"Cutting Back (Continued)"
Divorce statistics suggest that parents have focused too much on their kids—the second highest divorce rate is found in the years just after the kids leave home. These parents over-invested in their kids and under-invested in their marriage. So, what other ways should parents scale back?
You aren’t shirking your parental duty if you let your child work out her own social difficulties. When psychologist John Rosemond’s daughter was in middle high, she experienced agonizing social rejection—primarily because she still looked like a little girl. Rosemond explained how he and his wife responded: “We wanted desperately to solve this problem for her. We thought of calling some of the mothers of the more popular girls and asking for their help. We thought of throwing a big expensive birthday party for Amy and inviting all of the popular girls.... We finally came to our senses. We could not solve this problem for Amy.” As a result, the Rosemond’s shifted their strategy from the short-term goal of helping Amy elevate her popularity quotient to the long-term goal of raising an adult who did not depend on other people’s approval in order to feel that her life was in order.
Instead of trying to solve the problem for her, they chose to give her the tools to solve it herself. They told her: “Amy, we know this is painful, but you will not be thirteen forever. Some day, you will be thirty, and all this will seem unimportant then. Furthermore, what you are experiencing today is helping you learn how important it is to never treat another person the way these girls are treating you. It’s also helping you learn to stand on your own two feet, to not depend on other people for a sense of well-being." Though Amy wasn’t thrilled by the speech, she later came to see the wisdom and rightness of her parents’ counsel.
You aren’t shirking your duties as a parent if you don’t help your child with her homework every night. Our culture’s worship of achievement has led many parents to assume a major role in their kids’ school work—checking assignments, reviewing for tests, searching for resources, editing papers, and more. This can be very effective in the short term (i.e., good grades) but what are the long term consequences? Ultimately it produces a de-pendent child and an exhausted parent. Parents justify their efforts by claiming their child would fail if he didn’t receive help. But what is so crushing about failure? A failing grade can be one of the most powerful incentives for change. Ultimately, a child has to learn to take the initiative and solve his own problems—unless you plan to be his roommate in college!
2009/11/12
2009/10/10
Wall-to-Wall Parenting: Part 2
"Cutting Back"
There is an increasing trend in our culture to over-parent. This over-parenting fuels the frantic pace of life that exhausts many parents. If you trim what you do for your children, you will have the energy to give them what they truly need.
You aren’t abusing your child if you don’t attend all of his athletic contests. Many children who grew up in the 60’s and 70’s had parents who seldom watched their children participate in ath-letics. Today we’ve gone to the other extreme. I know parents who even attend all of their child’s practices!
But the constant presence of a parent is unnecessary. One of my favorite childhood memories is summertime, pick-up baseball games. When I was 11 or 12 years old, I biked across town (3-4 miles) to play baseball with my cousins and their friends. (My mom was astonished at how early I would get up to play ball!) We spent the cool mornings playing ball and the hot afternoons swimming. Reminiscing, I find that I am one of those men “who cling as long as life and common sense will let them to the days when a game of baseball could fill a whole afternoon so full that it would run over at the edges.” And this joyous experience took place without the participation of even one adult!
What are you teaching your kids when relationships with God or your spouse or one of your other children bows constantly to a child’s athletic calendar? You may be training your child to expect the whole world to attend to him in the same focused way. Over-parenting often produces self-absorbed children who never learn that the world doesn’t spin around them.
You aren’t abusing your child if you turn in your chauffeur license. Many parents spend a chunk of every day driving their children from one activity to another to another. Let them bike to a friend’s home—the added exercise will be good for them.
But part of the reason we spend so much time ferrying our kids is that we sign them up for too many activities. They need car transportation to meet their tight schedules. Why do we do this? Partly because we fear that an ounce of a child’s talent may be untapped. A parent might reason: “I know my son is already playing soccer and taking guitar lessons, but I better sign him up for golf lessons also. Who knows, he may be the next Tiger Woods!”
