There are so many options out there for sports and extracurriculars for kids…and so many questions that come with them. Should you have your kids play sports? When? Should you make them stick with something they hate? The list goes on and on.

You’ll Learn:

• How to create more opportunities for free play (including windows of screen-free time)
• The difference between structured & free play and the benefits of both
• How to decide which sports and extracurricular activities to commit to
• What to do when your kid “doesn’t feel like it”

Today, I’ll give you some guidance on all of these questions. And we’re not just talking about sports. Whether it’s football, gymnastics, music, religious education, learning a new language (or pretty much anything else you can come up with), this episode will help you decide what’s best for your child and your family.

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Formal vs. Free Play

One important distinction to make between kids’ activities is whether it is formal (i.e. structured and usually adult led) or free play (open, freely chosen and participant led). 

Lego is a good example. Using instructions to build a kit is an example of formal play, whereas making their own creations from a bunch of random blocks is free play. 

Free play is play without a purpose in mind. Think Hot Wheels, playing with dolls, pretending to cook, having a party with stuffed animals, etc. It’s all just for fun. They’re not trying to achieve anything except what they’re doing in the moment. 

Plus, there are a lot of benefits that come with open play, including better emotional regulation, self-soothing, problem solving, resilience and knowing their own likes and dislikes. They learn to manage conflict with their playmates.

For the most part, kids under age 5 do not need to be in any organized sports or activities. Their primary job at this stage is to learn how to move their body, listen, understand basic rules and directions, and play with others. They are likely getting plenty of formal training during preschool or kindergarten, and they don’t really need more than that. 

I often see parents wanting to put kids in activities because they struggle to keep their children entertained all day. Their kids are restless, overwhelmed, dysregulated, and easily bored. As an adult, it feels good to bring in some structure and put something on the calendar. There’s nothing wrong with this, but I want you to recognize that it is for you, not for them. 

When kids aren’t used to this open, unstructured time, they’re going to be uncomfortable figuring out what to do with themselves. They’re used to having a lot of direction from grown-ups. As the parent, you might see this and think that your child only does well when they’re in a programmed environment, but it’s really just a skill they haven’t developed yet.

Ultimately, we want to see kids having more and more time in free play. This looks like kids moving their bodies with open-ended equipment (e.g. blocks, figures, scooters, balls, trampoline, etc.). Imaginative play is the beauty of being a kid, and we want to give them as many opportunities as we can to do that. 

Rather than running soccer drills, give them a chance to kick, run and play. Go to the park and set them loose to run, pretend, and make up their own games. Let them jump off low walls, muck around in the mud, play tag, have foot races, pretend to sword fight, and use their body to develop their muscles and motor skills. And if they want to play sports later, this experimentation and movement is also how athleticism is built. 

Pros & Cons of Structured Activity

When your kids are in organized sports and activities, it takes away time for the free, open play we know they need. 

In many cases, kids spend a lot of time waiting their turn or listening to directions during group activities. So, at the end, they might seem even more dysregulated than when you took them there. It can help to give them some free play after their formal activity ends to release some of that energy. 

Of course, organized sports are good for physical movement. And many extracurriculars involve a team, which helps kids learn how to cooperate and problem solve with others. Even when an adult is leading, it’s cool to be a part of a team that is working toward something together. 

The commitment of organized sports can be both a challenge and a benefit. Your child signed up for it, it’s paid for, their team is counting on them…so they have to go do it even when they don’t want to. This can be tough for your kid (and for you), but it also builds resilience, integrity and character. 

How To Decide About Sports & Extracurriculars

First, think about what’s important to you. Why do you want to put them in an organized activity?

It might be because you want structure to your schedule. You might feel pressure to help your kid keep up with their peers or want them to be strong and athletic. It might just seem like everyone else is doing it, so you should, too. Or maybe your kid is truly excited about trying something new.

Limiting Activities

In our family, each kid did one sport or physical activity per season. This allowed for more of that open play time.

Unfortunately, because everyone is so scheduled, it can be a challenge to coordinate playtime with other kids. Get a little social and connect with other families who are available for free play in the afternoons or weekends. Make a plan to get together and go for a hike, swim at the pool, or play at the park.

Specialization in Sports

More and more, we see kids specializing in a single sport from an early age, meaning that they do that one sport pretty much year-round. 

Developmentally, we want our kids to specialize in specific sports and activities in adolescence, but data shows that if kids commit to a sport too young (before they truly have a desire for it), they might give up on it just as they enter their adolescent years, when they need it most. 

