If your child does a hobby competitively/at a high end…

[Naptrappedmummy]

How old were they when they started?

DD is 4. I didn’t have any hobbies growing up, but I remember those who played sport/music competitively or at a high level started quite young. I want to give DD this opportunity, so I was just wondering what age your child started, how you decided what they would do, and so on.

(Please know I’m not a pushy parent, if at any point she wants to stop that’s fine, I just don’t want to miss the boat for her to do well if she finds something she really likes)

thank you!

Bump

The only person I know who has a competitive sport started at 4. But it was something they would always have started young - swimming. They were just obviously very good at it very early. But most kids do something then. Recorder in school, or football at the weekends? Just let them try what they fancy, and see if anything sticks!

I had child into swimming at regional level and she did ballet for 12 years. Not doing them now but she started ballet at 5 and swimming at 9 or so but it really is the earlier the better.
The best thing is to enjoy and try lots of sports and clubs and just see if she seems to enjoy one or is good at it.
My DD's county wanted her to join their development team but she got to the age where she just didn't want to go that next step her choice.

Dd started instrument lessons at 3, singing at 5, she now plays semi professionally and sings professionally. She plays 6 instruments picking them up along the way but it's not a given that starting early means success, the fact she's autistic probably does help though

Choose wisely.
Many competitive sports are very time consuming, swimming with training at 5am a few times a week is a tough one. Gymnastics and figure skating also massively training heavy and potential unfriendly hours. Horse riding and sailing are wildly expensive. Ice sports need you to be near a rink.
Team sports seem less painful (I am a swim mum).
Best to expose your DC to music and sport and dance/drama and see what they like. The basics of football, ballet and music lessons will give a solid foundation for many future activities.

Competitive hobbies are very time intensive. My DS played football at a high level and we were travelling for games for hours on end on weekends. The coaches sold the dream and some kids and parents were completely sucked in by it. DS hated the pressure and the restrictions on his down-time so he quit. It was the best decision for him and now just kicks a ball at lunchtime with his peers.

As it happens he's now very good at another sport and looking to play at a higher level - he's happy with that. He didn't start taking part in this until he was 12 and far better than a lot of others that have been doing it for years.

Just let your DDs choices evolve organically rather than push her into something - it'll be pressure on her and who knows what she'll be excellent at...if anything (which is fine!).

I think if you do anything to a high level there's got to be an element of natural talent and a real want to do it. Because no matter how good a swimmer you are, it takes some determination to drag yourself out of bed at 4:30am 3 times a week when you're a teenager!! Same with music, you can have a natural talent or flair for it but you've got to put in the hours of practice.
At 4 i would sign her up for swimming lessons and see if she's any interest in age appropriate dance or gymnastics. She could also do junior parkrun if you have one locally (all abilities welcome but if she enjoys it that might lead her into wanting to join an athletics club).

I think at that age it has to be fun and interactive for them, by around 6/7 they start to form their own opinions about clubs. Although I’ve had to insist mine stick things out when they hit a rough patch.

Both DD’s play county for hockey and Dd1 netball too. Dd2 has just started hockey GK training. At 4 they both played tag rugby, they also did swimming, ballet and gymnastics. Dd1 played recorder and piano at various points before finally settling on the guitar and more recently she’s taken on the harp too.

Start early and if they seem to have a talent for whatever it may be, encourage it as much as you can but be prepared for it to take over your life. Your weekends will no longer be your own especially when they start playing competitively, we’ve got a 9.30am kick off, 40 miles away this Sunday!

At the end of the day it's a hobby.

My dd started dance just before her 3rd birthday and did very well, she just happened to have an aptitude for it. I know someone else who didn't start dance until she was 9 and she also did well, she is now a dance teacher. People can start singing or drama at any age, and musicians very often don't start to take it seriously until their teens. Younger children sometimes find it very difficult to grapple with an instrument, their hands are too small. It can be counter-productive to start some physical activities too early as they haven't yet developed rhythm or co-ordination for the activity, and they lose interest because they can't do it.

Don't worry about it. Most kids who start any activity are just doing it for fun and nothing more, and only a handful would show any real talent for it anyway.