But would it have been a tragedy if Tiger Woods parents had placed more emphasis on academics than on golf? Psychologist John Rosemond commented on such a possibility: “Maybe Tiger would have grown up to become a virologist, and maybe he would have discovered a cure for AIDS.”
Some parents won’t cut back their child’s (and thus, their own) commitments because they fear their child’s resistance. Rather than resist, most children are relieved. They want time to be with you, to hang out at home, to read a book, to play with a friend.
There is an increasing trend in our culture to over-parent. This over-parenting fuels the frantic pace of life that exhausts many parents. If you trim what you do for your children, you will have the energy to give them what they truly need.
You aren’t abusing your child if you don’t attend all of his athletic contests. Many children who grew up in the 60’s and 70’s had parents who seldom watched their children participate in ath-letics. Today we’ve gone to the other extreme. I know parents who even attend all of their child’s practices!
But the constant presence of a parent is unnecessary. One of my favorite childhood memories is summertime, pick-up baseball games. When I was 11 or 12 years old, I biked across town (3-4 miles) to play baseball with my cousins and their friends. (My mom was astonished at how early I would get up to play ball!) We spent the cool mornings playing ball and the hot afternoons swimming. Reminiscing, I find that I am one of those men “who cling as long as life and common sense will let them to the days when a game of baseball could fill a whole afternoon so full that it would run over at the edges.” And this joyous experience took place without the participation of even one adult!
What are you teaching your kids when relationships with God or your spouse or one of your other children bows constantly to a child’s athletic calendar? You may be training your child to expect the whole world to attend to him in the same focused way. Over-parenting often produces self-absorbed children who never learn that the world doesn’t spin around them.
You aren’t abusing your child if you turn in your chauffeur license. Many parents spend a chunk of every day driving their children from one activity to another to another. Let them bike to a friend’s home—the added exercise will be good for them.
But part of the reason we spend so much time ferrying our kids is that we sign them up for too many activities. They need car transportation to meet their tight schedules. Why do we do this? Partly because we fear that an ounce of a child’s talent may be untapped. A parent might reason: “I know my son is already playing soccer and taking guitar lessons, but I better sign him up for golf lessons also. Who knows, he may be the next Tiger Woods!”
But would it have been a tragedy if Tiger Woods parents had placed more emphasis on academics than on golf? Psychologist John Rosemond commented on such a possibility: “Maybe Tiger would have grown up to become a virologist, and maybe he would have discovered a cure for AIDS.”
Some parents won’t cut back their child’s (and thus, their own) commitments because they fear their child’s resistance. Rather than resist, most children are relieved. They want time to be with you, to hang out at home, to read a book, to play with a friend.
2009/09/14
Wall-to-Wall Parenting: Part 1
"First Things First"
Many parents today are overly committed to parenting. Yes, you read that accurately. I have taught Christian parenting for the past 30+ years. For most of those years I have pleaded with parents to increase their commitment to their children. But in the past decade there has been a shift in our culture and in my teaching. While our children still have great needs for our involvement, I now believe many Christian parents need to cut back what they do for their children. Let me explain.
Deuteronomy 6 is a foundational passage for teaching parents how to pass on a living faith to their children. In that chapter, God instructs parents to: "Love the Lord YOUR God with all YOUR heart and with all YOUR soul and with all YOUR strength. These commandments I give you today are to be upon YOUR hearts." Parents, if you are serious about your children learning how to love God, then loving God must be the priority of your life--an even more important commitment than your commitment to your children.
But many Christian parents complain that after cooking meals, chauffeuring the kids, doing laundry, maintaining a yard, running errands, attending children’s activities, etc., etc., they don’t have the time or energy for individual time with God. But are all of these tasks part of the job description for The Good Parent? Not only are many of them unnecessary, but some are harmful. One of the major tasks for children is to learn how to be independent of their parents. If parents do too much for their kids, it will stunt their growth.
