Introducing Kids to Club Volleyball: Tips From A First-Time Parent
The rain was soaking through my hoodie as I leaned against the gym door, watching my 12-year-old Lila hover by the water fountain at her first club volleyball practice. She’d crammed her only pair of garage-sale knee pads into a backpack that still had a Cheeto stain on the side from our last road trip, and she’d complained the whole drive over that all the other kids would already know each other. I’d already checked my bank account three times that morning, staring at the $185 registration fee that felt like a huge gamble after a year of her quitting piano, horseback riding, and the school art club.
We ended up here after her rec league season ended, when she’d sat on the bench for nine out of ten games, came home, threw her knee pads on the floor, and said, “I just want to actually hit the ball sometimes, you know?” I’d looked up local options and found a beginner group for 11 to 12 year olds that didn’t require cutthroat tryouts for new players, so I signed her up. I’d heard all the horror stories: club volleyball is for rich parents who yell at kids from the sidelines, it costs thousands, it’s all about winning before kids even hit high school. I was ready to yank her out after 10 minutes if it felt that toxic.
That first practice surprised me. The coach didn’t line the kids up and yell at them for bad form. He split them into groups of three and told them just to toss the ball back and forth for the first 15 minutes, no scoring, no pressure. When Lila shanked a pass into a garbage can, the girl she was playing with just laughed and grabbed another ball. By the end of practice, Lila came bounding over, hair stuck to her forehead, and said she wanted a blue raspberry slushie on the way home to celebrate.
I’d panicked about gear before that first practice, convinced I needed to drop $200 on a new regulation ball, custom knee pads, and team gear right off the bat. That’s the first tip I pass along to other parents now: ask the club what you actually need to buy up front, don’t go on a big shopping trip before you even know if your kid likes it. Most beginner teams have extra gear kids can borrow for the first two months, so you only have to buy stuff once they commit to staying. I ended up grabbing a barely used ball and a new pair of knee pads off Facebook Marketplace from a mom whose daughter had outgrown them, for $30 total. That’s a far cry from the $300 I was expecting to spend.
The small unexpected changes started showing up after a few weeks. Lila’s always been the kid who’d rather give up than ask for help. If she got stuck on a math problem, she’d crumple the paper and say she’s bad at math instead of raising her hand in class or asking me for help. About a month in, I was waiting outside the gym and saw her stay after practice, walk up to her coach, and ask him to show her how to do an overhand serve a second time. I almost dropped my coffee. She’d never initiated asking for help like that before, at anything. A week later, she came home from school and said she’d stayed after math class to get extra help on fractions. She told me, “Coach says if you don’t ask, you can’t get better, so I figured it works for math too.”
It’s not all good, of course. Last month, we drove two and a half hours to a tournament out of town, got there at 7 a.m., and Lila played a total of four points all day. She came back to the car after the last game, slammed the door, and cried for 10 minutes, saying the coach liked the other girls better and she never wanted to go back. I didn’t give her a cheesy “just work harder” speech, and I didn’t fire off an angry email to the coach right away. I keep a bag of Sour Patch Kids and a $5 bill in my purse for these days, so I just asked her: “Do you want to talk about it, or do you want to go get that chocolate shake we saw on the sign on the way in?” She picked the shake. We didn’t talk about the tournament again until two days later, when she brought it up and said she wanted extra serve practice before the next week. That’s what works for us, no need to fix every bad day immediately.
A lot of parents I talk to worry club volleyball will take over their whole life, and it does take time: two weeknights a week and a tournament most other weekends. We adjusted by cutting out the random after-school playdates Lila always said felt like a chore anyway, and we started listening to a fantasy audiobook together on drives to tournaments, which is now one of my favorite parts of the month. If you don’t want to do long-distance travel, most areas have local rec club teams that only play tournaments within 30 minutes of home, so you don’t have to commit to big travel costs if you don’t want to.
Lila’s 13 now, and last week she told me she might quit after this season so she can join the after-school pottery club she’s been wanting to try. That’s fine with me. I don’t care if she ever plays in college or gets a scholarship or anything. What I’m glad about is that we tried it. She got to be on a team where she actually gets to hit the ball most practices, she learned to ask for help when she needs it, she has three girls she texts every night about stupid middle school drama. If she quits, that’s okay. If she stays, that’s okay too. The point wasn’t to make her a volleyball star, it was just to let her try something she said she wanted to try. And that’s all you have to do, really. Ask around for beginner teams, test out a couple free practices first, skip the expensive gear up front, and let your kid set the pace.
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