Sports Conversion

I never really played sports. Sports teams weren’t big in my family - we never watched any professional sports that I remember at all. We biked and hiked and swam, but if you wanted to do a more organized sport or activity, you had to get yourself there and back - I didn’t have the kind of mom who would drive you. Somehow, my sisters still participated in sports, but I missed that window. Now an an adult and a mother, I have found the benefits becoming clearer and clearer to me.

As a mom to two boys (and a husband who played many sports - and watched a lot more professional sports before he met me), we’ve done soccer, baseball, basketball. But these sports for little kids were for fun, and the agenda was mostly parental. I wanted my kids to grow up doing these things, because I knew health-wise how much harder it is to pick up as you get older. I figured it would be easier for them to get on teams in middle and high school - they’d have these skills and it wouldn’t all be new. And maybe that would translate into a lifelong love of the sport - something they could bring into adulthood as a physical activity they enjoyed.

We’d always encourage the kids to attend all their practices and games - we didn’t skip much for fun. We emphasized that the team was counting on them. Even as little kids, you need enough team members to play, enough kids to be able to let kids rest if they got tired or hurt. And we could see our children learning to take turns, and working with the team. We could see them developing skills, and getting better and better every year.

So here I am, a mom to twelve and ten year old boys, and it finally became clear to me. It’s not just physical skills, it’s not just helping them find a way to be active for a healthy life. Both of those things are fantastic - but these teams are also teaching them how to deal with failure and get back up. Not just their team’s failure, but their own - when they can’t block that goal, or they miss their pass. My kids are learning to try and try again. They’re learning to work hard - and to practice. They’re learning to work with a team and therefore to have humility and be selfless to achieve their common goal. And they’re learning discipline - not just to train for specific skills in a sport, but to manage time so they can do well in school, balance friendships, contribute to their community, and help to take care of their home and family.

I’d never say that you can’t learn all these things without participating as a child in a team sport. I learned them, perhaps in more roundabout ways. But I’ll never again undervalue these sports as a way of helping my children grow into the kind, ever-learning, responsible citizens, employees, entrepreneurs, and all around hard workers I want to raise.