First of all, this is Mrs. Lemon. I do not coach but my husband does. Just clarifying. What I was saying is that there are parents who take winning way too serious. I will never forget my first wrestling tournament I attended as a parent. My son was just 6 and I remember thinking that we had made a very bad decision because it disguisted me seeing parents yelling at their kids, kids crying and being dragged off of the mat by their "coach". He is now 13 but I have two other boys aged 6 and 4. Last week, my 6 year old son lost a very close match and so was a little teary eyed at the end. While I was telling him what a good job he did, the other parent was congratulating his son on "making that boy cry". My son should be having fun. He should not be worried about winning or getting a medal. I just feel that to place such pressure at such a young age can do more harm than good. There was another article last year in Sports Illustrated that talked about the decline of junior high and high school sports in this country. They found that the biggest reason was that parents were pushing their kids way too soon and way too much. In the past, most kids would not be on traveling teams or be going on 8 to 10 hours drives every weekend just for a sport. Most students did not even start playing a sport until they were in junior high. The article Dad-dash-coach also talks about this. Now, you feel that if you do not have your kid participate in sports at an early age-they will be behind their peers. It just seems so crazy that we are talking about 6 year old kids. You talk about how great it is for the kid and that the kids deserve to be at the big show. I also believe that kids deserve to be at the big show too but later-when they have matured a little bit. What damage does it do to a child to have to wait until they are 8 years old?