We have an older boy who started to wrestle at age 6. He is still wrestling today and really likes it. However, to him, it is just a sport to do between football and baseball. I have two younger boys. Both of them begged to go and wrestle at a very young age. One of them, we started letting him go to "practice" at the age of 3 just because his dad was the coach. The other coach also had a son the same age and they would team up. It mainly meant that he would imitate the big kids on the mat with their daily exercises. We had him go to 4 tournaments at the age of 5. All of the tournaments he went to were very small and most were round robins. This year, we will again limit him to only 4 small tournaments. Our youngest boy is now going to practice and he is 4. Again, he just goes and imitates some of the older kids. When he gets bored, he goes and sits down and watches. He is not doing any "moves" as much as just the warm ups and running. We will probably do the same thing with him as we did with the other two. If one of my son's says they don't want to wrestle, we don't push them. If they cry before a meet, we don't have them compete. I never push them. It has helped our younger boys to understand winning and losing. It has also given them a way to do something positive with their energy. The only thing to make sure is that you never push and are there for every practice to work with him. If he starts to complain, back off and wait a little bit longer. Hope this helps.
