Raising outdoor kids

[Zak406]

I don’t have kids but after talking to a buddy of mine about youth sports I am curious about how many of you forgone sports/team sports with your kids and went directly into a hunting or out door type life style with your kids.

For those of you that kids are at an older age how did that work out for you?

 

[Snowwolfe]

Why give up one for the other? Our son did and enjoyed both.

 

[Backyard]

I don’t have kids but after talking to a buddy of mine about youth sports I am curious about how many of you forgone sports/team sports with your kids and went directly into a hunting or out door type life style with your kids.

For those of you that kids are at an older age how did that work out for you?

Let them try it all.
Remember: you can lead a horse… but in the end, let them decide.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Braaap]

I

I don’t have kids but after talking to a buddy of mine about youth sports I am curious about how many of you forgone sports/team sports with your kids and went directly into a hunting or out door type life style with your kids.

For those of you that kids are at an older age how did that work out for you?

It’s tempting to skip the team sports for selfish reasons but I think it’s easy enough to do team sports and raise outdoor kids. My kids are 8 and 10 and they play baseball/softball in the spring, soccer in the fall, and jiujitsu/tumbling most of the year. They’ve also been on a bunch of big game hunts with me and my wife, go fishing at least once a week, small game hunts, and ski all winter. My daughter tried out and made a travel softball team last fall and we said thanks but no thanks. I think the travel team sports is where things get crazy and I see parents give up all of their free time to pursue it. I played a lot of sports growing up and enjoyed it and I want to give my kids the same opportunity but I make sure to keep it reasonable and bring them on a lot of hunting and fishing trips.

Just last week I took my 8 year old boy out of school to go on an antelope hunt with me and he also missed a soccer game. We killed a nice buck together, camped a couple nights and caught about 35 fish according to him lol.

I don’t think it’s too tough to let kids play some rec sports and also raise outdoor kids.

 

[PredatorSlayer]

We did it all. My son played varsity baseball and golf and travel baseball in the summer. We also did a couple hunting trips and fishing trips every year. Team and individual sports can teach kids a lot of good stuff, even with a shitty coach. He is well rounded, got a 4.0 and mid 30’s on his act, is a great leader and even better person, loves to hunt and fish and has plans to be an orthopedic surgeon. Just graduated this last spring and is on a mission trip on Brazil for our church.

 

[North of 60]

Expose them to both outdoors and multiple sports and let them decide what they like or not.

Coaching youth baseball was great fun too.

 

[Ucsdryder]

Start them young and they won’t know any different, both sports and outdoors.

 

[Team4LongGun]

As others stated, I don't think you have to pick one or the other. Sure, going all in with year round travel teams, spring and fall school teams is a commitment that will eat most outdoor time.

For our kids, we exposed them to both, and let them decide. I would say it will work itself out, as long as you (I learned the hard way) aren't trying to have them achieve what you didn't on the field.

If you find your kid is well past recreational skill level AND loves it, go for it and have them play year round for a scholarship. Otherwise, in my personal experience, it's not worth the squeeze.

 

[Bman5000]

My kids range from 20 years old to 3 months old. Get your kids involved in both and get involved with them. It goes by fast. Team sports are seasonal and it’s always hunting season somewhere.

 

[Zak406]

As others stated, I don't think you have to pick one or the other. Sure, going all in with year round travel teams, spring and fall school teams is a commitment that will eat most outdoor time.

For our kids, we exposed them to both, and let them decide. I would say it will work itself out, as long as you (I learned the hard way) aren't trying to have them achieve what you didn't on the field.

If you find your kid is well past recreational skill level AND loves it, go for it and have them play year round for a scholarship. Otherwise, in my personal experience, it's not worth the squeeze.

This is exactly why I asked. I played at a high level sport and looking back now I wish I would have did less of that and spent more time outdoors and doing other things (hunting and fishing).

Essentially I hunted opening day and that was it until college.

When I played in college the long winter break allowed me to hunt more

There is a real misnomer about how many kids truly get scholarships for sports. The amount is low enough I will tell you first hand you are better off paying for a tutor and going after scholarships that involve grades. I would never bank on an athletic scholarship. Especially these days.

 

[wytx]

We drug our son around on all our hunts at a young age.
He swam for a while but never really played organized sports.
Today he likes to shoot but does not hunt, he likes it when we take him some meat though.
You just never know if they will take to hunting or not but it really makes no difference to us.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

I did it all growing up. elk hunting, football, track, xc skiing team etc. I loved all of that and my dad never missed a game. My mom didn't care about that stuff and it was like a big deal with a fancy dinner afterwords on the occasions she would come, she just worked too much climbing that ladder or whatever, sort of made me dislike work in general. To this day, work has never been a priority in my life, I do it, but I've always wanted to just get in, get out and get paid, its probably not even in the top 10 things that are important to me. If I had kids, Id be at every game and take them to do as much hunting as they wanted.

