I think there are some good responses to an excellent yet overlooked topic.
Personally, I do not enjoy coaching nor do I recommend starting a child younger than 8 or 9. One reason is maturity level and attention span is usually very short at this age. I introduced my own kids to wrestling at around 9 or 10 years of age.
When I initially introduced them to the sport, I did so with the idea of just practicing and not competing for about 6 months to a year. But after a month and a half or so they were begging me to take them to competition to compete. So I took them to a few. For the next 2 years I was coaching them and they were very successful even at the national level. Recently though I decided to stop coaching them since me coaching them was interfering with our relationship. Furthermore, even though they never were overexposed to tournaments competing in no more than 10 or 11 tournaments in a calendar year(this includes freestyle, folkstyle, reg. nationals, etc.) they do not have a desire to compete in tournaments, at least not many of them. So I decided the following:
1) I would no longer coach them but will be
supportive of their wrestling and other
activities.
2) I will not take them to nationals this year,
and let them and their coach decide what local
and state tournaments they would compete in
if any this year.
3) I will only make suggestions and recommendation
regarding wrestling, camps, etc. but I will let them decide what they
want. After all, a true champion has to want
it himself.
4) I agree with the post from coach Gibson, a
kid can start in the 8th grade and in a few
years with motivation and good coaching he can
step on the mat with anyone. So being that
he is now in the 13-14 year old division I
think it's best to backoff now, and hopefully
the hunger to compete will comeback and he'll
be ready for big time competition in highschool. If not oh well, but I do not think it's a good idea to push a young kid in this sport because he can burn out and not want to do it again.