So where should we cut back what we do for our children? First, by including ALL family members in the upkeep of a household. Psychologist John Rosemond has said that when he speaks to groups of parents he asks them a question: “Raise your hand if you had chores when you were a child?” Almost all of them raise a hand. But then he asks: “Raise your hand if you require your kids to do regular chores?” And only a few raise a hand. Please, for your children’s sake, don’t treat them like privileged house guests. When our boys were growing up, they would occasionally complain about their household responsibilities: “Why do we have to weed the garden and do our own laundry? Our friends aren’t their parents’ slaves!” To those complaints we would calmly (most of the time!) answer: “Family life is a joint effort. If you don’t help out then some other member of this family will be unfairly burdened.”
So even if you’re a super-Mom who has unlimited energy, your children still need you to do less. By the time they leave home permanently, they will need to know how to wash their own clothes, clean a bathroom, fix a meal, care for a lawn, budget their money, etc. If they don’t learn this during childhood, it is much harder to learn this as an adult. (I still don’t know how to do my own laundry!)
The sacrificial, “wall-to-wall” parenting that many parents are committed to may feel good, but it may not do good. If you cut back what you do for your kids, your kids will benefit by learning how to care for themselves. You will benefit by having more time to pursue your first priority--your relationship with God.
Many parents today are overly committed to parenting. Yes, you read that accurately. I have taught Christian parenting for the past 30+ years. For most of those years I have pleaded with parents to increase their commitment to their children. But in the past decade there has been a shift in our culture and in my teaching. While our children still have great needs for our involvement, I now believe many Christian parents need to cut back what they do for their children. Let me explain.
Deuteronomy 6 is a foundational passage for teaching parents how to pass on a living faith to their children. In that chapter, God instructs parents to: "Love the Lord YOUR God with all YOUR heart and with all YOUR soul and with all YOUR strength. These commandments I give you today are to be upon YOUR hearts." Parents, if you are serious about your children learning how to love God, then loving God must be the priority of your life--an even more important commitment than your commitment to your children.
But many Christian parents complain that after cooking meals, chauffeuring the kids, doing laundry, maintaining a yard, running errands, attending children’s activities, etc., etc., they don’t have the time or energy for individual time with God. But are all of these tasks part of the job description for The Good Parent? Not only are many of them unnecessary, but some are harmful. One of the major tasks for children is to learn how to be independent of their parents. If parents do too much for their kids, it will stunt their growth.
So where should we cut back what we do for our children? First, by including ALL family members in the upkeep of a household. Psychologist John Rosemond has said that when he speaks to groups of parents he asks them a question: “Raise your hand if you had chores when you were a child?” Almost all of them raise a hand. But then he asks: “Raise your hand if you require your kids to do regular chores?” And only a few raise a hand. Please, for your children’s sake, don’t treat them like privileged house guests. When our boys were growing up, they would occasionally complain about their household responsibilities: “Why do we have to weed the garden and do our own laundry? Our friends aren’t their parents’ slaves!” To those complaints we would calmly (most of the time!) answer: “Family life is a joint effort. If you don’t help out then some other member of this family will be unfairly burdened.”
So even if you’re a super-Mom who has unlimited energy, your children still need you to do less. By the time they leave home permanently, they will need to know how to wash their own clothes, clean a bathroom, fix a meal, care for a lawn, budget their money, etc. If they don’t learn this during childhood, it is much harder to learn this as an adult. (I still don’t know how to do my own laundry!)
The sacrificial, “wall-to-wall” parenting that many parents are committed to may feel good, but it may not do good. If you cut back what you do for your kids, your kids will benefit by learning how to care for themselves. You will benefit by having more time to pursue your first priority--your relationship with God.
2009/06/09
Guiding Children's Participation, Part 4
Sports for Your Unathletic Child
A clumsy child may find a walk through the house as dangerous as a walk through a mine field. It may be even more perilous for him to step onto a ball field where winners are praised and losers are ignored or berated. So, should unathletic children avoid sports? Not at all. Positive sports experiences can encourage a lifelong commitment to exercise, while also providing opportunities for fun and fellowship.