This means that through the elementary years, we want to expose them to lots of different activities and give them opportunities to figure out what they love to do. 

Here are some general guidelines by age:

Up to age 5-6: Just move!

Despite how it may seem when you see tiny kids playing sports, it actually isn’t necessary for a child to learn any specific sport at a young age. Up until age 5 or 6, kids are really just developing basic motor skills. 

Ages 6-12: Try out different sports and activities

Between ages 6 and 12, the body is really good at learning new physical skills. So, that means that it doesn’t make a huge difference whether your kid starts a sport at 6 or 9. As long as they have practice moving their body, they’ll be able to pick up the more specific skills and movements of that activity.

The Teen Years: Specialize

In the teen years, specialization in a sport or activity can be a good thing. They see it as part of their identity and connect with their peers through those shared interests. 

Commitment

This applies to you and your child, especially if they decide to specialize in a sport. Again, I suggest avoiding this until around age 11, but at that point, specialization often means travel, trainers and a higher level of commitment (of time, energy, and money).

Before you commit, think about how important it is for your family to prioritize this skill. Do you think it's going to serve them when they're in high school? Do you think it will serve them beyond high school? 

You won’t know what’s right until you try some things. If they’re into baseball, maybe try all-stars with a little travel. See how it feels before you commit year-round. 

There isn’t a right or wrong here. When my kids were young, my husband worked 70-80 hours a week (no joke!), so we didn’t do year-round sports. We prioritized family time at home over travel sports. 

You’ll need to decide for yourself what you can commit to financially and what your lifestyle will support.

An Emotionally Healthy Environment

If you want to raise an emotionally healthy kid, their environment needs to be emotionally healthy. The activities you commit to contribute to that environment. 

If you are an overwhelmed, busy, busy person, driving 3 kids to 3 different activities every afternoon might not be the right fit for you. It might not work for your family. It might create so much stress and dysregulation that it's not worth the effort.

Go into sports slowly. Explore. Be curious about what your kid will enjoy and how it will work for your family. Try things out before you go all in on any one activity. 

Managing Resistance

There are lots of reasons we want to put our kids in activities, but sometimes we don’t get the result we’re going for, and it can even create new issues. A common one is resistance to participating in an activity after your child has committed. 

In general, if a kid commits to a season, it’s good for them to stick it out and go all the way through it. Of course, there are circumstances where you need to just stop and regroup. But I usually recommend that you commit to making that activity a priority and hold your kid accountable.

So, let’s say your kid is signed up for baseball (or whatever their activity of choice is), and they don’t feel like going today. What to do?

First, make sure you are calm. Then, tap into compassion for how your child is feeling. They’re resisting for a reason. Something is uncomfortable for them. We want to be understanding without giving in and rescuing them from that discomfort.

Set a limit, like : Your baseball registration costs $150. I’m happy to pay for this as long as you participate. Basically, if they go, you pay. If they don’t, they pay. 

The minute your kid says they’re not going, you can let them know, “Okay, well that’s $25 for today’s game. You’ll have to either sell some of your toys or work for me to earn $25. Here’s the phone. You’ll have to call your coach and tell them you’re not coming. And then write a letter to your team explaining why you didn’t show up for them.”

By this point, your kid will probably decide it’s not worth it, and they’ll put their cleats on and get in the car. 

You can’t physically make them go to the field and play. But you can still hold your boundary and let them know that if they cost you money or cause a problem for their team, it’s on them to figure out how to solve those problems. 

Sports and extracurriculars can be wonderful opportunities for your child to develop new skills and friendships, especially if you make decisions about them in a way that aligns with your family’s values and goals. 

Resources:

• Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids by Kim John Payne
• Episode 128: Encouraging Boredom

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Welcome back to become a calm mama. I'm your host. I'm Darlene

Childress. And today on the podcast, I'm talking about

sports and other extracurriculars and talking about

whether you should have your kids join sports

and when, and should you make them stay in the sport if

they hate it and kind of giving you some guidance

on those questions. In general, I'm gonna

re referring to things like, sports themselves,

you know, formal like basketball, baseball, softball,

t ball, you know, the actual kinda sports, football, whatever it

is. But beyond sports, there's also martial

arts, there is swimming, There's dance.

There's gymnastics. Any of these things, these

activities can become like sports.

