Marnie, I am excited to see what you come up with that will work for your child and for others in the same situation!
I had such a similar experience this week that I was also fuming! I hope it's okay to hi-jack your topic here...
Nathan (5) LOVES soccer. he is crazy about it. At the kiddies soccer franchise thing he and Dylan attend, he needs to move up to the senior class, but we have a scheduling conflict and they only offer the one class a week. He stayed in the "little" class for about 4 months but says he simply cannot anymore so we took him along to try out a full soccer club. Aiden decided last minute to try it too (he is not a soccer fan - too strop self-preservation instincts). So they put both boys in to the under 8 group for that session. It's a big group - about 40 kids so they split them and rotate them through the activities.
Nathan was a firecracker! (another dad's word not mine). He was so energetic and so good. I heard several comments about how he is "very small for 7" and "how impressively skilled he is for such a small kid". He was literally running rings around these older, bigger boys.
At the end of the practice session (a full hour), the coach asked the boys how they enjoyed it etc. Aiden said that he "needed time to assess his feelings of enjoyment before making a long-term commitment". Nathan was still bouncing up and down and asked when he could come again.
The coach then said that Nathan could join in the under 6 group (pee-wees) over on the other side for their practice next week. Nathan hid his disappointment so well (until we got home) and I was just furious. This man knew his age from the get go, so why get the child's hopes up?
The only reason I can fathom is that they want a "star" for the rising kids side coming up... But that also doesn't sit right with me - he loves working hard and I like that he is good but not the best kwim?
So yeah definitely a bit of social pressure being felt ITO age and responses from other parents more than anything else.
