Kids sports

[samhain7]

I am just curious about this.
Does anyone else have their kids in summer rep sports?
My 10 year old plays AAA ball and he has been pretty sought after around our area from different teams.
It really cuts into camping as much as we'd like to.
Some may say it is a waste for us to have a trailer.

It's is tough because he loves ball and his talent level makes me think I would be robbing him if we ever pulled him out.
But with our schedule we get about 4-5 trips a year only....
Again, just curious on what others do...

[OldFogie]

samhain7 wrote:
I get the parent preference 'I would rather camp'.
But my son lives and breathes hockey and baseball. So I dont want to deprive him of that for our camping. He LOVES camping too, but to him sports is number 1.
I guess my question is this....
What do you all think of the people telling me "What a waste to own a trailer" when we only get out to 4-5 trips a year (one of which is a 9 day stay at a beach site)....

Just ignore those who tell you that it is "a waste to own a trailer". You and your family are the only ones who get to decide whether 4-5 trips a year is enough or not.

It is better to ignore them than to tell them to mind their own business. :W

[Mr__Camper]

Our kids would rather be camping than anywhere else.

[samhain7]

Oh and congrats on the recruitment Sato4000

[samhain7]

I get the parent preference 'I would rather camp'.
But my son lives and breathes hockey and baseball. So I dont want to deprive him of that for our camping. He LOVES camping too, but to him sports is number 1.
I guess my question is this....
What do you all think of the people telling me "What a waste to own a trailer" when we only get out to 4-5 trips a year (one of which is a 9 day stay at a beach site)....

[kohai]

I just ran into this the other day for the first time.... my wife wants to go camping and my son has his first soccer game.

I suspect this is going to be an issue more and more for us.

[sato4000]

I have 3 boys 4, 8, and 10. The older ones are all obsessed with basketball and play year round. The oldest plays in two leagues, and my second grader in one but they both also run track which is 3 times per week so we literally have no time to camp. They also race motocross which was great for camping because we could take the RV and go ride but now it's just basketball. It is really impacting the trips we've been able to take this year but to me it's worth it for them. Had a great moment last week when my 2nd grader got recruited to play on a 4th grade team. Don't know how we're going to get them all to practices or have time to camp when the 4 year old starts playing.

[doublenot7]

I'd rather take the kids camping than have them in sports. I rather dislike the school year based sports that detract from the kids studies. We already do BSA during the school year and that is a distraction enough. My 7 year old may start golf though.

[bukhrn]

We never had this problem, as our kids were never into participating in sports, And would much rather go camping and fishing,any day.

[Opie431]

We stopped camping when our children were the age to take part in summer sports. Between baseball, softball and 10,000 K races there was not much time to fit in camping.
We returned when they were grown. Now we take grandchildren when they have a few days off during the summer or fall.

[samhain7]

We are lucky in many ways with our coach.
He played for our Canadian National team...and he understands summer vacation.
We are going to miss one game due to a site we booked in Feb and he is cool with that.
He also makes sure we have two weeks in the summer with NO games.

But again, still doesn't allow us to camp as much as we want.

We did take the trailer to one tourney (due to some issues), but normally it is required to stay in the hotel for tournaments. And my son wants to be with his buddies in the rooms anyway....

[Y-Guy]

Our boys were heavily involved with Marching Band then into Drum Corps. It pretty much wiped out some of our late summer & fall camping, so we reserved our Memorial & Labor Day weekends, and went on a few 3 day trips. We also started taking the RV to the shows; meant no hotels and we could watch the shows and relax or help out with the Band.

Having worked around Youth Sports for 30+ years I've seen many families struggle with the balance; coaches push hard then have no flexibility for family vacations. Kids are punished if they miss a few games. I've also ready to many articles on young kids, particularly pitchers, damaging their arms by the age of 12 and requiring surgery.

Kids are only young once, family first. Find the balance in participating, that's my best advice.