Kids sports/extra curriculars and $$$

Yes, he was slaughtered. She placed fourth in the stockshow which means she goes to auction and her steer goes to slaughter. It was hard. We all cried, my two year old cried for an hour. We could all hear him mooing to my daughter from the trailer. It was tough, but it teaches all our kids where their food comes from. They know that the neat we eat doesn't just come from the grocery store. It teaches them to be responsible stewards of the environment because the grass and the steer is chewing on, is going to meat in your belly one day. We have raised pigs the last three years, but this year it was her last year, so it was go big or go home.


Disclaimer*** we don't eat our own animals unless it's the chickens and then they get processed and go in the freezer. Our animals that go to auction get sold and slaughtered to a different source

Plus the kids know going into the project that it is for meat production, but we always end up getting extremely attached.
Wow. That is tough. I couldn't do it. (Also why I didn't go to veterinary school.)

But I agree with what you are saying. Your DD is a strong young lady! Good for her.
 
Wow. That is tough. I couldn't do it. (Also why I didn't go to veterinary school.)

But I agree with what you are saying. Your DD is a strong young lady! Good for her.
Thank you so much for the compliment. There are days she makes me want to pull my hair out
 
Here are the Stay To Play rules for one of the larger competitions (NCA Dallas) that usually draws well over 25,000 athletes from numerous countries for the 3 day weekend.

http://nca.s3.varsity.com.s3.amazonaws.com/Files/links/asn_stay_to_play_policy.pdf
Pretty extensive 2 page document. They are pretty strict, do check, and run an after competition audit to make sure nobody cancelled their rooms before the competition. It really doesn't matter though because pretty much every hotel in Dallas blocks out all their rooms for that weekend so you couldn't book a room within half an hour of the convention center on your own if you wanted to. Even if you have family in the area you have to get it approved to stay with them and not at a Stay To Play hotel. Usually it is approved, but they have the right to not approve it.

Since there are 5 floors + the arena going from 8am to 10pm at night, for our gym at least, it would be virtually impossible to have just a couple of chaperones per team travel with the team. Our younger athletes are not even allowed to wander the halls to the bathroom unaccompanied due to the craziness of 75,000 people in a convention center. Our gym brings over 500 athletes to Dallas each year and requires one parent/chaperone per room to contain the craziness.

OK, that's a big competition; ours do not reach that size because we only allow the top 4-5 finishers in each division to move to the next level, so the competitions get smaller as you rise to more elite levels and draw from a wider geographic area, because only regional competitions are Opens; more elite National/Intl events are strictly Invitational. (This is deliberate, to avoid competitions running to more than 5 days; they don't want Olympic-style situations, where the whole world shows up in one place and it takes two weeks for all of them to have a chance to compete.) When you have one parent per room, it's the same as what we do with one chaperone per room: each 4 girls (one of them is the chaperone's daughter) are the responsibility of that chaperone from the time they are dropped off locally at the airport or club parking lot (for bus trips), until they are signed back out by a parent at that location when they return home. Any time they go ANYWHERE other than practice or performance when traveling together they must move in pairs with a buddy, and bathroom breaks are normally taken in the locker room area at the arena, not in the public bathrooms that spectators use. Using our system, the number of rooms we book in the bloc normally equals out to about half as many as the number of athletes rostered for the competition: if we have 200 athletes we will have just under 100 rooms in our bloc.

I just read that NCA rules page that was linked, and I also just proved that requiring spectators to stay in the room blocs for such events is unenforceable -- I went out to EventBrite and went through the motions to buy a ticket, and they were happy to sell me one (to a competition this weekend.) Ticket sales being open to the general public, there is no way that the governing body can police whether or not a spectator is also a guest at a bloc hotel. While I'm sure that you get a pre-purchase discount on spectator tickets if you buy them through the organization instead of at the box office, if the price-gouging is as severe as you say it is, then that discount cannot be worth it. Your organization is twisting the arms of your program directors to harass everyone into doing it, but if every parent in your program decided tomorrow that families will not be attending this competition to watch, there isn't a dang thing that NCA could do to force them to go. You cannot compete without your athletes and your coaches, but spectators are fully optional. It sounds to me like there is a very cozy relationship between NCA and the Dallas CVB that bears examination; this arrangement smacks of price-fixing.

