Youth Coaching and letting your son play

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The game is changing.  I wouldn't worry about those questions right now.  However, if I had to make that decision today my first question would be is my son even interested in playing, and if so have a heart to heart with him.  My next move would be to find a reputable organization with good coaches.  Next, I would go watch teams in that organization practice and watch some games.  I might have to do that with more than one organization.  Finally, if you aren't satisfied with what you see and hear about the youth football in your area look into having him attend football camps for youngsters.  Same thing.  Find a good camp with good coaches and do your research!

One of my sons started in 5th grade, one started in 6th. 5th I thought was a little early with the benefit of hindsight. Other than one season I've ended up helping to coach every year.

My son didn't play tackle football until he was a freshman in high school. When he was younger, he was a big kid and would have played with kids two years older. No way was I going to go for that. My grandson (my son's son) started playing tackle football at age 7, BUT my son (who is a high school football coach) is one of the coaches along with another of the assistants from his school.

coached several varsity kids who were pretty good, that almost didn't play as juniors and seniors because they were just tired of it, because they started at a young age.

my son started in jh, which is when i did (not that there was any choice when i was playing; there was no youth football then).
i don't think i would have ever had enough of it even starting early, but no way to know for sure. my son wouldn't have been interested early if the opportunity had been there, and i doubt i would have let him.

there are probably some decent youth coaches, but there's a lot of guys who are on an ego trip. and that's bad news.

probably didn't tell you anything, but that's my view of it.

I didn’t let my son play until 7th grade. He begged every year but I just didn’t feel comfortable with him playing in the league he would’ve had to play in because of the lack of trained coaches and just overall safety in general.

There’s plenty of other things to do.

My youngest would give a kidney to play tackle football and he's 8.  I don't see the use in it right now, so he plays flag football and he does pretty well.  He comes with me to practice most every day and helps the coaches organize their drills.  Another coach has a couple little boys and they end up playing around on the track or behind the end zone.  At times there's as many as 5 or 6 kids there tossing the ball and having fun.  I personally think he gets more from that than playing the organized sport at least at this age.

Those of you who've answered or are about to answer regarding when your children started playing football, are you counting only adult-supervised ball? Were there previous times your kid would come home and tell you he'd been playing football? Might there have been times he'd been playing football and you didn't know it? If they had been playing football, do you think they would've told you or concealed it from you?

I’ll coach my son after we have practices when/if that time comes he wants to play. Today he’s almost 3 years old and could shoot in his little tykes hoop all day. Hand him a football and he’ll dunk it.

I will coach him to ensure he’s got trustworthy coaching and what not. Unless there’s someone I trust to do it more.

My son never played organized youth football but played backyard ball all the time. 

I don't think so!  What makes you think liability would be any less on the part of the club, the league, coaches, administration, or the owner of the ground, if the coaches went to a league-mandated clinic?  The only thing I can see from that is that the clinic would be yet another possible target of the lawsuit.

"So, you sent your coaches to a clinic?  That means you recognized your existing practices as dangerous.  What steps did you take to make sure your coaches then applied what was taught at the clinic?"

Clinics can be very good.  I know I've learned at some.  But they can also be controversial in their instructions, even as to safety.  Many of those purporting to teach safer blocking, tackling, and even conduct and emphasis of practice can be disagreed with by those who think their own methods are safer. or at least as safe.  When I started coaching in 2007, the club (which was also the league -- house ball) hosted a clinic that included video instruction from NAYS (I might be slightly messing up the acronym) that showed horrible tackling technique -- aiming the face mask squarely at the chest; it was unspoken that they expected you to bend your head out of the way at contact.  Fortunately I and the other coaches I talked to after we watched the video said we would never teach tackling as shown.  And that wasn't the last time I and other people I've coached with knowingly coached contrary to instructions we'd received at video and in-person clinics.

That's great.  But I do think that when it comes to contact sports, although adults can certainly screw things up, good instruction and supervision by adults makes the kids safer.  I don't have data regarding injuries, but from what I've seen coaching children in football, judging by the moves some kids make before instruction, I can't imagine we didn't make them at least somewhat less dangerous.

I have a daughter, so one could say my opinion doesn't matter. However, we have just begun trying for number 2. If it's a boy, he will not play anything but tag until M.S.

1) Like others have said, I've seen too many crappy youth coaches.

2) I have a buddy who has a son. When he was 8, he would always tell me that football was his favorite sport. Then he broke his arm. He no longer wants to play football. I believe being physically hurt like that, traumatizes little kids more than it does teens/young adults. You may say "well he could have broke his arm doing anything". While that's true, little kids are smart enough to realize that the likely hood of that happening goes up when you tackle or get tackled by someone else over and over again.

IF