Fatherhood anonymous; an open discussion on being a dad.

[Dantheman]

Avoid the youth sports industrial complex as long as you can. Comp teams for 7 year olds are crazy. Find other ways to challenge him so he's not a big fish in a small pond.

[Touring_Sedan]

Avoid the youth sports industrial complex as long as you can. Comp teams for 7 year olds are crazy. Find other ways to challenge him so he's not a big fish in a small pond.

Truth. We switched the girl, 7, from a comp league to a rec soccer league this year. It was night and day. She's actually having fun in the rec league. They don't stop the game every 6 seconds, the refs are reasonable and realize they're dealing with children and the parents are having a better time too. Win.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

[riser4]

Truth. We switched the girl, 7, from a comp league to a rec soccer league this year. It was night and day. She's actually having fun in the rec league. They don't stop the game every 6 seconds, the refs are reasonable and realize they're dealing with children and the parents are having a better time too. Win.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

At that age, they haven't figured out positioning and it's like watching seagulls chase a French frie.

[subtle plague]

At that age, they haven't figured out positioning and it's like watching seagulls chase a French frie.

I thought you'd use a more tgresque metaphor like hot milfs chasing fastfred.

[Harry]

Now you're talking. Given that he's managed to establish a reputation among the local little kids, I think it's about time to take a dive against one of the least fancied teams in the league...

Though that actually does remind me of one of the worries I have that prompted this post before I got off track complaining about seriousness of club teams. I'm a bit worried that if he is always the best player and basically always wins thst he will come to expect it and basically won't know how to deal with adversity/not being the best. I'm a professor and have seen a lot of smart students fall into crisis because they got to college and now were in the middle of the distribution rather than the stars they were at their high schools. Their self-identity was too caught up with always being the best. I'd kind of like him to get his butt kicked sometime so he can build some resilience.

A lot of truth to this.

One saying I consistently heard during my Navy career was pilots saying that you don’t want your wingman to be the guy who graduated 1st in flight school. That guy breezed through no problem. The guy you want as a wingman graduated #2 in his class. He was not a natural, but fought and scraped his way almost to the top. And when it comes to combat, the #1 person will be way over their head and unable to adapt. The #2 person will adapt easily to combat situations.

Supposedly the military has studied this phenomena as far back as WW1 and WW2 and it holds up to academic scrutiny. But I only heard it anecdotally so WTF do I know.

[californiagrown]

A lot of truth to this.

One saying I consistently heard during my Navy career was pilots saying that you don’t want your wingman to be the guy who graduated 1st in flight school. That guy breezed through no problem. The guy you want as a wingman graduated #2 in his class. He was not a natural, but fought and scraped his way almost to the top. And when it comes to combat, the #1 person will be way over their head and unable to adapt. The #2 person will adapt easily to combat situations.

Supposedly the military has studied this phenomena as far back as WW1 and WW2 and it holds up to academic scrutiny. But I only heard it anecdotally so WTF do I know.

Hard work beats talent when talent doesnt work hard. Its why the GOATs all have some failure story that put a chip on their shoulder that they constantly have to prove themselves (Tom Brady, MJ, etc).

IMO the key is to get the kid hooked. And then introduce competition so that the challenge of getting better and competing is fun and self driven instead of driven by a want to please the parent.

[anotherVTskibum]

Avoid the youth sports industrial complex as long as you can. Comp teams for 7 year olds are crazy. Find other ways to challenge him so he's not a big fish in a small pond.

The crazy part is that I know that--at least in the ski racing world--the sports education types openly acknowledge that kids that young should be playing multiple sports and not specializing, but then there are summer ski camps for nine-year-olds. It also doesn't help when you start selecting kids for the elite path vs a "normal" one before they turn 14, and we are absolutely guilty of that in ski racing. Shifrin aside, it doesn't usually make sense to try to identify top athletes that soon.

[Danno]

My daughter is 12 and the amount of commitment expected to keep ski racing is insane.

[basinbeater]

Take em biking...

[lowsparkco]

There’s so much wrong with youth sports in ‘Merica - I feel for those of you navigating it. I remember the excitement and pride in making a great play, but I also remember “building character” being a role player or on the practice squad. Kids should get to experience both of those things. Being a good teammate is the most valuable thing 95% of youth athletes will learn. Trying to get a college scholarship or think of going pro is fantasy land for so many.

