You found out in the team group chat, of all places. Somebody mentioned their trainer, then somebody else mentioned theirs, and suddenly the whole thread was comparing schedules. Turns out almost every kid on the team has been doing private sessions on the side. Every kid except yours.
Well, hey, it's Sammy, and this is Hey Sammy, where sports parents ask the questions everyone else is pretending they don't have.
Today: the private training arms race and whether you've been naive or just sane. This one's from Michelle in Omaha. She writes, I just found out almost every kid on my son's team is doing private training on the side.
We've only been doing team practices. Have I been naive about what it takes to keep up?
Michelle, let me answer the actual question first. No, you haven't been naive. You've been living by the deal as it was presented. The club sold you a program, you bought the program, your kid does the program. That's not naive. That's how commerce is supposed to work. What changed isn't you.
It's that youth sports quietly grew a second economy on the side, and nobody sends a welcome letter. Now, let's talk about what that second economy actually buys. Because here's the secret the group chat doesn't know: a lot of private training at this age isn't buying development, it's buying parent comfort. It's a monthly receipt that says, we're doing everything we can.
Some trainers are wonderful. Plenty are charging $60 an hour for drills your son could do against a garage door. The research on skill at young ages keeps pointing at the same boring things: touches, repetition, play, and love of the game.
None of those come with an invoice. A kid who spends 20 minutes in the driveway most nights outtouches the kid with a weekly session. It's not close, actually.
So here's how you decide what to do, and it starts with your son, not the market. Is he hungry for more? Does he leave practice wanting to keep playing? Then feed that, and feed it cheap first. A wall, a ball, a driveway, you in a lawn chair. Small group sessions with a buddy if he wants company.
Extra should grow out of his appetite, never out of your panic. And if he's content with team practice and full of joy on game day? You have a kid in balance. Protect that. Don't fix what isn't broken because a group chat scared you.
One practical move though, because information is fair game: Ask the coach a clean question at some point. Where's my son at, and is there anything worth adding at his age? A good coach will tell you the truth, and the truth is often, he's 9, let him play. And if the coach says the quiet part, that kids who train privately get looked at differently? Well...
Now you've learned something about the program, and we can talk about that in another episode.
Last thing, and it's the big one: the arms race has no finish line. The families doing one session will hear about families doing two. The two-session families will hear about the kid with the hitting facility membership. Somebody is always doing more, forever, all the way up. You can't win that race. You can only decide, on purpose, what your family's version of enough looks like.
You already had a version. It was working. A group chat is not a reason to abandon it.
One more scenario to prep for, because it's coming. Someday soon, your son hears about the trainers from a teammate and comes home asking why he doesn't have one. Don't flinch, and don't reach for the credit card. Ask him what he thinks a trainer would give him. Half the time, the honest answer is, um, nothing.
He just doesn't want to feel left out. That's a belonging problem, and belonging problems have belonging solutions. A driveway session with a buddy covers it for free.
And if he names something real, a skill he's chasing, a weakness that's bugging him, wonderful. Now you're shopping from his appetite, which is the only shopping list ever worth carrying. Feed the hunger if it shows up. Just never pay to manufacture it.
So here's the only move I'd make this week: Ask your son one question: Do you ever wish you had more time working on your game? His answer, not the group chat, is your map.
And that's today. If a group chat ever made your stomach drop, you're my people. Tell me about it sometime. hey@heysami.com.
