Introducing Your Kid to Club Volleyball: Tips From A Parent Who’s Been There
It’s 8 a.m. on a Saturday, and I’m leaning against a cinder block wall in a gym that smells like rubber floor, old sweat socks, and the cherry Slurpee I bought from the vending machine out front. My 12-year-old, Lila, is over on the court twisting the strap of her hand-me-down knee pad, and I’m already mentally calculating how much this is going to cost me if she makes the team. A year ago, I would have told you club volleyball was only for super competitive parents with big budgets and kids dead set on playing college ball. I only even signed her up for tryouts because she’d spent the entire rec league season complaining that half her team spent practice sitting on the bench painting each other’s nails instead of playing. “I just want to hit the ball,” she’d said every car ride home. “Can we try the other thing?”
I’d heard all the horror stories: $5,000 annual fees, tournaments across multiple states every weekend, coaches yelling at 11-year-olds for missing an easy serve. I almost said no, until a friend whose kid had played for three years told me to just go watch an entry-level team practice first, before I ruled it out. Most people only talk about the elite national teams, she said, but every club has teams for kids who just want to play more than rec league. I took her advice, showed up to a practice a week before tryouts, and sat in the back bleachers for 30 minutes. The entry-level team’s coach was 19, a college student who played intramural volleyball at the local university, she laughed when girls messed up, she didn’t make anyone run laps for a missed serve. It looked fine. Just kids running around, hitting a ball.
Tryouts went fine, too. Lila didn’t make the top competitive team, and that was a relief, honestly. She made that entry-level team I watched, the one that only plays tournaments within an hour and a half of home, no mandatory out-of-state travel unless we opt in for one end-of-season tournament. The total fee was $1,200, not the $5,000 I’d braced for, and when I asked if I could split it into monthly payments, the club coordinator said of course, no extra fee. I had no idea that was even an option. I’d assumed all club sports required a lump sum upfront that only wealthy families could afford.
The first month, I set one rule: Lila packs her own gear bag the night before practice. If she forgets something, she handles it. I won’t leave work mid-day to drive back home for knee pads, and I won’t run out to buy a new water bottle if she leaves hers on the kitchen counter. She forgot her knee pads twice that first month, and forgot her uniform once. She borrowed everything from teammates, got a little red-faced when the team mom handed her an extra jersey that was two sizes too big, and hasn’t forgotten anything major in three months. No nagging from me, no arguments. The natural consequence worked way better than any lecture I could have given.
As someone who spends every day working with kids in a public elementary school, I’ve seen how few kids have something that’s theirs, outside of school and screens. It’s rare for them to show up to something every week, work through mistakes, and problem solve with a group of peers their own age, without adult intervention every two minutes. I’ve watched Lila grow into that in a way I didn’t expect. Last month, her team was down 8 points in the last set of a tournament game, and I watched her call a huddle on her own. She said, “Okay, let’s stop worrying about the score. We just get one point back at a time.” That wasn’t something I taught her. That was something she picked up from showing up to practice twice a week for six months. She used to quit any activity the first time she messed up, and now she just shrugs and walks back to the end of the line to serve again.
It’s not all perfect, of course. There are weekends it feels like it takes over everything. Last month, we missed my grandma’s 80th birthday dinner because a tournament ran an hour longer than scheduled. Some of the other parents are intense—they yell at refs from the bleachers, badmouth other teams, and already talk about college recruiting for 12-year-olds. I just stay out of it. I bring a book, sit in my car between matches, and don’t engage with the drama. You don’t have to participate in the toxic parent culture to let your kid play, that’s another thing I learned.
If you’re on the fence about introducing your kid to club volleyball, these are the concrete things I wish someone had told me a year ago. Look for entry-level local teams first, you don’t have to jump into elite travel right away even if your kid is good. Ask for the full, all-in cost upfront—ask if uniforms, tournament fees, and gear are included, because some clubs quote a low base price then add hundreds in extra fees later. Let your kid handle their own gear from day one, don’t step in to fix every small mistake. And if the club culture feels off, you can leave. You don’t owe anyone a full season commitment if the coach or other parents are stressing your kid out.
Last week, after practice, Lila got in the car and told me she twisted her ankle a little hitting a spike. She iced it when we got home, and this morning she told me it’s fine, she’s ready for practice tonight. She still complains when she has to leave a friend’s birthday party early to make practice. She still makes silly TikTok’s with her teammates instead of doing her homework right after school sometimes. I don’t know if she’ll play in high school, let alone college. But right now, she has this thing that’s hers. It’s not my hobby, it’s not something we’re doing just to pad a resume. It’s just something she likes doing, with other kids who like doing it too. That’s enough for me, for now.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Introducing Your Kid to Club Volleyball: Tips From A Parent Who’s Been There