[basinbeater]

I coach youth hockey and soccer, and I love it. I do rec league teams for my 8yo daughter, and I have coached soccer and hockey up to peewee age for my son. It has been so good for them, and I absolutely love it. They have learned they are not the best. They have learned that they play because it is fun. It is fun to compete, it is fun to try hard. They also learn that they can. They can do it. They can succeed sometimes through hard work and learning from those with more experience and knowledge than themselves. If you have a good coach who has the right priorities, youth sports can be great. Positive attitudes, teamwork, and fun. That is the objective, yes I like to win, and so do my kids, but winning comes from these things, not the other way around.
My boy has moved on to play more competitive hockey, but it can't get too serious, because I'm going skiing on Sundays. And he has discovered this year that he loves riding bikes.

Look for good positive coaches and don't push em. They have to play cause it's fun, then it's a great time.

[Core Shot]

Hard work beats talent when talent doesnt work hard.

Never heard that saying. I like it.
Unfortunately for me i coasted through academics. I need a better work ethic. But it’s probably to late for me.

[Touring_Sedan]

This is the first season the girl was tall enough to do some of the rides. Apparently, barely.

[basinbeater]

Haha, sweet. My kids got their first roller coaster this summer, a refurbished wooden one back east that I gotta say was pretty intense. Neither of them made a peep the whole way around the thing, they were speechless for like the first time ever.

[basinbeater]

My boy just rode his bike to school.
I'm so happy!
Almost as happy as he was.

[bodywhomper]

Woot!!! To the bike commuting!

My oldest became discouraged from riding for several years because his close friends/peers all became very high level in junior high and HS, sporting a quiver of high end bikes that they frequently broke or annually replaced. He was discouraged because of their skill levels, high risk levels (several broke themselves pretty bad), and the high value bikes they rode compared to the used beaters that I could make available. Now he’s at college with his lower end gravel bike (grad gift) and rides it night and day: rides into town, trail rides (next to campus), rides to classes, night rides. He’s stoked and thoroughly enjoying the freedom. As a dad, I’m super happy.

[lowsparkco]

Anyone struggle with vaccinating their little one?

I just took mine in for her second round. It makes me more and more anxious each time.

I had a super severe reaction when I was an infant. It’s a difficult thing to talk about as it seems to polarize our society. I noticed this time they gave us information about a federal fund to pay damages to families who’s children are injured or killed by the vaccines. Ironic how they tell you how safe they are and that there’s a minuscule chance that your child will be hurt, but just in case here’s some info about a fund that will write you a check if something goes wrong. Money would seem like a poor substitute for a perfectly healthy child.

[schuss]

Anyone struggle with vaccinating their little one?

I just took mine in for her second round. It makes me more and more anxious each time.

I had a super severe reaction when I was an infant. It’s a difficult thing to talk about as it seems to polarize our society. I noticed this time they gave us information about a federal fund to pay damages to families who’s children are injured or killed by the vaccines. Ironic how they tell you how safe they are and that there’s a minuscule chance that your child will be hurt, but just in case here’s some info about a fund that will write you a check if something goes wrong. Money would seem like a poor substitute for a perfectly healthy child.

Better than a "too bad". Nothing is perfect. Vaccines protect against the likely and probable risks through techniques that occasionally hit snake eyes (and by that I mean it's insanely rare). Don't conflate the potential for something with the protection one gets. It is far more likely your child would catch one of the items in the vaccines and die or face serious complications from it than have impacts from the vaccine itself. I caught Measles (vaccine protection was dated or didn't work) in my 20's in Boston from just riding a subway, so there's no way to meaningfully protect them otherwise. My kids would just get tired and go to bed early.

[yeahman]

Anyone struggle with vaccinating their little one?

Yes I did a bit. It's not an easy thing to see a stranger sticking needles in your kid and injecting something you really have no control over. It's a situation where you really need to place all your trust in the professionals and hope for the best. It helped me a lot that my mom was a nurse with an incredible intuition about human health issues. She was a strong believer in vaccines, I suppose because she had seen firsthand the ravages of some of these diseases on children. But I totally understand how you feel.

[subtle plague]

Vaccines are always better than the disease. Otherwise they would not be approved.

My kids have never had any issues. Just as the other 99+% of vaxed kids.

[Todd Zander]

Thing #4 at 18 month checkup the other day and we rest easy knowing our pcp doesnt have to think twice about discussing and administering vaccines, we are not subject matter experts in medicine.

[SchralphMacchio]

Vaccines are always better than the disease. Otherwise they would not be approved.

