A friend just sent me a video of a reality tv show style YouTube series about youth wrestling and told me to skip to a few parts with parents. I watched an 11 year old kid pin a former state champion and proceed to get yelled at by his dad because "he didn't spend all this time for a 30 second match." Cue to the kid balling and the parent yelling at him more.
I skimmed the rest of the videos and, surprise, surprise, that kid gets emotional in every match. And the dad sits on the mat, yelling at him. And they interview the dad and he's like "I don't know why he's always crying, he's such a Martha." He then explains he nicknames his kid Martha because he thinks he's a pussy.
Like gee, maybe the kid is under an intense amount of stress because he has no idea how to make your dumbass happy.
Youth sports is insane. When I was a kid, my parents basically forced me to go to basketball tournaments off season and I fucking hated it. You felt like you had to go because everyone else was going and then you get sideline coached/yelled at by your parents.
I love how younger generations are always classified by older generations as "lazy" or "wusses" or whatever. You're the ones raising them you fucks.
Maybe stop living through your kid and let them choose what they want to do. I quit basketball after sophomore year and was instantly happier. If your kid likes a sport they're going to end up hating it because of you.
Thank you for listening to my Ted talk.
Kids should just be kids. If they have something they like and are good at, that's great and it's good to encourage them to pursue their interests. It's extremely unhealthy to force them into intense training regimes just because you have some "vision" of your kid being a sports star or something. Same really goes for any hobby but sports do carry a lot of risks to physical health.
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And if kids are interested in sports and want to do the AAU stuff, cool. They have a coach. That coach can handle the coaching, you don't need to join in.