Coach Gibson,
Thank you for your detailed reply. I understand where you are coming from better now. I can imagine that it is probably frustrating for a high school coach to have to change bad habits that may be impossible to break.
I agree with you that all of those things you mentioned are major factors (the coaching, partners, level of competitive matches, etc.) in an athlete's ultimate success. I think that is true in all youth sports and activities. All parents probably struggle in trying to find the best environment for their children to succeed in their activities. It is not easy to always find that.
As a parent, my motivation was close to what you described. Yes, I intially wanted a sport where he could use his energy on kids his own age and also against kids his own size in contrast to football and maybe even learn a little self defense. But as he has progressed over these last five years, there are many other positive things that he is picking up from his participation in this sport. As I have stated before I'm just concerned about what he is gaining by participating now. I might even feel that it is more important for him to be acquiring these good things now than in high school.
Even though his ultimate success in high school is not my main objective for his participation now, my gut feeling is still that he would be a better high school wrestler due to his youth participation than if he tried to start as a freshman in high school. It seems to me that many of the kids who start young have parents who are coaches or were former wrestlers, so I guess they must believe there is some value to starting at a young age. I do understand your position and I do appreciate you sharing it with us. It would be interesting now to hear from some other coaches, parents and athletes on this.