And then, of course, with extracurriculars, we also have music,

like learning to play the piano or, you know, play an instrument.

We have religious education and tutoring as well

as language learning. So there's an art. Right? There's a

lot of different options that you can focus on with your kids.

You can be a musical theater family, or you can be really into

chess or, sports like baseball

family or whatever it is. And it can be

really confusing as a parent to figure out,

should I make my kid go in a sport or not? Should I make them

do art? Should I make them go to tutoring? Should I make them do the

things that, you know, you want them to do or you think they should do?

So the first thing I wanna talk about is just defining what's

important to you. If you love a

certain sport or you love a certain

activity and you want to share that with your child,

that makes perfect sense. You know, if it's something that they like

and you like and you wanna do it together, great. Easy.

If your child doesn't wanna do the thing you want them to

do, that's when it gets confusing and it gets challenging.

So I wanna give you some guidelines and guidance on

how to decide about sports and extracurriculars.

So first off, in general, any

kid under the age of 5 really doesn't need to be in

any organized sport or anything

formal. Now if you have them do it

learning language, you know, that's really important to you, then

that makes sense that they would go into a language learning program

early. But for most things under

5, your kids don't need any formal programs or

training. Their primary job is to learn how to

play, to learn how to be in their body, to learn how

to move their body and coordinate it and

understand rules and directions and listen to the grown ups

and, have the motor skills, the attention span,

and the way to connect with their peers. That's

really their job is to work on moving their body,

learning to listen, and learning to play with others. And

they don't need formal settings to do that. They usually

get enough formal training of that in their

preschool or kindergarten programs. Now, a lot of

parents will feel like they should put their kids in some

sort of program after preschool ends or,

you know, on the weekend or something like that. And mostly

that's because of the parents feeling

that their kid needs it for some reason,

needs something extra in their life. So

sports are extracurricular, right? We have their

regular school and we have their regular family life, and

then you're trying to decide if we should add something extra.

Now what I see is that a lot of times parents with young

kids find it very difficult to keep their

children entertained all day and find

it challenging. Right? Their kids get really restless and

really overwhelmed and dysregulated and easily

bored. And so it's like it feels like it would be nice to have

something on the calendar that you go to your little soccer class on

Saturday morning or you go to dance or you have

something kind of formal on the calendar. It helps our mind and

it helps us with the idea of, like, you know,

oh, we're doing something good for our kid, and it'll give give us some

structure to the afternoon, get them out and about,

have them do something. Now, that's great.

Is it necessary? No. It's for you.

It's for you to create more rhythm, more

balanced in out breath kind of environment

for your family. It can be really hard for

us as adults to not to have, like, open

ended hours with no structure, especially

if our kids aren't well versed in how to

play by themselves. The bummer about

having your kid be informal education

setting or formal extracurricular settings throughout

their day and throughout their week is that they

lose the opportunity for open play.

And when you have a kid who

hasn't had a lot of time to be in

open play, I'm gonna define it, when they haven't had a

lot of time to be in open play, they are less

likely to be comfortable figuring out what to do with

themselves when there's nothing scheduled. So

it's kind of like a cat chasing its

tail. You have a kid who's used to a lot

of structure and used to having a lot of,

direction. Like you go to soccer soccer and the teacher is telling you this and

that. You go to school, the teacher tells you this and that. You go to

your, you know, religious education or you go to ballet or you go to

dance. You go to something and there's an adult and they're guiding you through all

the parts of the activity. You go to martial arts. There's a warm up, and

then there's the practicing this, and they're practicing that. It's all very

structured because adults structure things in order to make

it easy to work with children. Right? It's chaos if you just like had

a birthday party and you're like, I don't know. Just let them let 20 kids

play by themselves and figure it out. It's like that's insane. And

so, of course, anybody who runs a program for kids is going to

create a program. So you have your kid, they're used to being in a

programmed environment. So then when they're not in a programmed environment, they

don't know what to do. Then you as the parent feel like, well, it

looks like they only do well when they're in a programmed environment. So

you kind of keep scheduling it. And your kid

doesn't really develop the skills that come from

being in an open play environment. Now, let's

talk about what I'm talking about when I'm talking about open play

versus structured play. So anything that sports,

any extracurricular, anything that has an adult

involved is a formal instruction.