What can a parent do to encourage positive experiences for their athletically challenged child? First, take great care in selecting a sport. Avoid programs that place a heavy emphasis on winning or that don’t give each child an ample opportunity to play.
Second, you must be realistic. Admit that your child will never be a star. But he can still enjoy sports. When our son, Andrew, was seven years old, he had a boy on his soccer team who was dreadfully uncoordinated and equally unaggressive. But that child was blessed with a coach and a father who praised him for his effort and his determination. As a result, he loved soccer and played for several years.
Thirdly, be careful how you treat this child in comparison to how you treat his siblings. Dr. Chap Clark, who has authored several books on parenting, recounted a painful mistake he made with his boys. His first son was an immediate success on the soccer field, scoring a goal almost every game. Chap wanted to reward his son for his good play, so he took him for a post-game milkshake anytime he scored. But Chap’s second son wasn’t as talented as his older brother. Chap explained what happened: Somewhere near the end of his second year of soccer, I noticed a tear slip down his cheek as we drove by McDonald’s: “I guess I’ll never get a milkshake, huh, Dad?” Even as I type this, I feel myself withering on the inside. With every fiber of my being I wanted the best for my boy and to be his fan and encourager. It simply never occurred to me that rewarding one son ... would have such a painful impact on the other son.
Clark also believes that the reward of the milkshake sent both boys the wrong message. Sports for young athletes is about relationships and activity and fun. The milkshake had made it about scoring goals.
Finally, practice is essential for the unathletic child. Because he doesn’t have much natural talent, he will need to develop skills as a result of his own hard work. A parent can help by being available to play catch or pitch a baseball or retrieve a soccer ball.
A clumsy child may find a walk through the house as dangerous as a walk through a mine field. It may be even more perilous for him to step onto a ball field where winners are praised and losers are ignored or berated. So, should unathletic children avoid sports? Not at all. Positive sports experiences can encourage a lifelong commitment to exercise, while also providing opportunities for fun and fellowship.
What can a parent do to encourage positive experiences for their athletically challenged child? First, take great care in selecting a sport. Avoid programs that place a heavy emphasis on winning or that don’t give each child an ample opportunity to play.
Second, you must be realistic. Admit that your child will never be a star. But he can still enjoy sports. When our son, Andrew, was seven years old, he had a boy on his soccer team who was dreadfully uncoordinated and equally unaggressive. But that child was blessed with a coach and a father who praised him for his effort and his determination. As a result, he loved soccer and played for several years.
Thirdly, be careful how you treat this child in comparison to how you treat his siblings. Dr. Chap Clark, who has authored several books on parenting, recounted a painful mistake he made with his boys. His first son was an immediate success on the soccer field, scoring a goal almost every game. Chap wanted to reward his son for his good play, so he took him for a post-game milkshake anytime he scored. But Chap’s second son wasn’t as talented as his older brother. Chap explained what happened: Somewhere near the end of his second year of soccer, I noticed a tear slip down his cheek as we drove by McDonald’s: “I guess I’ll never get a milkshake, huh, Dad?” Even as I type this, I feel myself withering on the inside. With every fiber of my being I wanted the best for my boy and to be his fan and encourager. It simply never occurred to me that rewarding one son ... would have such a painful impact on the other son.
Clark also believes that the reward of the milkshake sent both boys the wrong message. Sports for young athletes is about relationships and activity and fun. The milkshake had made it about scoring goals.
Finally, practice is essential for the unathletic child. Because he doesn’t have much natural talent, he will need to develop skills as a result of his own hard work. A parent can help by being available to play catch or pitch a baseball or retrieve a soccer ball.
