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I had a fight with husband over difficult child: Insights and opinions are welcome
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<blockquote data-quote="SuZir" data-source="post: 556950" data-attributes="member: 14557"><p>That is not common in Europe either. And some of those systems are simply brutal and I certainly wouldn't want my kids to be part. There are some national programs for older kids in different countries. For example there is a ski jumping boarding school (for High School age students) in Austria. In football (I decline to call it soccer <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" />) major teams have their academies for even young kids, though often the whole family moves, but with older kids they do billet families (but I think there is similar system in hockey in Canada.)</p><p></p><p>In my country government helps sports mostly with infrastructure. Towns build lots of football fields and halls, ice rinks and halls, track and field fields, swimming halls, halls for basketball, volleyball and all other kinds of inside games, cross country skiing and jogging routes with lights etc. Many of them are either free or cheap to use (for example ticket to swimming hall tends to cost around five dollars for working adults, half of that for retired, disabled, unemployed, students and older kids. Kids under ten or eight go free. Ticket to water aerobics is dollar or two more.) Idea is of course to keep people moving for health reasons. And because studies show that kids who do sports are more likely to exercise also as an adult kid sports are also supported by government. There is also some support for top athletes, but not so much. They are mainly financed with sponsorships (for example my difficult child's team gets only little bit over the third of their income from tickets etc. most are from sponsorship deals and business sales and broadcasting rights money.)</p><p></p><p>Still kids sports are also largely paid by parents and some sports are much more expensive than others. For example two years ago easy child was still doing three different sports. If not counting gas, I think we spent around 5000 dollars for his sport A, 700 dollars to sport B and 200 dollars to sport C. And quite a lot of 'voluntary' work hours up to that. In all of those he was at a time in the level that could had made it possible to get to the highest level in that sport as an adult (though in sport B there really isn't many pros even in the highest level, but sport A and C are pro sports in the highest level.) But the expenses are just so different in different sports. And to be honest, we have been lucky with our kids with sport A, especially with difficult child, because from early on he was accepted to national development programs and got lots of sport federation paid camps and help. For example four years ago difficult child was sport federation paid one week camp with visiting top coach. Seven days, upkeep, tuition etc. paid. We gave him 20 dollars for candy money. The visiting coach had right after that a three day parent paid weekend camp for those who didn't qualify to federation camp, but were willing to pay. It was almost thousand dollars per kid. </p><p></p><p>Of course those were the most expensive years with our kids. In our kids sport the most expensive time tends to be when kids are 16 and seventeen, but we really lucked out and both of our kids got the deals with their junior teams' 'parent' teams (those highest level men's teams that have their own partly separate junior organisations) that made these years almost free to us. When kids were smaller, the costs were much less. I think that even the sport A was less than a grand a year when they were under twelve and maybe 500 dollars a year when they started. And even for older kids there would be much cheaper options also in sport A, but they are recreational, not aiming to the top. </p><p></p><p>Our kids first sport when they were very little was gymnastics too. That I think was around 50-100 dollars a year. Both started when they were 3 and difficult child continued till he was 9 and easy child opted to his sport B when he was 7.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="SuZir, post: 556950, member: 14557"] That is not common in Europe either. And some of those systems are simply brutal and I certainly wouldn't want my kids to be part. There are some national programs for older kids in different countries. For example there is a ski jumping boarding school (for High School age students) in Austria. In football (I decline to call it soccer :winking:) major teams have their academies for even young kids, though often the whole family moves, but with older kids they do billet families (but I think there is similar system in hockey in Canada.) In my country government helps sports mostly with infrastructure. Towns build lots of football fields and halls, ice rinks and halls, track and field fields, swimming halls, halls for basketball, volleyball and all other kinds of inside games, cross country skiing and jogging routes with lights etc. Many of them are either free or cheap to use (for example ticket to swimming hall tends to cost around five dollars for working adults, half of that for retired, disabled, unemployed, students and older kids. Kids under ten or eight go free. Ticket to water aerobics is dollar or two more.) Idea is of course to keep people moving for health reasons. And because studies show that kids who do sports are more likely to exercise also as an adult kid sports are also supported by government. There is also some support for top athletes, but not so much. They are mainly financed with sponsorships (for example my difficult child's team gets only little bit over the third of their income from tickets etc. most are from sponsorship deals and business sales and broadcasting rights money.) Still kids sports are also largely paid by parents and some sports are much more expensive than others. For example two years ago easy child was still doing three different sports. If not counting gas, I think we spent around 5000 dollars for his sport A, 700 dollars to sport B and 200 dollars to sport C. And quite a lot of 'voluntary' work hours up to that. In all of those he was at a time in the level that could had made it possible to get to the highest level in that sport as an adult (though in sport B there really isn't many pros even in the highest level, but sport A and C are pro sports in the highest level.) But the expenses are just so different in different sports. And to be honest, we have been lucky with our kids with sport A, especially with difficult child, because from early on he was accepted to national development programs and got lots of sport federation paid camps and help. For example four years ago difficult child was sport federation paid one week camp with visiting top coach. Seven days, upkeep, tuition etc. paid. We gave him 20 dollars for candy money. The visiting coach had right after that a three day parent paid weekend camp for those who didn't qualify to federation camp, but were willing to pay. It was almost thousand dollars per kid. Of course those were the most expensive years with our kids. In our kids sport the most expensive time tends to be when kids are 16 and seventeen, but we really lucked out and both of our kids got the deals with their junior teams' 'parent' teams (those highest level men's teams that have their own partly separate junior organisations) that made these years almost free to us. When kids were smaller, the costs were much less. I think that even the sport A was less than a grand a year when they were under twelve and maybe 500 dollars a year when they started. And even for older kids there would be much cheaper options also in sport A, but they are recreational, not aiming to the top. Our kids first sport when they were very little was gymnastics too. That I think was around 50-100 dollars a year. Both started when they were 3 and difficult child continued till he was 9 and easy child opted to his sport B when he was 7. [/QUOTE]
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