My dd started at 5, although she had watched her brothers taking part since she was a baby.
She would nag her coach to let her train but coaches rule was not until they were in school.

She had a passion for the sport from the beginning, and has competed at national level. Next step for her is selection for team GB but, she now has an injury which will limit her training for another six months on top of the six months she's already missed.

My advice is to try as much as possible until they get to around 9 or 10, then start to narrow it down. In dds sport, those that started at this age are able to narrow the gap if they are passionate and train hard.

I did a sport quite seriously as a teenager. I started when I was 8.

I think it's about finding what she enjoys. I tried lots of things and actually felt quite pressured to 'find my thing'. Some of those lessons and camps, etc. ended in tears and a lot of stress. I wasn't good at ice skating at all but I had to keep doing it for awhile until my parents finally gave up!

Dd is actually quite good at a sport, though we don't really do it much (because dh and I probably the opposite of pushy parents!). It's more of an adult sport than one you see a lot of kids doing - think rowing (it's not) or surfing - but I'd say she first started doing it maybe 6/7. Before that she just would have been too young and it could have been dangerous.

Music wise there's no rush to start "an instrument" as unless they love the idea of strings where there are decent fractional sized options it's better to be big enough for the normal instruments and in some woodwind/brass having adult teeth at least at the front is fairly key.

On the other hand, good quality musicianship lessons are worth doing as early as possible.

Sport, most early specialisation isn't necessary but recreational gymnastics, multisports or a sensible mainstream sport with a lot of youth classes that work mostly on general co-ordination are a good starting place to keeping options open.

They want to be active at 4, finding the "right" sport is less important!

I think the trick is let them try things without pressure- and it doesn’t always have to be a termly commitment, my eldest try’s diff camps in the school holidays eg. Tennis- to see what she likes. I will say please ease up the pressure, despite the note about not being a pushy parent you have already set a huge expectation. See what they enjoy and are good at- my eldest enjoys many things she’s not naturally good at.

It will really depend on the sport.

TlDH coaches a youth team... one of his Girls has just had a County selection... after playing for a year at 16. But its a sport that girls often pick up at Secondary school.

From age 2 onwards we exposed both children to a range of activities and hoped that one would stick. From age 4/5 it became clear that one child was going to favour sports, and the other was drawn to the creative arts. From what I've noticed in my own children and others is that you simply cannot 'force' anything. You can only expose to as much as possible and see what sticks, then massively encourage.

Once we spotted what are children favoured and excelled at we ploughed a bit of money into extra sessions and one-to-ones. I read recently someone questioned why you spend so much on maths tutoring when your child is bad at maths. Why not spend that much on the things they are good at and really see them excel in what they are naturally meant to do. I'd never read that perspective before and it really resonated.

Find what they like and are good at, then put time, effort, money etc into that. Yes, as early as possible is good, but I've seen kids only come to football for example, at age 8, rather than age 3/4 and end up doing just as well.

I think @NotFastButFurious nailed it. “High level” requires talent and ambition. It also requires mental resilience and broader family support. I wouldn’t push a child unless they showed genuine talent coupled with determination and the mental resilience to cope with the demands. So much neuroses comes out of competition- in children and parents! And all other adults around.