You know, this whole topic got me thinking, and I did a little digging around to see if it has ever been covered in the news in the Dallas area. I found this article in Inc. magazine that discusses the rather interesting relationship that cheerleading governing bodies apparently have with uniform mfrs -- I think y'all need to watch those folks really closely, it looks like there could be a fair amount of shady dealing going on: https://www.inc.com/magazine/201603...tic-custom-cheerleading-uniforms-startup.html
 
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This! I was a competitive dancer for 10 years! My parents spent a fortune on my dance. I am in my mid 20's now. We still talk about my dance life everyday. It taught me so much. My parents had no regrets paying for it.
My daughter is making a career out of teaching dance now. It is crazy how much she is paid per hour but she now holds ballet certification ( she can put exams out). She loves working with the kids ( and Seniors too)
 


My 9 yo niece is in dance and competitive figure skating. Her goal is to go to the Olympics and then skate for Disney on Ice! She takes 2 lessons a week with an experienced coach for around $30 a half hour, 1 lesson from a beginning coach which is probably around $15, several classes both on and off ice which vary in cost, ice time which is about $14 an hour for both lessons & practice. Skates are over $200 a pair, skating dresses are at least $100 each. Competitions run about $50-100 for each event she is in (she's only on the ice for 1-2 minutes for each event)plus the coach's fees, ice time, etc. Travel expenses to and from competitions for the family. The coach's expenses are divided between the skaters. Plus club fees and volunteer time for the parents. Right now her competitions are local or 3-6 hours away so drivable. She is on the verge of moving up to the regional team which means farther travel for harder competitions and a 2 week "boot camp" in Virginia Beach in the summer. Right now is her busiest time of the year with school winding down, dance recital and extra practices for that and her skating club is putting on their annual ice show. She is in 4 numbers each for the dance recital and the ice show. She is at the rink a couple of mornings before school and several evenings for couple of hours. She says this is her last year of dance. She is the type of kid who wants to do everything and is generally good at whatever she tries, her 11 yo brother is the complete opposite- a homebody who has no interest in any type of sports. He is fairly good at bowling but has no interest in joining a league.
Your niece is only at the low end for costs. Those skates are soon going to cost $750 for the boot and another 500 for the blades. The skating dresses will soon be closer to $1000. A coach at 30 to 60 an hour is cheap. Top Olympic coaches charge $150+ per hour. Disney on Ice is a great goal. But a 9 year old who wants to go to the Olympics should almost be working on triples and training 20 hours a week.
 
Your niece is only at the low end for costs. Those skates are soon going to cost $750 for the boot and another 500 for the blades. The skating dresses will soon be closer to $1000. A coach at 30 to 60 an hour is cheap. Top Olympic coaches charge $150+ per hour. Disney on Ice is a great goal. But a 9 year old who wants to go to the Olympics should almost be working on triples and training 20 hours a week.

Yep. When the US ladies' champion is 13 (which is RIDICULOUSLY young to be allowed to compete as a Senior, IMO), female singles skaters have to be well ahead of the local pack by age 9 if they want to be ranked. An hour/wk of lessons isn't going to be enough if she has Grand Prix ambitions.

I cannot tell you how glad I am that my skater loathes competing in singles. She does what she has to for testing, but that's it. (The skates are still expensive, though: $650 for the last pr., and she's only in CA blades. I know the price of them will nearly double over the next couple of years.) At Synchro Natls this year, I looked down at the awards podium and realized I was looking at about $70,000 on the hoof, so to speak. (Just what was on their feet; not counting the costumes.)
 
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We spend about $600 per month on dd16's dance. This does not include costumes, competition entry and masterclass fees, dance clothes and various types of shoes during the year. Younger dd14 would be about $200 per month plus the above, but she is in it for fun. I figure its not just about the dancing but what they get out of it long term in regards to discipline, commitment, learning to work in a team environment, keeping them busy etc.
 