My kids have never had any issues. Just as the other 99+% of vaxed kids.

It’s like 99.999+%. Getting struck by lightning is like 10-100x more likely.

The other thing is probability and consequences. The consequences of vaccine related injury range from an acute 30 minute reaction to a few days of allergy issues, to, yes, blood clots or other rare conditions that could linger for weeks. At a 1 in 100,000 to 1 in 1 million probability. The probability of death or permanent injury from a vaccine is even lower. Can you trust them? Sure, there are ultra rare swiss cheese accidents where the chain of custody controls for a vaccine can break down and something wildly rare can happen too … But diseases like RSV can permanently debilitate kids … at much much much much higher probability.

I’m not an expert, but my wife is. She’s the one who spent 7 years of her life training to be a doctor, studying for the hardest tests, reading peer reviewed papers, etc. She’s the one pleading with parents when the kids are born to do vitamin k injections and other shots. The parents who say to her, “I just don’t know who to trust,” don’t understand the rigor that doctors need to go through to provide trustworthy medical advice, rigor that random people on Youtune don’t have to go through.

My wife is also the one who treats those same unvaccinated kids who are coding with RSV at 6 weeks of age, stressing to keep them alive. “I almost watched a baby die today” is something I hear a lot at the dinner table. Last November’s tripledemic for young kids was very very real.

I get that needles are scary. I get that it’s an ordeal to teach your kids that the super quick nurse who pokes you is trying to keep you safe and that trust me the other kids will think your bamdaid is super cool and yes you can play with the iPad after we get home from clinic because you are super brave, while they might kick and scream. I get that we don’t get to watch the cooks in the kitchen and it’s a leap of faith to trust it. But really - with those odds, just ask any gambler or hedge fund trader how they would feel about vaccines. Slam dunk doesn’t even come close describing the probabilistic outcomes of with vs without.

$0.02 from someone living with someone who tries to keep kids alive on a daily basis.

[Touring_Sedan]

I remember both of our kid's pediatricians tiptoeing around the vaccination subject when it was time for the kids' first rounds. The look of relief on their faces when we told them fuck yes we're vaccinating was hilarious.

[lowsparkco]

I understand what you guys are saying and some good points are being made. I didn’t emphasize it in my first post, so I will reiterate. I have a congenital autoimmune disease. When the second round of vaccines were administered to me at 4 months old, albeit May of 1976, I ran a dangerously high fever for almost 5 hours. My pediatrician was surprised that there weren’t more lasting implications. So, my concern is not winning the reverse lottery, it’s that my child’s family history indicates a greater likelihood of being a statistic.

IMO, that hints at the great problem we’re facing as a society. We’re rather trained to pick a side and SHOUT at each other. We fail to see a lot of the nuances. You don’t have to be an immunologist to recognize that a parent having an adverse reaction would be a indication of higher risk.

Many of you have brought up some great points, and ultimately it does break down to something like the danger you can see (adverse reaction to the vaccine) vs. the danger that is unknown (actually contracting one of the diseases you are inoculating against). It’s simply a dicey issue, whether you realize it or not. Having family history makes it more complicated. I also have a close family friend, who around the same time, spring of 1976, was left completely incapacitated after a round of vaccines, she was 6 months old. I realize that one anecdotal experience does not change the odds, that doesn’t make it less stark.

I do very much appreciate the empathy this morning. It has helped me process.

[basinbeater]

Woot!!! To the bike commuting!

My oldest became discouraged from riding for several years because his close friends/peers all became very high level in junior high and HS, sporting a quiver of high end bikes that they frequently broke or annually replaced. He was discouraged because of their skill levels, high risk levels (several broke themselves pretty bad), and the high value bikes they rode compared to the used beaters that I could make available. Now he’s at college with his lower end gravel bike (grad gift) and rides it night and day: rides into town, trail rides (next to campus), rides to classes, night rides. He’s stoked and thoroughly enjoying the freedom. As a dad, I’m super happy.

Interesting, it is tough as kids become aware of the level on the totem pole their things are relative to others.
I did get him a bit of a fancy bike for an 11yo, but I hunted and found a kick ass used deal because I am not made of money.
But he's stoked, he wants to clean his bike all the time. He even looked like a little bike commuter stomping up the last hill to school. Mom took a pic because she has to drive the little one to school.
Interestingly, he is acting much more grown up with the bike commuting, doing better at getting ready in the am, walking the dog, etc.
I'm super happy about it.