One of my hunting buddies who loves to get out has a fat son who just wants to play video games, its very painful for him to see his kid want to be like that.

 

[TaperPin]

Kids like what they like, but every kid cant be in every sport and every sports camp and every traveling team outside of school and have every best piece of equipment, private pool, with private coaches, practice before and after school every night. And that’s just the pee wee teams!

Doing enough to keep them busy is good, but outdoor sports are sports to. Teaching kids how to have hobbies is a skill. Parent that don’t encourage anything, get kids that don’t try anything new, who grow up into adults that don’t have hobbies and quite literally don’t know how to get started in anything. There are also a core group of activities that every family finds important so sports/hobbies have to be compatible with that, because kids are important, but the world doesn’t revolve around only them.

I’ve known kids that really like fishing and the parents have traveled around with them to different fishing competitions, or to trophy fish and increase their personal bests. Some kids really enjoy fishing different places or different species. Same for hunting.

Remember the dad who was going all over the country so his son could hunt the different varmints? There are calling competitions, coyote hunting competitions, shooting competitions, etc.

Some family friends have outdoorsy kids that also love photography and there are all sorts of competitions, camps, get togethers and whatnot for that. One sells her wildlife art or has it published in magazines it’s so good.

Other kids love cooking wild game and searching out different animals, cowboy cooking events, cooking competitions, etc. that make that hobby a long term interest.

Archery.

Motor sports.

Shooting sports.

Animal sports and competitions.

Golf. Many outdoorsy guys are anti golf, but it’s outdoors ish and is a good skill to have at least at a basic level just so when a bunch of friends are doing a best ball tourney you don’t have to stay home grumbling about how much you don’t like golf.

Geology nerds. Geologists spend more time in the field than anyone I know.

History nerds. The west is so full of interesting history. Traveling to see the locations first hand really brings it to life.

Dinosaur nerds.

Metal detecting nerds.

Biology nerds.

Scouting nerds.

Hiking clubs.

Rodeo clubs.

One kid loves weather and his parents support it by traveling around to experience unique weather events.

So, sorry gramps isn’t buying into the idea that grandson and granddaughter Tapers have to get glued to a series of organized teams to enjoy their childhoods while the rest of us suffer until they become adults.

 

[Zak406]

Kids like what they like, but every kid cant be in every sport and every sports camp and every traveling team outside of school and have every best piece of equipment, private pool, with private coaches, practice before and after school every night. And that’s just the pee wee teams!

Doing enough to keep them busy is good, but outdoor sports are sports to. Teaching kids how to have hobbies is a skill. Parent that don’t encourage anything, get kids that don’t try anything new, who grow up into adults that don’t have hobbies and quite literally don’t know how to get started in anything. There are also a core group of activities that every family finds important so sports/hobbies have to be compatible with that, because kids are important, but the world doesn’t revolve around only them.

I’ve known kids that really like fishing and the parents have traveled around with them to different fishing competitions, or to trophy fish and increase their personal bests. Some kids really enjoy fishing different places or different species. Same for hunting.

Remember the dad who was going all over the country so his son could hunt the different varmints? There are calling competitions, coyote hunting competitions, shooting competitions, etc.

Some family friends have outdoorsy kids that also love photography and there are all sorts of competitions, camps, get togethers and whatnot for that. One sells her wildlife art or has it published in magazines it’s so good.

Other kids love cooking wild game and searching out different animals, cowboy cooking events, cooking competitions, etc. that make that hobby a long term interest.

Archery.

Motor sports.

Shooting sports.

Animal sports and competitions.

Golf. Many outdoorsy guys are anti golf, but it’s outdoors ish and is a good skill to have at least at a basic level just so when a bunch of friends are doing a best ball tourney you don’t have to stay home grumbling about how much you don’t like golf.

Geology nerds. Geologists spend more time in the field than anyone I know.

History nerds. The west is so full of interesting history. Traveling to see the locations first hand really brings it to life.

Dinosaur nerds.

Metal detecting nerds.

Biology nerds.

Scouting nerds.

Hiking clubs.

Rodeo clubs.

One kid loves weather and his parents support it by traveling around to experience unique weather events.

So, sorry gramps isn’t buying into the idea that grandson and granddaughter Tapers have to get glued to a series of organized teams to enjoy their childhoods while the rest of us suffer until they become adults.

This is what I am eluding to.

I have buddies whose lives revolve around running their kids to these sports. No other hobbies no life outside of sports. It’s sports 24 7 365

While I agree you can’t have the kid and do nothing with them it seems extreme to me that these people (keep in mind I don’t have kids) do this 24/7 365.

