You May Not Agree, But Only Time Will Tell If Your Child Keeps Playing Soccer Past The Dropout Ages Of 12-13 And Becomes A Soccer Lover

One of the things that we constantly try to preach, is that regardless if you agree or not only time will tell if your child will keep playing the sport of soccer past the ages of 12-13 and become either a top level soccer player or at the very least a life long soccer lover.

Some of the things that we try to educate parents with fall on deaf ears and parents do not realize how right we were until it is too late and their child has stopped playing soccer. By the way, it is the player's decision to quit not yours, and as parents we must respect that. However, is it in their best life development interest to stay in sports and are there ways to better increase the odds to accomplishing such goals? 

We think so, and the best two things to remember in helping us towards that goal are:
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IT STARTS AND ENDS WITH THEM
The best trainers or environments will not keep them playing if they don't want to. According to a poll from the National Alliance for Youth Sports, around 70 percent of kids in the United States stop playing organized sports by the age of 13 because “it’s just not fun anymore.”  We, as adults, suck the fun out of it because we view the game from a different perspective than the kids do. We must know and understand the best ways to allow them to enjoy the sport and at the same time help them make the decision to stay in it because they love it and have tons of fun.

UNSCRIPTED, UNSUPERVISED FUN
Playing games in an unscripted, unsupervised environment with no adult interaction or coaching will allow them to discover, interact, solve, and succeed. It will make it FUN, help them fall in love with the game and keep them playing for a lifetime. As we get older we forget how much fun it was to just get out and play with our friends. Just play, and enjoy the game. Winning was not the motivating factor behind playing. Just being with our friends was, laughing and having a great old time, no matter how silly we were.
Recreating that relaxed unstructured environment is crucial to keeping the kids playing.