2009/04/30
Guiding Children's Participation, Part 3
Build Confidence Through Praise
The Apostle Paul’s encouragement to young Christians provides a good model for how to build up our children: We instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now, we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. Paul’s strategy to stimulate further growth was to build on their successes. They had made a good start in pleasing God, but he wanted them to do so more and more.
The same principle should be used in praising our child athletes. If your daughter lacks some aggressiveness on the basketball court, don’t whine about her lack of intensity. Commend her for the time she battled for and snared a rebound. If your son made an error in a baseball game, talk about a good defensive play that he made—“You did a great job gauging the wind on that pop fly that you caught in the 2nd inning. Not many fifth-graders could make that play!”
Some parents withhold praise because they think it will give their child a “big head”. But most often, the braggart’s self-praise is a vain attempt to fill his need for approval. If you don’t praise him, he will praise himself.
But be careful--you can praise your child too much. Such “junk praise” is not worth much and it may seriously mislead him—which seems to be the case with many contestants on American Idol: "The less-than-skilled singers auditioning for American Idol is as staggering as it is sad. Simon Cowell, one of the judges on the show, has gained a reputation as being the “mean old bad guy” because he tells people the truth: some of them simply can’t sing. The fact that they’ve never been told this for fear of hurting their feelings is a troubling commentary on what we value today. "
When your child plays poorly, don’t falsely praise him by slapping him on the back and saying: “Good job!” He knows better and will resent your good-willed lie. At some point, your child may need to hear: “Tom, you’re a better basketball player than soccer player. Maybe you would like to put more time into developing your basketball skills.” Or, when a child moans about a poor performance, it might be appropriate to say, “I think you’re not improving because you have slacked off on your practice.”
For a child to be successful in the adult world, he needs to be able to discern his strengths and weaknesses, where he is gifted and not gifted. When parents offer too much approval and enthusiasm for anything and everything their child does, it disrupts the child’s growing ability to discern the truth about himself.
The Apostle Paul’s encouragement to young Christians provides a good model for how to build up our children: We instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now, we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. Paul’s strategy to stimulate further growth was to build on their successes. They had made a good start in pleasing God, but he wanted them to do so more and more.
The same principle should be used in praising our child athletes. If your daughter lacks some aggressiveness on the basketball court, don’t whine about her lack of intensity. Commend her for the time she battled for and snared a rebound. If your son made an error in a baseball game, talk about a good defensive play that he made—“You did a great job gauging the wind on that pop fly that you caught in the 2nd inning. Not many fifth-graders could make that play!”
Some parents withhold praise because they think it will give their child a “big head”. But most often, the braggart’s self-praise is a vain attempt to fill his need for approval. If you don’t praise him, he will praise himself.
But be careful--you can praise your child too much. Such “junk praise” is not worth much and it may seriously mislead him—which seems to be the case with many contestants on American Idol: "The less-than-skilled singers auditioning for American Idol is as staggering as it is sad. Simon Cowell, one of the judges on the show, has gained a reputation as being the “mean old bad guy” because he tells people the truth: some of them simply can’t sing. The fact that they’ve never been told this for fear of hurting their feelings is a troubling commentary on what we value today. "
When your child plays poorly, don’t falsely praise him by slapping him on the back and saying: “Good job!” He knows better and will resent your good-willed lie. At some point, your child may need to hear: “Tom, you’re a better basketball player than soccer player. Maybe you would like to put more time into developing your basketball skills.” Or, when a child moans about a poor performance, it might be appropriate to say, “I think you’re not improving because you have slacked off on your practice.”
For a child to be successful in the adult world, he needs to be able to discern his strengths and weaknesses, where he is gifted and not gifted. When parents offer too much approval and enthusiasm for anything and everything their child does, it disrupts the child’s growing ability to discern the truth about himself.
