Is your son/daughter participating in a sporting activity?

Both of my girls are involved in gymnastics, and they both asked to be. My oldest daughter does fairly well, but only started when she was 10. My youngest, however, started right after she turned 4. She is now 6, and without any mother’s bias at all, let me just say that child kicks some gymnastics ass.

My oldest has previously participated in soccer, which she’s thinking about going back to. She also tried swim team and did amazingly well, but she caught pneumonia, so we pulled her.

The boys did football when they were younger (elementary school), and they want to do wrestling, but we aren’t allowing it until they pick up their grades. Nothing as young as 4, but my sister’s kids are 5 and 6, and they are doing gymnastics and they love it.

My kids did low key stuff in grade school. After a few weeks of gymnastics, my 10-year-old daughter hated it and kept having head-aches so we stopped.

In jr. and senior high school, my son played soccer and my daughter played field hockey and ran the hurdles.

During the summers my son did serious mountaineering (Outward Bound and National Outdoor Leadership School) and my daughter rode horses, even after one bit her in the mouth. She still has a cute little scar.

I first found Fluther because my daughter was struggling with following through with ski club. It was my first question here about a year and a half ago.
My daughter started soccer at 4. She knew she wanted to play, but was shy to mix on the field the first year. She has played year round ever since then and us rostered on 3 teams now at age 11 on U13 travel teams.
She is now doing a soccer referee training camp as well.
She has organized basketball, swimming, volleyball, golf and racquetball.
Try them at things that they are interested in and see if they like it. Not everything will work, but just trying and learning themselves is certainly a good thing. They may also come back to it at a point.
I don’t think 4 is too young.

My son asked to play T-ball when he was 4, so we signed him up. He played T-ball and baseball for several years and then decided he wants to switch to soccer. Now he’s talking about basketball or swimming. Since we are moving, we have to find out what’s available for him.

At age 4 each of our kids was involved in tumbling at the nearby Gymnastics gym. They all loved it – but none of them stuck with it beyond pre-school/Kindergarten. That was the first and last “sport” type class we signed them up for…after that each of them had to ASK for whatever it is they wanted to try.
They’ve all been active in Scouting – which has given them an introduction to a lot of different sports—including horseback riding, archery, basketball..etc.

On their own entirely they’ve picked the following:
– Our oldest daughter (teenager) cycles (rides bikes) for fitness.
– Our middle daughter (tween) is getting competitive in archery and target shooting. She’s apparently good enough we should be looking to get her a coach. (Again, entirely her choice. She’s also into Kayaking and has saved enough money to buy her own kayak. We have lots of lakes nearby perfect for it..)
– Our youngest son and middle daughter studied Aikido for a while and loved it- they’d go back to studying that in a heartbeat if the teacher was only closer by..
– And, our youngest is interested in doing Mite hockey with his friends this fall/winter. We’re not so sure about signing him up for that yet (it’s a very expensive youth-sport)—but he can skate pretty well.

My children played T-ball, Little League Baseball, Pee Wee Basketball, junior varsity football, skeet shooting, golf, archery, pom poms, cheerleading, competition cheerleading, soccer, band competitions, volleyball, wrestling, gymnastics, shooting pool, croquet,...

I adopted my children when they were almost two, two and three years old. The first sport they every participated in was swimming. I took them all for swim lessons when they were two and three years old. Geez, time flies. My son wanted to play basketball when he was four because another little boy he swam with played. I signed him up and it was a great experience. We had a fantastic bunch of volunteer coaches. Next came pom pom for my girls, soccer for all of them, the Little League for my son. Everything else came after they started school.

They asked to participate in everything except the swim lessons. They played croquet from the time they came into my life and golf wasn’t something they asked to participate in either. They just played because their dad played I guess. We are a family of shooters so it was natural for my children to learn to shoot for competition and fun.

My son played organized baseball from age 5 to age 15. He asked to play. My Father in Law tried to get him interested in joining a swim team, but he said no.

I am enrolling my son into Soccer for the first sport ever. He has been wanting to play soccer since he was 4 yrs old. He is 5½ now and I think he’s ready. He is confident, yet shy. I have been teaching him to be a team player and that games aren’t always about winning. Give it a try. If she isn’t sure when starting the games, give her a reason to finish the sport. You could give her a reward. Something that she has been really wanting to do or get. Make this a goal for her to finish.

My daughter took Gymnastics at age 2, just a tumbling sort of thing and we stopped when we moved into the new house a little over a year ago since it was so far from the facilty. So my plan was to start her in soccer this year since she is now old enough at age 4 however she has asked to go back to gymnastics. I could sign her up for both things but I don’t want to tire her out at such a young age. I want to get a variety of different sports to make the decision of what she wants to play. Where she wants gymnastics I am trying to figure out if I should just sign her up for gymnastics up here and skip soccer or sign her up for both sports and if it gets too much for her just let her drop one.

@bkcunningham did you sign any of your children up for more than one activity at a time when they were so young? She did express an interest in soccer as well as gymnastics, at the time when she wanted to play soccer however she was a little too young to play last spring so my plan was to sign her up for the fall league now that she is 4 she is old enough. But recently she just asked me to play gymnastics again and I have been looking into it and was going to an open house they are having at one of the facilities up here next weekend.

My daughter went to dance classes from around age 4 to 16. She won a lot of medals and is now a qualified dance instructor. She never became involved in any other sport.

My daughters both wanted to do ballet and did it from the age of four/five until they were 13. They dropped it then. One of my daughters then did judo for a while. The other didn’t really want to do a sport outside of school but she did play AFL (Australian Rules Football) at school.

My son played soccer (football) both in school and out of school from five until he was 15. He decided he didn’t want to play anymore after that. I still encourage him to take it up again. He was talented and it is a good thing for them to play a sport.

We had a rule that they could try different things but if we bought equipment (uniform etc.) they had to continue with it for six months. Then they could drop it if they didn’t like it.

@creative1, I don’t think they did more than one activity at a time before they started school. I didn’t send them to preschool so I’m saying before they were five and started school. I’m trying to remember if they did more than one activity at a time when they were elementary school age and I think perhaps my son’s activities sort of overlapped; basketball and wrestling maybe. I can’t remember. I remember going to his first wrestling match and seeing all the boys in their singlets and thinking our team may be in trouble because they had on gym shorts clothes and tennis shoes. lol

My husband’s niece has two children, a boy 8 and a girl 12. Everyone in the family talks about how she has the kids involved in too much. They have always been active in extracurricular activities and it is all they know. Their grades are superb and they are both seem mentally and physically healthy. We were talking about her busy schedule one day and how much money they spend on the activities. I told her my only advice is to enjoy every minute of all the hustle and bustle and make a kazallion good memories because it goes by very quickly.

@bkcunningham Thank you for the information, I think I may have her try both activities but try to have the gymnastics start up again when the soccer season may be coming to an end. This way she will get a little feel of how it is to do both but not have it go too long to wear her out. That way if she wants to go to soccer again in the spring we will know if we should put gymnastics on hold or not while its going on.