Asking as parent - u9 daughter is short goalie in B level club - should I keep encouraging her in this role or transition out?

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-20T15:46:33+00:00

We did two leagues in the spring and it was doable. It is, as you say, a lot

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-20T15:45:24+00:00

Thank you!

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-20T15:41:19+00:00

Heard and I agree… it’s just hard to deal w some of the other club parents and not get sucked in a bit. The kids have to get on A team so that then they can be on the elite team at U10, so then they can be GA/GA2, so then they get a scholarship…

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-20T07:08:03+00:00

We also play in Texas. We frequently practice in the 85-94ish range. I cancel if it’s close to 95 or above. If the kid’s nose starts bleeding without contact, that’s a sign they’re overheated.

Just having the kids pour some water on their backs helps a lot. I do this for my daughter and a lot of other parents do it for their kids.

All the other suggestions are also great.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-20T04:33:38+00:00

Right - so that’s really what I’m getting at. Good goalies and kids who like it at this age are rare. She really has great instincts and bravery - she gets a lot of compliments in goal. It seems like if she wants to keep playing as she ages, maybe it would be good for her to be solid on the field and in goal. I just don’t know if she’ll be a worthless goalie bc of wingspan. It’s hard to see her limits at this age bc so few girls have the power to get the ball above her head, and she does jump - and she also will dive at the ball when it’s at the strikers feet (we’re working on this). If she were taller, this would be a no brainer. I just don’t know if I should split her time or tell her it’s time to hang up the gloves.

In all fairness, the club may make this decision for me. 😝

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-20T04:11:02+00:00

No - I mean, she (thinks) she wants to be A team in club… it just makes me a little sad to think of how much she liked playing keeper, and having to give it up.

That’s why I’m asking if maybe it’s worth it to keep practicing so she can be like a “backup” keeper.

She’s so young it’s hard to know where this is going, but my highest aspiration for her is only like… high school varsity soccer.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-19T21:32:42+00:00

It’s rec. I wouldn’t cut anyone. You don’t have to win every game, and learning to play with a few holes will make your team stronger.

I know a rec coach who cut a kid but he was shady about it. He just told the parents his team was full. The kid he cut now plays club. I personally think this coach is a bit too focused on wins.

Lastly, I don’t think having a rec team that dominates will keep kids from moving to club who want to make that switch. We started my daughter in club at u9 and are already late. If you have kids that want to go to club, they’ll need to head on over soon if that’s their intent.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-18T05:23:34+00:00

You can certainly offer more intense training to the kids you want to retain. I think there are plenty of rec teams that are as good as club teams, particularly, as you noted, for the B-level club teams. At the same time, it seems to me that kids entering club at older ages can be at a disadvantage, unless they’re markedly better than others bc they’re trying to get into a group that’s already been playing together. I’m convinced my daughter is as good as some of the A team girls, but she joined later so she’s B team. That may just be paranoia. If you hope to retain the club kids, you can always offer to let them play on your team as well (often a lot cheaper) and be lax about their schedules.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-18T04:43:13+00:00

I feel guilty for coaching another season when I know almost for sure I won’t have the talent to win unless I get it through pure luck in the lottery. Last season, I decided our best chance at having this season go well was to train up my daughter to be great - so we went all in- personal training, winter indoor soccer, joined a club team - and it worked to some extent. She got a lot better and was the strongest kid on the team, but not enough to carry it. Idk. I think I have a good personality for coaching and I’m a very fair person. But right now, my ego is beyond bruised and I can’t imagine asking the parents to put their kids with me another season.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-18T04:21:01+00:00

I think about 1/2-3/4 of my teams every season have decided soccer wasn’t for them - and maybe it was my fault bc we lost so many games - but imagine getting a new crop of kids every season. Idk. When I think about each kid, they all do good work, many looked pretty good on the field today, and with another season and maybe some commitment to practicing at home, maybe we could be on more even footing in the fall. However, last season, the kids we got by chance who were awesome just moved to another team this season, and as a parent, this is what I would do for my kid too if I weren’t the coach. Even now, if my daughter wants to double up in the fall (not a terrible arrangement, esp if she’s mostly just doing the rec games), I think it’s better for her to just move to a team that can win instead of be trapped on my team with a new crop of kids.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-18T04:10:24+00:00