It's formal play. So we talk about free play

is this activity that is freely

chosen and directed by the participants. The rules aren't

always clear. It's not done with a

purpose. Like, you don't play

Hot Wheels in order to, like, win

something. Right? You play Hot Wheels or you play

dolls or you play house or you play stuffed animals or

cooking or what you know, I'm gonna make my mom a drink, and that's really

fun. And you the kid is pretending to make you a latte.

That is there's no goal. It's just play. It's

just for no purpose. You don't trying to

achieve anything except the thing you're doing.

So we want our kids to be in environments where

they are experiencing free play,

where the rules are not given to them by an adult. Let me

give you an example of a very simple

toy that can be either structured play or free

play. And that is if you think about it, it's Lego. So

you have some kids who get their Lego set. They

follow all the directions. They get frustrated, they wanna do it right, they

wanna finish the thing, and then they wanna have the, you

know, car built. That would be structured

play. That would be a defined goal

where the rules are determined. Right? There is even a guidebook.

While you can also have Lego and use it like building

blocks, and you can do free play with it.

So free play, I remember one time my kids, Lincoln

was really into Lego, he made a whole concert

scene with his Legos. So he free build all

sorts of different things. We made zoos. We made all this stuff, and we just

had a big huge Lego bin. We still have it.

Lego tip, by the way, is I would keep the

Legos on a sheet. So imagine a

big king-size sheet on the ground. You put all your Legos on there.

Then I would pick up the four corners of the sheet and

lift it up and put it into a big bin. So then whenever we played

Lego, we play on the sheet. I would pick up the sheet out of the

bin. I'd lay it down. Big Lego,

you know, smashed down all over all the Legos everywhere, but

it would stay on the sheet. And the kids would put the Legos back on

the sheet, and then I could pick them up easily. It's a huge Lego solve.

But, anyway, you can see that there's some games

that are structured and some that are not. We

call some of those fixed toys or free toys.

So a fixed toy is a toy that, you know, you push a button

and it tells you an answer versus blocks or

dolls or stuffed animals or cars or

even, like, play mobile people or little people, little wooden

figures. Those you can do lots of different things with them.

They're open. Okay. I won't go too far on play.

But what we wanna see is kids having more and

more time to be in free play. But what we're seeing in

the in the research and in the data is that kids have

actually less and less time for free play, and then they don't know

how to do it. They don't know how to play, then they want

their devices. They want screens or they want you to

play with them, which is fine. But they kind of are always looking for a

guide for an adult to tell them what to do.

And that can create future issues with emotional regulation,

self soothing, problem solving, resilience,

being able to, know yourself, what you like, what you don't

like. All these things that we want for our kids, they do happen

in play. And so we wanna give our kids chance

chances to move their bodies with open ended

equipment. So instead of being running drills as a 6 year old

with a soccer ball, right, taking a ball and kicking it

back and forth and seeing, you know, oh, shoot. I kicked it over there, and

now I gotta go run and grab it and kick it back and playing with

your parent or a sibling or a friend and picking creating

your own game. So moving your body with

open ended equipment, not structured. This is what you

do with this ball. This ball goes in that net.

The ball can become a free

toy instead of a fixed toy and can be used for many

many different games. So a regular bouncy

ball is so much better for a kid than is highly specific

basketball, football, soccer ball, softball, baseball.

Now, I'm not trying to knock these sports. I'm not. I think that there's a

lot of value in sports and I'm gonna talk about that, but I want you

to see that when you have your kids in structured stuff and you have them

using fixed tools and fixed toys,

then they don't get the experience of open ended

play. So going to the park and being able

to use, you know, create pretend you're on a spaceship and you're

jumping and running and you're hiding and all of those games that kids

play. They imagine that they really are on a spaceship and

that they're sliding down into outer space from the slide. And all

that imaginative play is the beauty of being a kid,

And we want to give them as many opportunities as we can. That's

why, going to the park is really helpful. Having a trampoline,

having scooters and bikes, going on hikes, doing dance

parties in your house. Like I said, playing ball with your parents or your

peers, bouncing and throwing balls, seeing how hard you can throw. It doesn't

have to be a ball. It can be a rock into a creek or a

rock against a wall. Now, is there some risk? Yeah.

There's some inherent risk in play, but there's

inherent risk in everything. More kids are

injured in sport than they are

in play. That more children

have injuries when they play organized

sports with an adult than when they play open play.

Isn't that fascinating? So, we want to see our kids jumping

off low walls and mucking around in the mud and learning to swim

in a appropriate way, playing tag, having foot

races, pretending sword fights, and wrestling, and

using their body and developing their muscles and

getting those motor skills are is very, very

important. If you wanna have a kid who's

athletic, let them be

experiencing their body and experimenting with their body

and and using their body in a variety of ways.

