Children's True Needs

Family vacations at Lake Okoboji were the highpoint of my childhood summers. We swam and fished; played ping pong and pinball; ate gobs of sweet corn and peaches; and even competed in a talent show! My baseball coach didn’t like it, but he understood-family vacations came first. But during the last two decades of the 20^th century, family vacations declined by nearly 30%. And one of the main deterrents? Children’s sports.

When I was in high school I played on a city league baseball team and an all-star team. I played a combined total of 30-35 games each summer. But a high school player today will play two or three times that many. The benefits? Maybe kids become better ball players. But at what cost? One study compared the SAT scores of two groups of high school athletes. One group’s extracurricular activities were sports only. The other participated in a diversity of activities. The SAT scores were lower for kids involved in sports only. A child who narrowly focuses on sports may be weakened in other ways.

Our children have important skills to acquire—they must learn how to care for others, to connect with God, to manage money, to think critically. To help our kids meet these needs, we made sure they were involved in a broad mix of activities: household chores, church camp, mission trips, family gatherings, gardening (at home and with grandpa), growing and selling produce, helping neighbors, and more.

Psychologist John Rosemond has reported that when he speaks to parent groups, he asks them to raise a hand if they did chores as a child. Almost all of them raise a hand. But when he asks them to raise a hand if they require their kids to do regular chores, only a few raise a hand. Chores help train a child for the future. As an adult he will need to know how to wash clothes, clean a bathroom, fix a meal, care for a lawn, budget money, etc. When our boys complained about household chores—“Why do we have to weed the garden? Our friends aren’t their parents’ slaves!”—we would try to calmly explain: “Family life is a joint effort. If you don’t help out then some other member of this family will be unfairly burdened.” Parents, if you don’t treat your child like a privileged house guest, your future son- or daughter-in-law will shower you with praise!

Selecting A Sport

Part 1

When I was a boy, I had no opportunity to participate in organized sports until I reached the age of nine. Today, many children begin at the age of three or four—and some even younger! Is that wise? When should kids begin organized sports?  

At one exhausted point when our three boys were playing both spring and fall soccer, I estimated that their yearly commitments to games and practices totaled more than 100! And they were also playing other sports. William Doherty asks: “How did children’s sports come to consume so much of family life?”

Before you register your child for any organized sports, consider the larger picture: How will this effect the whole family? Sports choices should consider the needs of non-participating siblings. How will a brother feel if he is either dragged along or forced to stay with relatives while his sister travels 10-15 weekends a year to play soccer? No child should be required to do that year after year.

Furthermore, Christian psychologist John Rosemond believes that “no other relationship or enterprise of any sort should come before [the parents] relationship with each other.” In many homes, couples pour all of their energy into their kids, leaving each other the dregs. Is it any wonder that second highest divorce rate is found in the years immediately after children leave the nest? Cathy and I maintained a weekly date night, we occasionally vacationed without our kids, and we didn’t let their athletic schedule trump all other commitments. Did we miss some of their contests? Of course. But we were committed to putting God and each other ahead of our boys’ athletic commitments.

"Happy Days"

Over the holidays, the young men that I coached for seven years on a club soccer team—our youngest son included—organized a reunion. Cathy and I hadn’t seen most of them for the past 15 years and for more than two hours we reminisced and laughed about one of the more positive experiences in their growing up years.

Their favorite memory was a championship victory over their perennial nemesis—whom they had never defeated. They won that overtime game on a long throw-in that was headed in the goal by a boy who had just entered the game. We remembered the tears of the losers--they were inexperienced losers! One of their parents told me after the game that he thought the loss was good for that team because of their inflating ego.

But there were painful memories also. They remembered the tournament they were swindled out of a spot in a championship game by a coach who secretly lobbied tournament officials to bend the rules in his team’s favor. And one of the young men agonized over being tossed out of a game for leveling a referee he had not seen because he was chasing a high kick. The referee thought he intentionally bowled him over.

Another young man remembered joining our team after playing for a ragtag team in a nearby city. His former team seldom won and each boy on that team had a lone jersey for a uniform. He was overjoyed when he came to his first tournament with us and received two full uniforms plus warm-ups. He thought he had arrived in the big leagues!

But many of the memories had little to do with soccer and a lot to do with relationships. They remembered staying at a mountain cabin during one tournament. The cabin sat by a raging creek that one of the boys fell in and another one yanked him out after he was sucked under. Had he saved him from drowning? We will never know. And there were other less dramatic memories:

• They remembered—and sang!—a popular song that they played again and again during pre-game warm-ups.
• They laughed at the memory of an agitated goalkeeper for another team who was dubbed “psycho goalie”.
• I recalled a boy throwing up in an elevator after boasting about how much pizza he could eat!
• Several remembered one boy sliding through a muddy puddle at the end of the game, just for the fun sliding through a muddy puddle—and then being denied access to his car until he stripped down.

When sports are dominated by news about drugs, domestic violence, greed, and immorality, it is good to remember that sports can be a source of great joy for many children.