My DD dances. She had lessons as a child, trained professionally and now runs her own school. She started lessons when she was about 2 and a half. Not my choice - I never danced and knew nothing about it but she saw a ballet class on a tv programme and went on and on about it incessantly for weeks. Eventually I found a teacher who said that she could come for a trial lesson even though she was too young really and that was it. She went for the trial lesson and ended up practically living in that studio til she was in her teens. Not sure I would have taken her if I had known what would follow to be honest. It was very hard in many ways, plus time consuming and expensive. But I do genuinely think it is something that is just in her. She never wavered. Even when her friends were getting ponies, or later going to parties with boyfriends, dancing was always her priority. I don't think I could have stopped her if I had tried. Well, not and maintain a relationship with her anyway!
My sons didn't really get into their hobbies until they were a bit older - 7 or 8. They weren't pushing to do stuff until then. Though if I am brutally honest, they were being dragged around to dance events all the time when they were younger anyway and I didn't have the capacity to manage another all consuming hobby. My elder son is quite talented musically and he had lessons and competed in competitions until he went to University. That was comparatively easy as the teacher was very local to us and whilst we did travel to competitions they were not that frequent. Plus practice was at home. And it was never more than a hobby for him so far less intense than DD's schedule.
Younger DS does 2 sports to a reasonably good standard - regional rather than national level. He started them both at about 7 or 8 because he had school friends attending local clubs and he wanted to go too. He is naturally sporty and picks things up quickly so he could probably have done well at a variety of sports but happened to find nice, friendly clubs in these 2 and has stuck with them.
They've all done things I didn't know much about. None of our children have really got into DH and I's main hobby which is sailing. Well, they all come with us sometimes and know the basics, but it never really appealed hugely to any of them and we've never forced it. I have seen a lot of parents push their kids into things that they think they should enjoy and it rarely ends well so I was determined not to do that. If your DD shows a great interest in something then I would follow her lead. If not, expose her to lots of stuff and see if anything sticks. My boys both also got a lot out of Cubs and Scouts. As they do a lot of different things they're a good option for a child who likes to be active and inquisitive but doesn't have one main passion. We don't all have "a thing" after all, and I don't think you can force it. As others have said, the most important thing, especially at a young age, is that activities are fun.

The advantages of music and singing are the fellowship one gets from cooperating with others in an orchestra or a choir to make something much bigger than the 'sum of the parts'.
With music and other hobbies if one does not take it to professional level it can be a hobby throughout ones life. Similarly so can horses, or sailing or ice-sports.
Horses is the most expensive,sailing can be a shared hobby and away from competitive levels affordable.
Riding or sailing are more difficult for young people if the family do not participate.

Thank you everyone. Please don’t get me wrong, I have no specific ambition for my daughter to be a high level sportsperson or musician, I just wondered if she would ‘miss the boat’ to do any hobby to a high standard if she didn’t start reasonably young. Like I said all the girls at school who played sport competitively started quite young and by the time I realised I was interested in activities at 11-12 it felt too late, they filled all the teams.

She’s just started reception so I will probably leave it until next year then enrol her on a couple of things to see how she takes to them, if at all - probably 1 sports based and 1 creative.

Horse riding sounds like a non starter, shame because she adores horses and that’s what she would choose all day long! She was too scared of the pool to swim so I didn’t push that one but will try again at some point because it’s a safety/life skill.

If she’s scared of the pool then you really need to start taking her somewhere with a shallow warm kids pool and get her confident and happy playing in the water. You can’t expect her to just jump in and swim!

It was, it was a course of beginner lessons for her age group with a very experienced teacher. She just refused to get in (gutted, there goes £50) so we will try again in a few months.

My son (19) plays a sport at National and International level. He started when he was 11, but tried other sports when he was younger, including football, cricket, swimming, basketball, karate and more. He was competitive though, and whenever he realised he wasn't one of the 'best', he moved on and tried something else. Relatively niche sports are obviously easier to get to the top nationally than others. Like many kids, my son wanted to play for England, so he tried different sports until he found the one that could get him there. Wherever you live, look out for local clubs that are top of their leagues, winning national tournaments etc. My son's club is local to us, but has parents driving their kids from miles around to be members, due to the strong coaching, and national reputation.

You need to go swimming as a family rather than just throwing them into lessons. The most water confident kids I know have been going in a pool regularly since they were babies.

My DS is too young but I swam competitively as a teenager and started swimming lessons at 4.
However my parents had taken me themselves regularly from a few months old and this is what I now do with my 18mo. Even if swimming isn't going to be her chosen sport, she obviously still needs to learn to swim. Don't worry about booking lessons at all yet. Find a nice warm pool with a little slide, water fountains, floats etc, that she can walk into. Go regularly as a family with absolutely no pressure to have more than legs in the water walking and she'll soon start to enjoy playing. Gradually you can encourage more of body going in then blowing bubbles and that's the point when lessons are actually useful. I did the same with my non swimmer DH before DS came along!