That's how athleticism is built. It's not by becoming

a very good baseball player, by learning a lot about baseball.

We really want our kids to be in control of their bodies and understand

the how how far they can push their body and where the

boundaries are physically. So,

of course, when you have your kids in organized

sports, right, it takes away time for play. There's an adult

leader. The rules are predetermined. So the game is

structured in a very specific way. You have offense. You have defense. You have

positions. You know, if you're in a recital position, you know, your

dance, you're you're supposed to do this dance like this type of

arabesque and this kind of twirl. I don't know anything about dance.

Gymnastics, it's like here's this type of somersault. Here's this

cartwheel. Here's this backbend. It's very specific

and it's the teacher says now we're doing this.

So what's cool is when you have free playtime, they get, you know, they get

to use their body. They learn how to manage conflicts

without adults around. You know, like, if they're playing spaceship,

they, no. You I told you to go down the slide and go into outer

space. No. You didn't. I don't wanna go in outer space. And they start

fighting over outer space and then they come to you maybe eventually and ask

you for help. But in a in a sport or

extracurricular course class, it it's so

much more structured. Right? They can't fight over things like that. But you can see

kids, they always want to make it a game.

Even when they're playing a game, they want to make it a game. Because just

sport in itself usually isn't enough for them. It's not a game to them

until they create some sort of open

freely chosen play for its own sake.

So fascinating. Now, of course, there

are benefits of sport. Right? It is good

for physical movement. Although if you think about going to a martial

arts class or even a gymnastics class,

you might be waiting your turn a lot. Right? You might

be listening to directions a lot. And there's a lot of

time where the kid is not moving their body and in

their mind, they're like trying to understand what's happening. And they have to do a

lot of self regulation at a practice or

at the gym. They have to really be paying attention

like they are in school. And you send them to the sport

thinking, oh, this is gonna be so great. They're gonna get all this energy out.

And you get a kid who's super dysregulated and acts like they have more

energy than when you took them in the 1st place. And

that is because they have been building cortisol and adrenaline

trying to understand the rules and trying to be a good kid and trying to

follow directions, and that needs then

to be released. So it's probably

better for you to, like, pick them up and then let them play a little

bit, you know, in in the parking lot or, you know, at the at the

park or in the gym or whatever it is. Let them kick the ball a

little bit because then that's their free play. So

fascinating to me how we think our kids are gonna burn off

energy, but yet they don't. But first, as they

get older, it can be very tiring. Going to a soccer

game where you're playing and running the whole time is very

exhausting for sure. But a lot of the

practices aren't really like that and a lot of kids sit on the bench.

And so it doesn't really, you know, do that for you.

But it can. Of course, there's team building. That's a benefit

of being in a sport or working in a dance program

or a ballet or anything like that or on a musical theater.

Any of those extracurriculars that require a team, that's really

cool because you are problem solving. Again, the adult is doing a lot of the

problem solving and telling the kids what to do, but you are learning that

you are part of a team and building towards something that is

cool. Another benefit of sport, which you're not gonna

love this, but it is the fact that you have to do it

even when you don't want to because you made a commitment to

go. You signed up for it. You, you know, paid for

it, and your team is relying on you and maybe you don't wanna

go. That's true for me. I don't always wanna go to the

gym or do something that I've signed up for. I

I don't like, oh, I don't wanna do that today. And I have to overcome

my resistance and go do it anyway. And that builds

resilience, that builds integrity, that builds

character. But as the parent of the kid who doesn't

wanna go, that can be really hard, because you

then have to hold that resistance, have compassion for it, while

also keeping the boundary of you are going anyway.

Little tip for limit setting on sports,

I would have my kids, I'm gonna give you specific guidelines in a

second, but I have my kids sign up for a

sport a season. So for in our

community, fall was soccer, winter was

basketball, spring was baseball.

They would do martial arts sometimes, different

sports at different seasons. I'm thinking Lincoln did not play

baseball, so I'm kinda wondering what he did in the spring. I don't remember, to

be honest. But we would say, okay, you guys have to pick a sport. So

that was after 6. They had to pick something to do.

So they would pick and then we'd sign up and we'd say, okay, this

class is $350 or whatever it cost.

