My son spent about 14 years sampling nearly every sport a suburban rec department offers. Soccer, t-ball, basketball, lacrosse, ultimate frisbee, and finally football, which he dropped after one season his sophomore year of high school. He’s in college now, comfortably unathletic, and I’ll admit I was kind of grateful when he walked away from football. Not because I didn’t want him to have the experience, but because I never wanted him locked into something he’d stopped loving. (Also, the very real possibility he’d break his streak of living concussion-free.)

My daughter took a different route. She found lacrosse early and stuck with it. Every year I bring up club play, already doing the math on cost and lost weekends before she’s even answered. So far she’s said no. I exhale. If she ever says yes, I’ll be the loudest person on the sideline. But I’ve stopped assuming that’s where this is headed and continue to enjoy my weekends.

One kid who tried everything and moved on. One kid who found her sport and hasn’t chased anything bigger. These two experiences are pretty universal, and with soccer participation climbing after the World Cup, a lot of parents are currently trying to figure out the best way to approach youth sports and what a first sports experience should look like. 

Of course, not everyone is asking the same version of that question. Some parents are trying to keep a kid from burning out. Others have a kid who’s clearly good at something and are wondering whether, and how, to help them go further without turning it into pressure.

In an effort to help parents parse this out, I went to Justin Hoeveler, President of US Sports Camps, and Madison Gates, VP of Marketing at i9 Sports, who together work with thousands of young athletes (and their parents) a year. Both kept coming back to the same idea. What matters most when a kid is just getting started isn’t how many hours they log or how early they commit. It’s whether the program and the people running it make them want to come back.

What multi-sport play actually gives kids

Hoeveler played two varsity sports at Northwestern, tennis and basketball, and credits the variety with keeping him developing instead of burning out. “Playing multiple sports gave me different ways to compete, different skills to develop, and ultimately helped me avoid burnout,” he said, pointing to research linking early specialization to mental fatigue, overuse injuries, and fading interest in the sport itself. “The idea that a child needs to specialize at age 7 or 8 to maximize their potential later isn’t supported by what we know about long-term athlete development,” he said.

That notion is part of what’s made Norway’s youth sports model a reference point internationally, delaying formal competition and results tracking for young athletes in favor of participation and skill development. Hoeveler said the philosophy, not the infrastructure, is what actually translates here, since the U.S. has no centralized system, just a patchwork of club and travel programs that can quietly push kids toward earlier commitment. His advice is to look for programs that share Norway’s values, prioritizing confidence and enjoyment while leaving room for kids who want to compete harder.  (I mean, take one look at World Cup darling Erling Haaland and you know that man is not only a gifted player but he’s also having THE MOST fun.) 

What to actually look for when touring a program

Gates said one of the most useful questions a parent can ask isn’t about wins or rankings. It’s “How does the coach respond when a child makes a mistake?” In i9’s survey, 83 percent of parents said positive, encouraging coaching mattered more to them than a coach’s credentials or playing background. The way a coach handles a small moment like a missed catch or a bad pass, she said, tells you far more about a program’s real culture than anything on its website.

The red flag, according to Gates, is a program that leads with rankings, standings, or tournament advancement before it’s told you anything about whether kids feel supported and included. The strongest programs make belonging the starting point and they let kids make mistakes and fail safely while they’re still learning.

Try a sport before you commit to one

This is closer to how my son found his way through a decade of different sports, and it’s also a strategy Hoeveler recommends on purpose. A week of camp, he said, can be a meaningful way for a kid to develop skills, sample a new sport, or go deeper into one they already love, without asking a family to commit to a full season or a year-round schedule. It’s a lower-stakes way to find out whether something sticks before anyone signs up for anything longer.

The questions worth asking before you sign up

Hoeveler offered a question I’d use with my own son if I were choosing a program for him today. Before signing a kid up for anything more competitive, he suggested asking Would my child still love this sport after a season here?” Skills can be taught later. What a program builds or wears down early, he said, is a kid’s actual desire to keep showing up.

Gates offered a companion question worth asking any coach directly. “What does success look like here?” Some programs will answer with championships. Others will answer with confidence and kids who want to sign up again next fall. Neither answer is automatically wrong, but only one of them should surprise you.

The cost conversation is real too. A community league like i9 typically runs around $200 for a six to eight week season, uniforms included, with one practice and one game a week. Club and travel add tournament fees, multiple weekly practices, travel expenses, and a real bite out of family weekends. Gates’s advice is to ask upfront how many practices are required, how much travel is expected, and whether tournaments are optional, so you choose the commitment on purpose instead of drifting into it.

Watching my son cycle through years of sports and settle on none of them, and watching my daughter stay put in one, I’ve come to think the goal was never picking the right sport. It was giving them room to find out, on their own terms, whether they wanted to keep playing at all.