2009/03/18
Guiding Children's Participation, Part 2
The Cult of Winning
Don Simpson, one of the producers of the very popular Tom Cruise movie, Top Gun, said that he and his co-producer, Jerry Bruckheimer “side with the winners; we aren’t interested in the losers—they’re boring to us.” These filmmakers only reflect the predominant cultural view: you are hero if you win and a bum if you lose. And research has demonstrated that kids believe this lie--they think winners are better people!
When the culture worships winners, it stresses our kids. Psychologist Roni Cohen-Sandler in her extensive work among teens has found that it “does not matter whether I am speaking with middle school or high school students, whether they come from urban areas or privileged suburban neighborhoods, or whether I am meeting with teens in focus groups or consulting privately with them in my office—almost without exception they tell me that they feel stressed by pressures to excel.”
This pressure to excel has been particularly hard on many girls who report being “totally stressed-out,” “overwhelmed,” and “completely exhausted.” Because the bar is set so high, many of them believe that to be successful they have to be extraordinary. “These teens think that besides acing every subject, they must also star in their school plays, shine in music, excel athletically, be popular, and win awards.”
The U.S.A.’s top marathoner, Ryan Hall, was almost a casualty to these pressures. Hall set very high goals for himself in running. But his “obsession” to make the 2004 Olympic Team, led to burn out. Some mornings he could barely get out of bed. He would “try desperately to go for a run, only to get 800 yards, give up and walk back home.” Hall explained: “There wasn’t anything wrong with my body; I was just emotionally and spiritually wrecked.” When he changed his goal to being faithful to God, he found freedom and greater “success”. He told God: “Whatever you want to do with it, do it. If you want to take me to the Olympics, great. If You don’t, that’s great, too.” Running became a delight again because he had the “freedom to not have to achieve something—to be able to just go out and do it for the love of doing it.”
Like Ryan Hall, our son wanted to be successful. (See previous post.) But he had to learn that in God’s world, he is successful when he is faithful: “It is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” He was successful when he worked hard in practice, when he practiced on his own, when he didn’t grumble about the coach’s decisions, when he cheered his teammates (even the one playing ahead of him!). We reminded him that his performance might not look significant in the team’s season-ending statistics, but that God keeps a different set of books!
Don Simpson, one of the producers of the very popular Tom Cruise movie, Top Gun, said that he and his co-producer, Jerry Bruckheimer “side with the winners; we aren’t interested in the losers—they’re boring to us.” These filmmakers only reflect the predominant cultural view: you are hero if you win and a bum if you lose. And research has demonstrated that kids believe this lie--they think winners are better people!
When the culture worships winners, it stresses our kids. Psychologist Roni Cohen-Sandler in her extensive work among teens has found that it “does not matter whether I am speaking with middle school or high school students, whether they come from urban areas or privileged suburban neighborhoods, or whether I am meeting with teens in focus groups or consulting privately with them in my office—almost without exception they tell me that they feel stressed by pressures to excel.”
This pressure to excel has been particularly hard on many girls who report being “totally stressed-out,” “overwhelmed,” and “completely exhausted.” Because the bar is set so high, many of them believe that to be successful they have to be extraordinary. “These teens think that besides acing every subject, they must also star in their school plays, shine in music, excel athletically, be popular, and win awards.”
The U.S.A.’s top marathoner, Ryan Hall, was almost a casualty to these pressures. Hall set very high goals for himself in running. But his “obsession” to make the 2004 Olympic Team, led to burn out. Some mornings he could barely get out of bed. He would “try desperately to go for a run, only to get 800 yards, give up and walk back home.” Hall explained: “There wasn’t anything wrong with my body; I was just emotionally and spiritually wrecked.” When he changed his goal to being faithful to God, he found freedom and greater “success”. He told God: “Whatever you want to do with it, do it. If you want to take me to the Olympics, great. If You don’t, that’s great, too.” Running became a delight again because he had the “freedom to not have to achieve something—to be able to just go out and do it for the love of doing it.”