And then when they I said, I'm happy to pay for this as long as

you participate. K? So then if they didn't wanna

go, I would break it down. I'd be like, well, each lesson is $12.

This would be true for musical instruments, for any

anything really that I have bought or signed them up for. I'd say I

pay when you go, you pay when you don't go. So

the minute that my kids were like, I don't wanna go, I'd be like, okay.

Well, it's $22. So you'll have to either sell some

of your toys or work for me to earn $22.

You have to call the coach. Here's their phone. You can call them. Let

them know why you don't wanna come. And then write a

letter to your team, you know, the next time you go explaining why you

didn't show up for them. And pretty much the kids

would be like, okay, forget it. It'll just go. And they would

resolve to go. So they wanted I still had to hold that

boundary. I still had to do that. But how can I make them physically, like,

put their cleats on or, like, go get out the

car? Sometimes I'd say, well, we're going. Hop in the car.

They'd still hop in the car and say, I'm not gonna play. That's not up

to me. My job is to get you here and to make sure you're sit

you're available to your team. If you wanna have resistance or

create a problem for your team, well, that's on you to

figure out how to solve that problem. So

most of the time, kids have their resistance

because they have it rightly. They don't feel comfortable

going. We wanna have some compassion while holding the boundary,

letting them deal with the consequences of their actions.

Not giving in, but also not rescuing

when they are uncomfortable, if that makes sense.

If you are confused by that, reach out. Let me know. We can talk

it through. You can join the comm mama club and I'll help tell you all

about how to set limits like that. Now, one of the

other pressures we have about doing sport or extracurricular

activities, we think, okay. Right. It's something to do, but then it turns out it

doesn't really help them. Like,

sometimes there's resistance. Sometimes they don't wanna go. Sometimes they don't get their energy

out. Like, it can be a pain in the butt, but your brain will say,

oh, this will be so good because it'll give us something to do on Mondays.

And then you're like, well, this was a disaster. So sports is not

always the answer to your parenting

issues. Right? Kinda creates new issues. We think it'll give

kids athletic skill. It can, but it doesn't it's not

necessary that they learn a specific sport at a young

age. Another reason that parents wanna do it is they feel pressure

that they wanna keep their kit make sure their kids keep up with their peers.

They wanna make sure that their kids are strong and athletic. And like everyone

else is doing it, feels like it should we should do it. Now,

the truth is that the body, it can't really

like it it learns

things really easily when it's

little for sure, but only once your body

has some motor skill. Once you have some control over your body, once you

have some executive functioning, that's why I recommend not

doing sport until out over after age 6.

But what's really cool is that anywhere along the way

from 6 to 12, the body is really good about

learning a new skill, a physical skill. So if

you have a kid start soccer say at 6 or dance at

6 or you have a kid start at 8 or 9,

it doesn't really make a huge difference unless the child

has never done anything athletic before. And

I mean athletic by moving their body. So if you have a

kid who's really played at the park and you know, was always

like on your trampoline and rolling around and doing dance in the

house and cartwheels and all the physical movement,

they they have a lot of strength inside their body. They have a lot of,

motor control. So they're gonna be able to pick up on

different sports. That that's why we don't

need kids to be specializing in a sport

at a young age. So what do I mean about

specializing in a sport? It really

is the idea that your kid only does one

thing year round. That

they become almost like a professional in

some way is that they they just do that sport all the time. We see

this a lot with dance. You can see it with, a lot with

baseball, where the specializing

comes pretty early. Sometimes with soccer as well. I mean, with all

sports hockey, I mean, really just kind of

anything. You can have your kid be a specialist in

a sport at a young age. And

it's not really the data shows

that sports participation peaks. I'm

reading this quote. Data indicates that sports participation peaks

at age 11 and is followed by steady decline through the

remainder of the teen years. So if you have a kid specialize

in a sport too young before they

have found their own desire for it, they might

quit by the time they're 11 or 12 or 13.

They might give up on it when they need it the most.

It is ideal for our kids to be in a specialized

sport in the latter years or a specialized activity,

so that they feel that it's part of their

identity and they can build affiliation when they're in

adolescence with I'm in drama or I'm a

a soccer player or I do dance. We want our

kids to find identity and attachment

with their peers through affiliation

and in adolescence. That's helpful for their identities, especially if

it's like, you know, around a sport or,

you know, musical theater or anything really that's,

you know, participating with a group. It could be martial arts even, like, I'm more

I'm a 3rd I'm a second degree black belt. I'm working on my 3rd degree.

