Mike, I did read again your post on the child making decisions for themselves and I was focusing too much initially on how you opened up with the thought. You did end it with saying basically at some point the child needs to get more involved in the decision making after receiving parental input. I would agree with that and obviously there are also certain choices in life that I am not prepared to let my 7th grader make yet.

I don't know if you feel this way about say this decision to participate in middle school or club wrestling, but I believe as 7th and 8th graders that most kids should be ready to make this choice on their own. I would let my son make this call on his own. Just like I am letting him now decide which tournaments he wants to wrestle 12 & under at and which ones he wants to wrestle up at 14 & Under. I also let him pick between Topeka and Liberty Nationals this year. He likes the Topeka tournament more and he chose Topeka. I just think he is more than ready to make choices like this and I really believe he could make this choice between club and school participation too.