Anyone have DC who are on performance pathways for sport?

[Amoregelato]

And if so how much time does it take up and how do you manage?

We have 4 DC. We are naturally a very spotty family and all the dc have played sport to at least county level. We have always encouraged and supported but we are also aware that the likelihood of them becomes elite sports people is low.

At the moment two of them compete at a high level (competing a national level competitions in their age groups). I am finding it so hard to juggle everything. From September, there is training or competition for someone at least every evening and day at the weekend (often multiple people). Everything has to be planned in advance. We have very little flexibility and I am constantly letting someone down (friends/family/kids/sports teams) so that we do try and please everyone.

How do other people do it?

Yes we do but only one of them. We tag team training and competitions for one and make sure we spend times with the other. Training is 6 days a week all year round and more than 1 session a day then competitions at weekends for quite a few months of the year. We know more or less when the right competitions are so can plan ahead reasonably well but everything goes on family phone calendar.

Both my children are on performance pathways in two different sports, also competing at national level in their age groups. It is full on, and all consuming. It requires my husband and me to work our schedules to military precision. There was some leeway to juggle when it was just my oldest playing at a high level, but once my youngest joined them there was no more flexibility.

It is only possible because my husband runs his own company so can take the slack in the evenings, and weekends are shared between us. If there is a clash, we take one child each. We spend so much time on the road driving to competitions, it is exhausting to even think about.

You have my sympathy having to manage 4 children

Get friendly with other parents in the team to share the travel.

We didn't do it. 😅

Two of my four kids were at national level when quite young and they loved their activity but we all gradually realised that we didn't want to devote the hours and hours to training and competitions. They were naturally really good but to continue to improve they would have had to sacrifice hours and hours of their time. They liked doing all sorts of other things.
Maybe they would have been Olympic champions by now but we will never know.
They are adults now and still do the activity at county level so I see that as a win.

I used to carpool with my friends whose kids did 25 hours of gymnastics a week. Everything was always a rush and the kids were tired. I didn't want that for my kids or family.

It makes a difference which sport or activity, some are a lot more intense than others.