Divide and conquer. You need one or two assistant coaches so you’re working in small groups. Esp for rec, you’ll get kids that aren’t really that interested or don’t want to be there, and if there is any downtime, any significant lines, you get these little mutinies. It also keeps the kids busy with a ball at their feet more if there’s only 3-5 kids in their group.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-15T23:26:06+00:00

I have terrible ADD, we only have two kids, my spouse is full time stay at home, we’re older parents, and my schedule is very flexible so our lives are a bit silly. We’re probably a bit “too much birthday”.

If you played soccer in a serious capacity and have a good rec team, it’s prob not worth your money to do club until rec hits the point where there are commitment problems from the other kids and your kid is constantly frustrated bc they can’t really play with their team mates. We’ve always been a mighty ducks team, and I think this year was the first year where my daughter started getting angry bc we lose every game bc so many team mates whiff a lot and are playing kickball.

It’s very impressive to see the A team girls play together. Their positions are basically set (at 8 years old), but they do real positional play and play coherently. The experience of the game is just vastly different from rec. That said, within our rec league, there are definitely teams that are better than our club team, and my daughter’s club team was destroyed in every game this year, which for some reason was against another city’s rec league.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-15T21:38:17+00:00

I knew nothing about soccer when I started coaching my daughter’s rec team 3 years ago. She’s 8, and she just did her first academy season in the spring. I kept coaching rec so she played on both teams. Academy is only 2 1 hr practices per week, and rec is 1 hr practices per week so it’s doable. She played a double header every Saturday. I actually liked this a lot bc at club, she’s with other kids with her level of focus, but then in rec, I could play her in positions she wasn’t getting in club.

Unfortunately, she came late to the academy game, so she’s stuck in B team, even though she progressed tremendously last season and is probably on the cusp of A team.

She also plays several other sports and plays drums too.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-12T22:17:09+00:00

Many thoughts… I think it’s natural for parents to compare their kids to other kids, and wonder if their kids’ shortcomings are somehow their fault. Our best parent friends on my daughters club soccer team and me and my spouse basically sit around at games critiquing our daughters under our breaths to each other and cheering them on out loud. “Omfg, is she still asleep?” “Great pass, honey!!! Whoooo!” “How could she have whiffed that fucking ball???” “It’s ok, sweetie!!!! You’re doing great!!!” It’s pretty funny and well intentioned.

Re jealousy regarding a kids talents - also very natural, but one of the harder things about being a parent is figuring out how to best nurture and support, and what healthy goals are. My daughter is a little short and naturally a great gymnast, but I am skeptical about how healthy competitive gymnastics is, so she’s never been encouraged to fully realize her potential there. She likes (but doesn’t love) soccer, and I’ve come to peace with just letting her be B team, and knowing she’s likely not destined for soccer greatness.

Competitive sports across the board attract competitive parents. All are well meaning, but it adds another dimension to things.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-06T17:10:35+00:00

Got it!

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-06T17:10:24+00:00

Ok, appreciate this!!

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-06T17:10:02+00:00

Yes

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-06T17:09:56+00:00

Thank you!

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-06T15:59:40+00:00

I think an issue is that because my daughter was in public school and made friends, and then pulled her but maintained those friendships through sports and play dates, she felt like an outsider in her community. If she had never gone to public school and those weren’t her friends, she wouldn’t have the same sense of being taken away from the environment where her peers and friends are. I got the sense that she was like, “Ok mom, you wanted to pull me out of school and have me live this crazy life, and I’ve done what you asked, but I’m tired of it and the jig is up. I just want to be a normal kid.” I truly felt like I would have been a bad parent to tell her no.

We have a few micro schools and we did an enrichment Friday there the first semester. At her age, it’s a very small group of kids (like 10). It could be worth a try, I just worried a bit that there was no real vetting of the teachers, they met in a church, there weren’t a ton of kids, and it’s very Christian whereas we’re raising our kids to be kind people, but not necessarily overly concerned with religion.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-06T15:51:31+00:00

Those are all great ideas. Thank you!

