I rarely respond, but I wanted to get my two cents in on this discussion. My oldest son started wrestling this year and has some learning disabilities (if you want more info on my son just send me a message). We have currently entered him in two tournaments Paola Open and then the Olathe Novice he is currently 0-6 (been pinned all six times)both were round robins. I am glad he was able to get in round robins because it gets him mat time and he is enjoying it. With his learning disabilities I am not sure how long it will take him to compete at an open level so I think you have to look at each child, case by case. A guideline is great but sometimes you need to look further.

Since I took a few lines talking about my oldest I am going to do the same about my youngest (four year old). He has picked up on things very quickly, just from watching between me coaching, officiating and watching his brother. Therefore, next year if he still wants to start he will be more advanced than a child that has never been around the sport.

Last thing I want to put is in response to the parents "forcing" the child to wrestle incase my oldest never wins a match but wants to keep going we will never stop him. I had talked to my two younger boys (four and five) about wrestling but not the oldest because of his disabilities. This year he came to me and said he wanted to wrestle, I about fell over because I never thought he would want too. On the same point my middle son wants nothing to do with wrestling and I will not push him to the sport, and if at some point he decides he wants too its his call and my wife and I will support him either way.