Like, if they have an identity around it, it's good. But what we see

is if we have a kid specialized too early, they quit

before they even really benefit from being in that

sport. So we want our kids

to be in sports in adolescence. And so that means

that throughout elementary school, you wanna expose them

to sports and expose them to the

opportunity to play sport, to play, to do

musical theater, to do art, to do gymnastics, to

do, dance, to do all these different

activities, chess, we did chess for a while,

and find themselves, whether they love it or not,

and and figure out what they want to do

in adolescence and how they want to show

up, you know, in sport and in their

extracurriculars. So my recommendation

is that you don't have kids in organized sport

until age 6. If you have been doing it and

it works for your family, great. No worries.

Okay? You don't have to change anything. You don't have to quit anything. But

if you find yourself, like, this is a struggle and my kid doesn't like it

or they only like it for, like, once, and you're, like, fighting with

them to go to some kind of organized

activity outside of school and they're in kinder

and younger, you can just drop it. You can feel free that you're

not hurting any of their development, that you're not causing a future

problem, that there's no issue. I followed the

guidelines in Simplicity Parenting written by

Kim Jong Paine. It's a book that I, read I've read many,

many times throughout my parenting journey. He in this book,

he recommended around age 8, and that has to do with their

cognitive development of when they can understand what it means to

be in a team to do team sports. So our we were

waiting till 8 with our kids. Lincoln did

soccer at 8, and then Sawyer really wanted to do it

too. So the following year, he started, and so

he was 6 when he started. I think maybe 7.

And so he did it a little bit earlier. Same with video games. We were

like, we wanted Lincoln to start at 11, but we knew Sawyer would

start. So we started Lincoln at 12, Sawyer at 10. And then we I've told

that story before that it didn't work out. We had to take the video games

away from Sawyer because 10 was too young. So you're gonna

see what works for your kid. Maybe you try in 1st grade and it's

not right. They hate it. They're fighting you, you know. Okay. Fine.

Just maybe you don't do sport first. You know, you wait until

age 7. Wait until age 8. You could you could

never do it if you don't want to as well. It's okay. You don't have

to put your kids in sport, but there are benefits of it.

So I like to do one physical activity per season.

So if that's a martial arts, great. If

that's, swimming, excellent. If that is

dance, gymnastics, you know, even,

musical theater can be very physical. There's a lot of, you know, dancing

and things like that. Of course, just

organized sports, like softball, soccer,

baseball, things like that. I want you to give your kids

opportunity to try out many different things. Don't feel like, you

know, they need to stick with one thing because they played soccer last year.

They have to play it this year. You can just try something new.

Now I do think if a kid commits to a season, most of the

time, it's good for them to stick to that season and go

all the way through. Of course, there are circumstances that

me mean that it's not like, you entered the sport too

early and you need to regroup and do it,

like, like, just quit, that's fine. Especially if it's

a, you know, not a big team thing, you know,

you can kinda stop and start easily. But if you do

sign up for something, hold your kids accountable, commit to it,

give them consequences if they don't go, and continue to make

it be a priority. The more you value it, the more important it is to

you, the more you communicate that, the easier it will be for you to hold

boundaries and that for your kids to trust that you're serious.

So shorter commitments and shorter seasons are helpful, especially if you

don't know for sure if it's a good fit or not. Again,

avoid specializing in a sport until

age 11.

Realizing that, specializing in a

sport means travel ball, you know, year

round, highly specialized,

activity, like trainers and things like that. Really think

about how important it is for your family to

prioritize this skill. Do you think it's gonna

serve them when they're in high school? Do you think it's gonna serve them when

they are, post high school? Are they gonna play college

ball or participate in this activity in college? Are are

you training them for beyond, like, for for

professional sports? If your child is on a professional track, of

course, you're gonna be very, very focused and do highly

specialized, environment early. But how

are you even gonna know that until you've tried a few different things? So

try a couple different things, see where they're at.

9, 10, kind of maybe, you know, you do a little travel

ball, like a little all stars, you know, see how that feels

for your family, then commit to year round if you

want. Our family, we did not commit to

year round sports because it was a lot of

weekend travel. We tried it out as a family. We did

all stars. We did travel ball a little bit, extras,

I think they were called. And it really was

so challenging because my husband worked

around 70 to 80 hours a week. No joke.