It’s a real concern of mine because what reason do kids have to get into the outdoors (which we desperately need) when they have no or very little time to be exposed to it.

Let’s not be mistaken there are two reasons hunting liscens sales are down. The first is the amount of older people who are dying or can’t do it anymore The second is because youth sports are so extensive (for good or bad) that your taking away atleast two liscens holders per family. The adult and the kid that’s not participating.

 

[270quest]

My son has been doing travel baseball since about 8-9, as he got into high school and realized college baseball was a very good option its basically year around - however, we have always made time/habit to ensure hunting seasons/opportunities where never missed and also fishing/camping here and there. Enough to have a balance where I can say, my son is a sports kid who is going to play college baseball on a scholarship, but has a love and passion for guns, hunting, and the outdoors. Enough that I know he will continue to enjoy it long after baseball is done.

 

[Unknown]

Like the others my kids played sports as well as outdoor things. My son played travel baseball and football. The thing is I exposed him to fishing and being in the woods at a very young age. It never left him. Sure he played sports all through high school. Then went to college but not playing sports. The fishing and hunting was and is always available for them. I always took the time to take them hunting or fishing when they were young and it stuck. My grandsons are now enjoying the outdoors.

 

[Rich M]

I was raised in a state with no Sunday hunting. Was told could hunt/fish w dad or play sports.

If you want your kids to be outdoorsy then that’s how you raise em. A coworker is already talking about how her 1 yr old is gonna be a football player like his dad was. That’s how you direct your kids into stuff. From day 1.

People say they are letting kids choose things. That’s not 100%. Like my coworker, the parents talk about stuff, show pictures and have increase in positive energy for some things. Kids typically gravitate towards those.

 

[Kush573]

I have 4 kids and all played sports and hunt and fish and hike and camp. There is room for both. They all learned many valuable lessons from athletics and outdoors activities. As adults they are fit, confident, can handle themselves, and seem to excel at whatever they set their mind to. Getting your rear kicked by the weather and elevation is different than getting it kicked by another kid or team and so is the success. All of those lessons are very valuable though. We didn't make our kids join sports or hunt/fish, hike etc. We just introduced them to it and then supported them when they chose. They all ended up being passionate about one or two sports and are still very dedicated to the outdoors. The only rule for that stuff was, if you start an athletic season or outdoor trip, you finish it with effort start to finish.

 

[brancher147]

You can start them on whatever you want but ultimately it is up to them and they will decide what they are interested in. I started my oldest hunting at 4 and he is 7 now. He isn’t really into hunting but he I do take him when he’s interested. If I push it on him he wouldn’t want to do it at all. He has not been interested in sports yet which is fine. He does like fishing. All kids are different you just gotta support them whatever they’re into.

 

[Slickhill]

I was more or less forced, not forcibly but I was signed up like it or not, to play sports growing up. Baseball started as soon as school turned out and my folks made sure I was there and ready for the first practice. I played summer ball until I was a teenager and got big enough to stand up and say I didn’t want to play anymore. Don’t get me wrong I had fun playing and was good enough to start every year. I continued to play school ball through high school.

When my son came along I decided it would be up to him. Every year since he’s been old enough we’ve offered him the opportunity to play baseball, football, and basketball. The stipulations are that we will make sure he has the equipment he needs, we’ll make as many games and practices as we can to support him, and he will stick it out and give it his best until season ends even if he doesn’t like it. He has always weighed the option against what hunting, fishing, or camping he will potentially miss out on and ended up passing so far. Although this year he is playing 4th grade basketball in school due to it being a requirement for kids who want to take PE, it’s only 8 games and ends in the first week of October and I think it’ll be a good test for him to see if being “on the team” is worth sacrificing a little and not getting his way all the time in life.

He’s one of the few kids in our small town who hasn’t been on every little league team every year and sometimes I think he feels a little left out. But I remind him that it was his choice and that he’s not one of but probably the only kid his age in town who’s caught a bass over 9lb, catfish over 30, killed an elk, killed a boatload of pigs and deer, has bird hunted SD, walleye fished a couple states in the Midwest, knows how and gets to drive a boatload with an outboard all the time, has camped and trout fished all over CO, and a bunch of other stuff that many grown men wish they got to do all the time. He’s always telling me that he needs to make some money for the next gun he wants or to get his next buck or bull mounted instead of euroed.

Our high school and jr high have shooting programs and he is looking forward to being old enough to participate in them. I was the first class to have the option of the shooting team my Sr year and was the “team” by myself as I was the only participant from my school. So I am looking forward to him getting that opportunity too.

No way I can tell the future for sure. But I will guess my son will have as good a chance as any kid of being passionate about the outdoors as anyone. If not then I will always have great memories of our adventures together and I think he will too.