Fear as a BJJ parent
My kid absolutely loves jiu jitsu. He has been training for about 5 years and competing for 4. I don’t do jiu jitsu, and he is the driving force behind his training. He probably puts in 8-10 hours/week - we don’t pressure him but he has a lot of friends on the team so always wants to be there(and he gets out of a bit of housework if he is training haha). In the beginning he did well at local comps and we have always supported a mindset where he moves up in weight/skill/age to find challenge. As he has gotten older he has started competing in a higher level with success - he made the podium at pans last year in a giant bracket.
The problem is the level of comps he is currently at, and his age group (he hasn’t hit puberty, but his competitors have) have started to make me really nervous. I don’t want to stop him when he has worked so hard but the tournaments he is in now just seem brutal with much looser rules around slamming and techniques. I am hoping for some insight from parents and/or practitioners - how worried should I be? I hate the idea of telling him he cannot compete in some tournaments when he is clearly confident that he can.