either, but it really doesn't affect it that much.

You clearly never played at a high level or truly understand the game for that matter.