Like Ryan Hall, our son wanted to be successful. (See previous post.) But he had to learn that in God’s world, he is successful when he is faithful: “It is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” He was successful when he worked hard in practice, when he practiced on his own, when he didn’t grumble about the coach’s decisions, when he cheered his teammates (even the one playing ahead of him!). We reminded him that his performance might not look significant in the team’s season-ending statistics, but that God keeps a different set of books!
2009/02/18
Guiding Children's Participation, Part 1
“The Success of Failure”
When one of our sons was a junior in high school he played behind a boy on his basketball team who wasn’t nearly as talented as our son. (This wasn’t just a parental prejudice! Even a college coach made the same judgment). After one of his games in which he played little, he grumbled: “I work hard, practice extra, play well when I’m in the game, but get little playing time. Other guys never do any extra practicing, play O.K. to poorly, and get lots of playing time. I’m not sure I want to play next year.” Our discouraged son needed help.
The ability to interpret life accurately is fundamental to maturity. People are not shaped as much by their circumstances, as they are by their interpretation of those circumstances. Initially, we helped him see that his extra practice had paid off—he was leading the team in field goal percentage. Furthermore, we asked him to consider God’s purpose in all of this. Was God teaching him how to be content “in all circumstances”? to love his teammates? to trust God for his playing time? We prayed together that God would help him respond properly to the situation and that he would get an opportunity to play more significantly.
That opportunity came a few games later when one of the starters was out with an injury. We asked several people to pray for our son. We again prayed as a family. The result? He played little and poorly. Did God answer our prayers? Definitely! But not the way we had anticipated. Our deepest longings were that our son would learn how to walk with God. As a result of his poor performance, he went to his closet and dug out some information he had received at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes’ camp about how to deal with adversity. Studying that material helped him accept his situation. Our son was learning to connect with God in his pain.
As the season continued, our son had highs (e.g., a critical role in a district final win--10 points, 4 assists, 0 turnovers) and lows (e.g., little playing time during state tournament games). But he was learning (again and again!) to tell himself to put his hope in God, not in his circumstances: “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him.” (Ps.42:5). If the source of a child athlete’s happiness is praise or playing time or plaques, he will experience a great deal of unhappiness. Athletic success can never fill up a soul.
One observer of children’s development has written that maturity “grows primarily through overcoming adversity,” by which she meant “circumstances or events that oppose your desires, wishes, or ideals.” Sitting on the bench was definitely in opposition to our son’s desires or ideals! But our son’s “failure” became the basis of his “success”—he grew in ways that would not have happened had he been a consistent starter.
When one of our sons was a junior in high school he played behind a boy on his basketball team who wasn’t nearly as talented as our son. (This wasn’t just a parental prejudice! Even a college coach made the same judgment). After one of his games in which he played little, he grumbled: “I work hard, practice extra, play well when I’m in the game, but get little playing time. Other guys never do any extra practicing, play O.K. to poorly, and get lots of playing time. I’m not sure I want to play next year.” Our discouraged son needed help.
The ability to interpret life accurately is fundamental to maturity. People are not shaped as much by their circumstances, as they are by their interpretation of those circumstances. Initially, we helped him see that his extra practice had paid off—he was leading the team in field goal percentage. Furthermore, we asked him to consider God’s purpose in all of this. Was God teaching him how to be content “in all circumstances”? to love his teammates? to trust God for his playing time? We prayed together that God would help him respond properly to the situation and that he would get an opportunity to play more significantly.
That opportunity came a few games later when one of the starters was out with an injury. We asked several people to pray for our son. We again prayed as a family. The result? He played little and poorly. Did God answer our prayers? Definitely! But not the way we had anticipated. Our deepest longings were that our son would learn how to walk with God. As a result of his poor performance, he went to his closet and dug out some information he had received at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes’ camp about how to deal with adversity. Studying that material helped him accept his situation. Our son was learning to connect with God in his pain.
