Great tip for you to Express this point. How do you expect a kid to control another kid when he can't control his own body. Once a kid can control his own body with balance you can ask him to try control another kid
I think it depends on the maturity of a young kid, including a 1st or 2nd age group. My kid is 7 years old, but he is very very mature for his age. He is a kid, of course. He loves to have fun. His fun is practicing and doing tournaments. He just really enjoys it. If he loses, he is sad for maybe 2 minutes tops. He wins more than he loses, which probably makes it more fun for him than most. But again, if he was likened to some of his friends who are emotional, can't control their body, and doesn't enjoy it- everything you say I would agree with- keep them out of competing until these things come to fruition in their own time.
@Marten Dekker yes, I understand. We can be biased. I thought about much about my kids doing tournaments or not. I have a 10 year old in wrestling, but he is VERY emotional and doesn't win much. We hardly ever do tournaments. I never force it, and if he chooses to do it, he can, and if not, then not. His experience is MUCH different than his brother. Personally, I encourage him to stay away from them until he gets better at the basics and his foundation is stronger. Again, as I said above, my 7 year old has so much fun doing them. He wins 95 percent of them time. He has fun because it's easy for him. He is not as emotional either. I am biased, but I am not blindly biased because I am their dad. You think I would encourage more of my 10 year old than my 7 year old to do tournaments, but it's the other way around because of their skill, emotional and physical level.
Wrestling is a play time activity for 7 years olds. The same problem eexist with all youth sports trying to specialize young ones when they need to play all kinds of sports.
They are giving out black belts to seven y/o kids in TKD because of the money the schools can get, smh. Are there economic reasons in wrestling where kids are competing at too young an age?
I understand the point, but it seems like our society is leaning more and more towards expecting less and less out of our children. Bottom line is you will be better the younger you start, no matter the sport. Sure there are a few outlier stories but lets face it, we wouldn't have Spencer Lee or those types if they started competing when they are in middle school. I think the focus should be at educating parents about this fragile age group and changing the mindset of the league in youth wrestling. I mean, why is there even a referee for 5-6 year olds? And there does need to be a much stricter boundary for parents at young ages. All that said, I think Ben is on to something and it is an important topic that should be discussed in the community... I just get really nervous when I start hearing the "we need to be easier on the kids" mentality...
So the argument is don’t have your young kids compete because parents are jerks and crazy? How about just be civil and encourage kids and let them have fun
Hey Ben big fan. I think kids competing to win is what is wrong, i think the entire point of kids learning to wrestle when there kids is for the sole purpose of leaning the fundamentals and building a base to set them up for success later down the road. I think parents take it too far when they start worrying about kids W/L ratios. Nobody cares about elementary level wrestling. Parents should understand until theh reach the level 4 on the Tanner scale, there's really no point in pushing them hard
I know you're not about mma on this channel, but I really hope you dominate the fight on Saturday. The UFC could use another star that's actually a decent person.