I have 3 daughters. All 3 play lacrosse on both club teams and town/high school varsity teams. With the club, we travel to tournaments in the fall and summer, with many hotel stays and some plane travel. My oldest is also a high school freshman and is hoping to play in college, so we have been going to college clinics at schools she’s interested in, paying a private goalie coach almost weekly, and getting her personal training at a sports gym in her off season from high school sports. The travel is the variable. I’d estimate that we spend about $15-20k easy each year on lax, probably more. Most is on my oldest DD, though. Youngest ones have $2k in fees each and don’t have any tournaments that we fly to get there.

Oldest was previously on a club swim team until this winter. That ran about $3k for the year, I think. Now she’s just doing high school swimming. High school swim fee was a couple hundred.

Middle daughter age 12 does competition dance and karate (in addition to the lax above). With tuition, comp fees, hotels, costumes, and all the other crap we have to buy, that’s probably about $5000 for the year. Karate is another maybe $1500-$2000/year.

Youngest DD age 9 does lax from above, karate at $1500-$2000/year, select travel soccer through our town (not club, but town soccer tryout elite team, so cheap) at maybe $300/year, and just started playing hockey in September. Surprise! She is actually really good and tried out and made a good club team. Yay for more club team fees! lol! I think the fees are $3500, but I have no clue what the other costs will be. Much of her gear that she used this past year was borrowed from friends since she was just “trying” it. She just got new skates and had her own “Jill” (I think that’s what DH called it), but the rest is borrowed. Since they are so young, I don’t think there is much, if any, far travel involved. She’s doing a power skating clinic now and will get some private hockey lessens, too. Clinic was $600 and lessons are $70/session. Guessing that hockey will run maybe $6000 or so for the year.

Let’s see, totaling that up, we pay maybe $35k for sports for 3 kids.
 
Kids sports and extra curriculars, how much is too much? How much do you spend annually on your child's sports or other extra curricular activities.

I have two kids - my oldest is involved in a very affordable team sport, season runs from Early Fall - late Spring, the cost for the team is under $200, everyone uses the same standard equipment that is affordable and the cost for each competition is $50 or less and in general there are only 4-5 competitions a year. She also sings in a children's choir which is more expensive, but still reasonable and again runs from September - April. And finally both kids are involved in scouts which is very inexpensive. The total for all her activities is well under $2000 a year.

My youngest is getting older, has been doing gymnastics for a couple of years now, just a recreational class once a week. Recently she was asked to try out for the competitive team. I called to ask for more information, including information on pricing and it's high IMO. The first year is pre-team - 4 hours a week, year round, $170 a month. Expensive, but do-able, we could swing this.

However, after that first year on pre-team, they are expected to continue onto the competitive team where the price goes up to $255 a month, the commitment goes up to 9 hours a week and then there are meet fees on top of the $255 a month to the tune of $1300 a year. Plus I assume fees for leotards and uniforms and travel to competitions. Over 4K a year.

I hesitate to say we could not afford it, but I will say it is way more than I am willing to spend on a 10 year old. She enjoys gymnastics, but she is not a future olympian.

And that got me to thinking - what do people spend on their kids sports? What is "reasonable" for your family? My kids have never played "typical" kid sports such as rec soccer or t-ball, let alone competitive travel teams. What do these things cost? Is 4K a year for competitive gymnastics in line or out of line for other competitive/travel level sports?



No question it has become a money and time pit. We finally limited our kids to no more than two activities during the year. They had to make some choices. But friends of mine that got into gymnastics, swimming, etc could not believe the time commitment required and the financial pressure.

Parents out there, as a former college coach I assure you the chances of your kid getting a scholarship are relatively small. Find things they enjoy and if they show exceptional ability you and they will know it. Otherwise do a lot of activities especially when they are young and understand that only the elite are going to get the diminishing scholarship opportunities. Let your kids enjoy the experience and if they are gifted things will take care of themselves.
 

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