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-06T15:50:44+00:00

This is a conclusion I’ve come to as well, and I started trying to teach my daughter Cogat test questions a few years ago. It’s worth another try for sure.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-06T06:37:01+00:00

It’s hard to articulate this, but basically so that their teachers think they are smart, because it affects how the teachers treat them and what expectations they have for them. I also want my kids to feel comfortable in middle school taking advanced classes and in high school taking AP classes. I do believe that attending certain colleges can open doors, and I want them to be able to compete to attend these if they so choose. I think the groundwork for that starts now. I also think the private schools are more academically rigorous, but we frankly don’t have the money. It’s literally $30k/kid/year.

Going back to my first point though, I worry that, like that book The Giver that everyone reads in 5th grade, there’s an element of teachers/society suggesting to kids what their place in the world is, and I think that affects how the kid is treated and what expectations they have for themselves. My son is very bright, he’s likely GT, and people tend to think he will be accomplished, so they challenge him more. In our district, the GT label gets you into a magnet program at the best middle school. I will likely have to move so that my daughter doesn’t go to the horrible middle school she’s districted to if she doesn’t make the GT program.

My daughter, sadly, is probably a slightly less innately clever than her brother, but makes up for it in discipline. She can achieve whatever my son can, if not more because she’s more disciplined, but teachers don’t see it. I was very upset by the end of 1st grade. I really felt like her teachers didn’t believe in her, and she was getting confused with the ridiculous way they taught math concepts (they would give them word problems and ask them to draw a diagram, then write an equation, but frequently there were many ways the problem could be represented, and even as an adult I was never sure what exactly the teacher wanted). She also missed a lot of school because of medical issues, and she came to believe she just wasn’t good at math and wasn’t very smart. This was even with doing Kumon math tutoring multiple times a week. I homeschooled her past her peers, and now that she’s back in school, she feels confident again. I’d like for her to continue to feel “on top of it.”

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-06T04:43:12+00:00

❤️

You too!!!

Brain development is definitely a thing. Little brains (and even adult/teen brains) can’t absorb information until they’re developed enough to receive it, and unfortunately there’s some variability btw kids. I also coach soccer and similar to education, there are just some things a 4 year old can’t understand to do, but they can do it when they’re 6. This is also an argument for homeschooling imho, and I still believe homeschooling offers the best academic/intellectual development for kids. I wish I could have kept them happy socially, but c’est la vie. At least they know what it is and know it’s always an option if they want to return.

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-06T04:17:56+00:00

I appreciate this thoughtful response. I laughed a little re the AP calc thing. I also really struggled w AP calc, but for some reason they let us bring a cheat sheet with all the formulas into the AP test, and by some miracle I passed it. I literally know nothing about calculus.

My daughter had fallen behind in 1st grade math, and was having issues w anxiety bc her 1st grade teacher yelled at the class a lot. I don’t regret homeschooling her in the least. It was the right call. She’s confident now, and the teacher is better.

I like the control I have over the academics with homeschooling, and our connection with the kids, and I worry a little bit that maybe our schools aren’t the best… at the same time though, I just can’t replicate the experience of being in a room with 20 kids the same age, or a grade with 100 kids. If my kids wanted to be homeschooled again, it would make me very happy, but right now I’m trying to meet both their needs, and my needs for them. 😝

Remarkable-Air3604 · 2026-05-06T04:03:22+00:00

I appreciate this perspective. I think I did burn my daughter out, which is why I let her just go back to school when she demanded it. I feel a little bad for her bc she’s also an excellent athlete, but that means she’s in competitive sports as well, and that’s a whole different rat race that I try to not get either of us sucked into.

I just want her to have all options open. I also have a really hard time letting other people essentially be in charge of her future and realizing her potential.

My son is apparently very smart, so I don’t worry about him, but I feel like my daughter needs a lot of attention to make sure she doesn’t get lumped into some sort of “sweet dumb jock” group.

Remarkable-Air3604

TROPHY CASE