It may be the only word that’s heard… 100% the rest…

Yes, that "F" word, much like the other F word and the "N" word, are like gas to a flame much of the time.

Just support her, ask if there's recreational volleyball and encourage her to do that and have fun.

Number 1. 7 th grade is not career ending.

If volleyball is import to her, she needs to improve. My daughter is at a higher level, but during the off season she will see a private coach maybe twice a month. This is just an intense 1 hour with skills homework.

She can and should play intramural or a club team during the offseason. There are beach tournaments all summer in most places that she could join a team.

She wasn’t told she can never play volleyball. She was told there were 11 other girls that had a higher skill set that day. Those girls will be playing and getting better. She needs to improve despite not being on the team to make it next year.

Or…..find a different sport that is less competitive or doesn’t cut at that age( track and field).

A star…

She runs to this day w/ a family of 3 + teaching full time…

It is part of growing up.

They need to learn how to handle loss in a constructive way.

She could examine why she did not get a place on the team.
Figure it out perhaps, and learn how to succeed in that sport if that is her goal.

Work harder, try new strategies to get the spot she wants.

It is not personal, it is business to some extent.
There could be many reasons she did not get selected, some of them nothing to do with her.
(Coaches' kids are get spots, etc.).

Or she could go to Plan B.
Is there another sport she will enjoy more?

I always told my daughter to have a Plan B.
If Plan A doesn't work out, go to the Plan B.
Often she found Plan B was more to her liking.

Children and teens need to learn that failures to make a sports team, or loses in competition, are parts of the process. This is true in grade school, junior high, and high school. It is part of life after leaving school and becoming part of the adult world.

In the great sport of boxing, there are those who are crushed by a lose, and never regain confidence. That is likely due to the expectations that others have burdened them with. When I trained fighters, I taught that a loss is only a loss if one does not learn from it. I actually lost a few fights, and that always resulted in my preparing for a re-match. And I always won re-matches.

Right or wrong, that's what I did with my 1 soccer goalie/softball catcher & 1 softball pitcher.

I hate school sports.

But only if this sport is the love of her life.

Otherwise, help her explore other activities she might well enjoy more.

You could also find her an elite club team to play on. Again, that's what I did. School sports only get in the way of superb club teams in high school.

I know dissapointments are tough & kids are so mean, but even little losses like this are a teachable moment.

Good luck!



On edit: if she might be interested in college scholarships, volleyball is the ticket. Not sure where she lives, nut I know scouts look in Chicago first.

If you make too much its not good. Short and sweet.

I know you very well might be right -- and I sure hope so.

A lot of that could depend on how the important people in her life respond. All kids at that age can be damaged if they react by saying it is important that she/he improve her skills, as if they somehow failed.

I will add that over the decades I've been familiar with school sports, I can say without risk of error that not all adults & coaches are objective when it comes to team sports. That is often another issue that parents and others have to deal with. (When I was on the school board, and watching my daughter's junior varsity basketball game, we had to have the state police remove one parent. She was way out of control. An extreme example, perhaps, but there are many others. Parents actually engaging in fist fights happens. And some coaches lack the capacity to deal with students in a positive manner. I watched as one of our school's coaches humiliated a good friend's daughter on the b-ball court in front of a packed gym. I went over and said, "Hey, sport, don't mistake yourself for a university coach, and I won't mistake you for an Elvis imitator." Later I did a training for coaches on the emotional development of teens, noting the differences between the average 15 year olds and 19 year olds. Any good coach knows that stuff.)

Kids generally know why they didn't make a team. If it's because a coach was partial, telling the kid to work harder isn't helpful. If it's because their skills weren't up to par, the kid knows it, most of the time. If they were on the bubble and there's no obvious reason why they weren't picked, there's nothing to say. So IME, it's better to empathize -- "oof that sucks, I know you tried your best, I'm sorry you're hurting" -- and let it go from there. It's okay to let kids wrestle with discomfort and decide what they want to do with it.

I've been in the same position in multiple roles. There's nothing a person can say to remove the sting of not making a team, no matter what the reason, so acknowledging the hurt and hard work is really all you can do.

But we don't want them as neurotic as we are!

She made me stop singing "Sweet Baby James" as a lullabye recently, and I can no longer inveigle her into readings of Madeline or Wind in the Willows. But she is still my darling.

That's what they do in our district. So 7th graders are competing with 7 and 8 graders. For sports with smaller teams , like baseball, a lot of good 7th graders don't make it. But they stick with training and playing and make it in 8th grade.

In baseball, many of the good kids I knew who didn't make it first time around made it next season and played thru varsity and some play college now.

Stinks to see 12 year olds quit a sport because of 7th grade cuts. Some schools are adding multiple teams so they can include more kids. Soccer is one example.

Also, kids who are cut in 7th can usually jump over to cross country in fall and track in spring. Wrestling for boys in winter. With no cuts. Then they can tryout again next season for the sport they didn't make.