This topic is near and dear to me as I'm relatively new to the sport, have now been in two different states, and I have a kid that wants to be great but is by no means there yet...but is mature enough and old enough when he started to know the process (although he still does get down on himself).
But damn if so many don't take it too seriously, and others not seriously enough. And they go together...especially when it comes to growing the sport.
First and foremost, if you are running a tournament...AT ALL COSTS START THE DAMN TOURNAMENT ON TIME!! As we all know, there's nothing more frustrating than travelling 1-2 hours at the butt-crack of dawn to get to a weigh-in at 7:30 for a "Wrestling will start at 9am SHARP" to which the wrestling actually starts about 10:15 if you're lucky.
Which leads me to my next point, which is the whole business of weight management and making weight and cutting. Why are their weight classes for individual tournaments at the elementary level? Except for maybe truly "elite" tournaments like state? Group kids into 8 man brackets or round robin by experience and let them get mat time. I love taking my kid to go wrestle good competition, but like Mr. Brewer said it's a little like "man, what am I doing?" when you make this effort for your kid to lose 3-1 to the eventual champ in the opening round then run into another hammer that finishes 2nd or 3rd the next round. Yes, it was good he was "close" to the guys that finished strong...but also a bit frustrating to make that much effort into 2 matches for a tournament that started way late.
And it's not about my kid "winning" bur rather just making it worth it. I'm the first to tell my son "If you don't like losing, get your ass in the gym and work harder". But I also would like to see a value in driving all over and getting my son more mat time (which is why we all love duals).
I can see how some parents that aren't so into it can say "to hell with this" and disencourage their kid to continue with the sport. I just think the target customer needs to be identified and someone needs to take the lead on making the sport more enjoyable all the way around to everyone, not just the die-hards. Very interesting convo!