And was available on some weekends. And we

chose as a family to not to prioritize family time

at home in our house, playing in our house

versus being on the road and being on the side of

a soccer field at restaurants and things like that.

I'm not saying that's the right thing to do. It was the right thing

for us as a family because of our lifestyle.

So when you decide what you're gonna do, you need to figure out what you

can financially commit to and what your lifestyle will

support. If you are an overwhelmed, busy,

busy person, and now you and you have 3 kids, you're gonna be

driving 3 people to 3 different activities every

afternoon, that might not be the right fit for you.

It might not work for your family. It might create so much stress and

dysregulation that it's not worth the effort. If you

wanna raise an emotionally healthy kid, their environments need to

be emotionally healthy. The air they breathe and the

water they swim in and the activities they do need to be

emotionally healthy in order for them to be emotionally healthy.

Does that make sense? So, you know,

specializing if it works for you, signing up for things if

it works for you. I think of this as a

slow sport approach. So we're going into

sport but we're going slowly, right? We're gonna explore, we're gonna be

curious. Now, when you're in a slow sport approach,

you need to find other families who are not highly scheduled, who

have open afternoons. So one of the challenges is every

if every kid is in sport all the time and then in tutoring and in

music and in, you know, all these activities every

afternoon, there's no time for open play with peers.

So finding the other families, the other parents

who are also available. And that means being a

little social, talking to some parents, finding out what their kids are doing. Instead of

being like Oh, your kid is doing that. I should do that too and sign

up for stuff. I'd rather you say Oh, well, what day are you free?

Because we would love to meet you at the park or meet you on a

hike or meet at the public pool or the lake or wherever

or have them over. And make plans for

kids to get together to have open play. Unfortunately, we do

have to plan open free play because

everyone is so scheduled. We don't have just kids hanging out in the

neighborhood. If you do have that, excellent. You're so

lucky. I'm so happy for you. But for most

people, all the kids are in activities all afternoon,

and we have to be able to find other people. Now, the cool thing is

when you find a group and there's a couple families that have kids that

aren't so scheduled, then as a as a like

a Like my friends, like my mom friends, we'd be like, oh, let's sign them

up for this. But what day should we do it? And then we'd leave afternoons,

other afternoons open so that we could play together. So it's really great. I

always like to have Fridays with no sports. I would get so annoyed if there

were sports on Friday because I wanted to have free play on Fridays.

Now, the last little tip is that when your kids

aren't in school and aren't doing sport or any

activity, establish screen free

windows, so that they are bored and they learn to

create games and play at home and do that free play. What

we're seeing in parent education right now and in parenting is that

kids are overscheduled. Right? They go from school to activity

to home. And then in those little pockets of windows,

parents don't wanna deal with the dysregulation because the kid is so

overwhelmed, because they haven't had a lot of downtime that then

they're given a screen. So there's not a lot of opportunity

in the day for the kid to develop this free play,

you know, self directed exploration.

So the more screen free time you have, the more free play time

you're creating. So it's not like, oh, let's limit

screen screens because they're terrible. I want you to think about it

instead of when I have screens, it's that limits my kids

chance for free play. So the more opportunity you give them

for free play, the better. And remember that when your child

is transitioning from any activity, there will be

dysregulation. And be ready for it

right before they go to the sport or the enrichment activity.

They will probably have a little bit of a big feeling cycle.

Right afterwards, they may have to come down from that, from all of the,

you know, other kids in the directions and the learning and the

frustration and whatever. So build in

little moments where you reconnect, where you let their body move

around a little bit, where you have some chances for giggles,

for making sure that they're well nourished, you know, like

well timed snacks, you know, things like that so that they can

transition back into the family life. Alright. This

was long a longer episode than I thought it was gonna be. And I feel

like I could probably have shared more

about when they're resisting going, but listen

back and find that little part where I talked about it. And if you have

any questions, reach out. You can always book a complimentary discovery

session with me and I can talk to you through what my

programs look like. You can join the Call Mama Club. That's $30 a

month. We meet weekly. Not a lot of people in there. So you get to

raise your hand, ask me questions, get the full call mama course,

all the things. So that's a great opportunity for you. If you

wanna know more, reach out and I will tell you all about

it. And I'm wishing you the

a week full of free play that is

pleasant and peaceful, and where your kids are

highly engaged in their own activities, especially because they

hopefully got a bunch of new fun stuff, over the winter

holidays, and they can just enjoy all their new toys.

Okay, mamas. I will talk to you next week.