DD and soccer

[Guest Basilherb]

hello fellow parents!

I'm new at the boards but I do have a question about my DD. I noticed a few topics below that the subject of sports came up, but also noticed that it was about running track. DD loves loves loves soccer, and she is a talented athlete at it. However, she also loves ballet and pursues it nicely. I cant help but notice that she gets injuries from soccer, usually minor ones, but they affect her dancing. For instance, the other day at practice she was kicked in the ankle and it is now severly bruised. Her knees have damage and scars all from soccer. She insists that it does not affect ballet, but it is obvious it does. Would it make me a bad parent to tell DD that she must stop soccer before she really hurts herself?

[Momof3darlings]

Basil--she could hurt herself doing ballet also. So I would suggest you let your DD do what she loves and if that is both, then let it be both. At least in my area, soccer requires as much time outside of school as ballet does. So I would assume that at some point, one will win out over the other should she want to pursue either seriously.

 

vj

[calamitous]

My DD had to make the same decision about what she wanted to seriously do also. The soccer and dance schedules began to conflict and we told it her was not fair for her to miss either rehearsals or practices/games since in both cases other people were depending on her. She could choose which she wanted to do but she could no longer do both. After that she played pick up soccer at lunch and sometimes in the park for a about a year, but then basically stopped all together. As momof 3 said injury wasn't the issue, it just became impossible time wise.

[blochbuyer]

Also think about the positives that soccer will bring to ballet and ballet to soccer. The body position awareness gained through ballet always enhances performance in other sports. My daughter plays soccer for her school, Most games she is in Goal, because she is not afraid to use her body to get the ball. She has a high jump, is supple and also has a strong kick to get the ball down to the other end. Similarly when she did a stint of fencing, the footwork was not a problem. Soccer will build her stamina and it is another group of people she meets outside of dance. I agree with above posts that it will be time available rather than injury that will sort this one out. A dance teacher recently said to my daughter in an audition interview that it was important for young dancers to have a wide range of interests as this rounds them out as a person.