Introducing Kids to Club Volleyball: What New Parents Need to Know
6:17 a.m. on the first Saturday of club volleyball season, I’m leaning against my minivan in an empty grocery store parking lot, waiting for my 12-year-old daughter Lila to find her left shoe. The coffee in my cup holder is already seeping through the cracked lid onto the registration form I printed the night before, and I’m questioning why I said yes when she asked to quit rec and try club after last spring’s end-of-season picnic. Lila had come home that day with a piece of chocolate cake in one hand and a crumpled tryout flyer in the other, saying “all the girls I like are doing it, I want to play more than once a week.” I’d barely heard of club volleyball before that. I thought it was just for super tall kids gunning for college scholarships, not my kid who still trips over her own feet walking to the bus stop.
When we walked into that first practice, I felt completely out of place. Every other parent had a custom folding chair emblazoned with the club logo, a portable phone charger, and a cooler full of labeled water bottles. I was holding my ratty canvas tote with one extra hair tie and a granola bar that had been there since last summer’s soccer season. Lila’s palms were sweaty, and she hung back by the door while the other girls high-fived and traded stories about last season’s out-of-state tournaments. The first drill was three passes around the court, and Lila shanked one straight into the bleachers. Her whole face turned bright red, and she stared right at me. I almost waved her over to come sit with me.
The first month was rough. We had two car rides home crying, where Lila said everyone else already knew all the plays, she couldn’t get her serve over the net, and she wanted to quit. I was already drafting a text to the coach to pull her out when the assistant coach pulled me aside after practice one day. She didn’t give me a big motivational speech, just said “I notice she’s always the first one to pick up the stray balls at the end of drill, even when everyone else is lining up for water. That’s the stuff we can’t teach. Give her six weeks.”
That conversation got me thinking about all the small mistakes I was making as a new club volleyball parent, and I started making small changes that made a huge difference. The first was holding off on buying all the fancy branded gear the website listed as required. I’d spent almost $200 right off the bat on a custom club bag, padded branded knee pads, and the top-of-the-line competition ball they recommended. Turns out, Lila hated the knee pads because they dug into her thighs, and she preferred the beat-up rec ball she’d had for two years. Now I tell any new parent I meet to wait at least three practices before buying anything beyond basic sneakers and a water bottle. Most clubs have extra gear to borrow the first couple weeks, and your kid will tell you what they actually need, not what the marketing materials say you need.
I also changed the question I asked Lila when she got in the car after practice. I used to immediately say “did you have fun?” and if she said no, I’d spiral thinking this whole thing was a waste of time and money. Now I ask, “what’s one thing that bugged you, and one thing that wasn’t terrible?” It keeps me from panicking over a bad 10 minutes in practice, and it gives her space to vent without feeling like she has to pretend to love every minute to make me happy. Last week she answered, “bugged me that coach made us run sprints when my ankle hurt, not terrible that we got ice cream from the snack bar after.” It’s a normal answer, and I don’t have to fix anything for her.
Another small change I made was stopping the habit of rushing back home when she forgot her gear. The first week she forgot her water bottle, I drove 15 minutes back to get it, which made us late and stressed both of us out. Now I keep one spare 12-ounce water bottle and one pair of generic medium knee pads in my trunk. If she forgets hers, she uses the spare. If I don’t have what she needs, she borrows from a teammate or the coach. It’s her job to pack her bag the night before, and after she had to wear a pair of neon pink loaner knee pads that were two sizes too big, she hasn’t forgotten anything in two months.
A couple weeks ago we had our first tournament, and we lost the first game even after Lila pulled off that one amazing dig I still think about. She didn’t start the first two sets, and I caught myself scrolling the team roster comparing everyone’s age and height to hers, before I remembered the rule I made for myself: no checking stats, no comparing during events. I put my phone away and went back to my mystery novel.
A lot of parents I talk to assume club volleyball is only for hyper-competitive families who care more about winning than their kid’s well-being. It’s true that it’s time-consuming, it’s not cheap, and we give up most Saturdays from September to May. But what I didn’t expect is that it’s the first thing Lila’s done that’s hard, that she didn’t immediately get good at. She can’t rely on me to fix it when she’s bad at a drill, or when she doesn’t get much playing time. She has to work through it, or decide it’s not worth it. That’s the stuff that doesn’t show up on a report card.
We’re halfway through the season now, and Lila says she wants to come back next year, but she also just got into a regional art program that meets on Fridays, so we’re still figuring out how to fit everything. Some weekends I still hate the 6 a.m. wake-up calls, and I still spend too much money on tournament concession stand popcorn. Last week she told me she still doesn’t know if she’ll ever be good enough to start every game, and that’s okay. I used to think introducing your kid to a new activity meant you were setting them up for some big, future success. Now I think it’s enough that she shows up, that she has a group of girls she laughs with after practice, that we get to stop for chocolate ice cream on the way home when it’s over. We’ll see what happens next year.
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