Usually not before sixteen, and when the time does come the decision should rest on which one they would miss, not which one they are better at. Early specialisation raises the risk of injury and burnout without reliably improving where a young athlete ends up.

The real problem is load, not the number of sports

Two sports with proper off seasons is a healthier year than one sport played twelve months without a break. What harms young athletes is not variety, it is volume with no recovery, and a single sport with a winter programme, a summer season and private coaching in the gaps is the most common version of that.

Count the actual hours before you decide anything. School sport, club training, district or regional programmes, private sessions, gym, matches and travel. Most families arrive at a number close to double what they assumed, because each commitment was agreed separately with a different person and nobody has added them up.

When the seasons collide

The genuine conflict is usually a six to eight week overlap rather than the whole year. One season starting before the other finishes. A championship landing on top of exams.

Solve the overlap rather than the year. A planned reduction in one sport for two months is a much smaller decision than dropping it, and it can be reversed.

When specialising does make sense

When there is a hard selection point coming that genuinely requires the volume. When the young person is clear and consistent that they want one thing. Or when the two commitments have become impossible to hold together without something breaking.

All three of those come from the situation or from the child. None of them come from a coach who wants more of your child’s week, and coaches at every level will ask for that in good faith.

The conversation to have

Ask them which one they would keep if they could only keep one, then say nothing. The speed of the answer tells you more than the answer does.

If they cannot choose, they are not ready to, and there is rarely a good reason to make them.

What to watch for afterwards

A young person who drops a sport and becomes noticeably flatter has usually lost something that was doing more for them than the results suggested. The second sport is often where the friendships were, or the one place with no pressure attached. That is not a small loss and it is worth naming out loud if it happens.