As the season continued, our son had highs (e.g., a critical role in a district final win--10 points, 4 assists, 0 turnovers) and lows (e.g., little playing time during state tournament games). But he was learning (again and again!) to tell himself to put his hope in God, not in his circumstances: “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him.” (Ps.42:5). If the source of a child athlete’s happiness is praise or playing time or plaques, he will experience a great deal of unhappiness. Athletic success can never fill up a soul.
One observer of children’s development has written that maturity “grows primarily through overcoming adversity,” by which she meant “circumstances or events that oppose your desires, wishes, or ideals.” Sitting on the bench was definitely in opposition to our son’s desires or ideals! But our son’s “failure” became the basis of his “success”—he grew in ways that would not have happened had he been a consistent starter.
2009/01/07
The Weaknesses of Children's Sports, Part 3
The Problem of Comparisons
Most Americans agree with former President Gerald Ford who believed that “there are few things more important to a country’s growth and well-being than competitive athletics.” But is competitive athletics an unqualified blessing for all children? Unfortunately not.
Sports repeatedly expose children to comparisons, revealing who can throw farther, kick harder, run faster, score more points, etc. One sports psychologist believes these constant comparisons can be especially damaging to the child who frequently ends up on the bottom: The important point is that many children engage in intense competition over extended periods of time with similar consequences being repeated over and over again. It is this repetition that makes developmental considerations relevant. Childhood is a time in which to develop the confidence of being able to do a job well. When a child regularly experiences negative comparisons, it may lead to feeling incompetent or unworthy.
Yet, you might ask, Isn’t sports just one area of a child’s life? Can’t poor performers in sports raise their confidence in other activities? Some do—but many do not. The problem is that few other activities are so observable to parents and peers. Novelist James Michener, even though he was making A’s in school, noted: I can’t recall a single instance in which any member of my community gave me any accolades for such accomplishment. In [my town] all that mattered was sports, and even today across America things are not much different.
A partial solution to the problem of comparisons is to measure a child’s performance against her past performances—the time she runs a race, the number of jumps she makes in a rope-jumping time trial, the number of times she kicks a ball in a soccer game, the number of rebounds she makes in a basketball game. If you keep individual statistics for your child, you will help her feel good when she has improved her performance.
Furthermore, the emphasis given to comparative differences will often determine how children are affected. Another sports psychologist explains: Unless you give everyone the same kind of trophy, you’re telling the loser, “You’re different from the winner.” But children know who the better ball players are. To give out trophies simply accentuates this difference. It makes the youngster who doesn’t have talent feel even less capable, and it give a distorted perspective to the child who gets the higher trophy.
Eventually children must use these comparative differences in positive ways—e.g., to push themselves to become better or to determine that their gifts lie elsewhere. In the meantime, we adults must protect the weaker athletes from being crushed by what they observe.
Most Americans agree with former President Gerald Ford who believed that “there are few things more important to a country’s growth and well-being than competitive athletics.” But is competitive athletics an unqualified blessing for all children? Unfortunately not.
Sports repeatedly expose children to comparisons, revealing who can throw farther, kick harder, run faster, score more points, etc. One sports psychologist believes these constant comparisons can be especially damaging to the child who frequently ends up on the bottom: The important point is that many children engage in intense competition over extended periods of time with similar consequences being repeated over and over again. It is this repetition that makes developmental considerations relevant. Childhood is a time in which to develop the confidence of being able to do a job well. When a child regularly experiences negative comparisons, it may lead to feeling incompetent or unworthy.
Yet, you might ask, Isn’t sports just one area of a child’s life? Can’t poor performers in sports raise their confidence in other activities? Some do—but many do not. The problem is that few other activities are so observable to parents and peers. Novelist James Michener, even though he was making A’s in school, noted: I can’t recall a single instance in which any member of my community gave me any accolades for such accomplishment. In [my town] all that mattered was sports, and even today across America things are not much different.
A partial solution to the problem of comparisons is to measure a child’s performance against her past performances—the time she runs a race, the number of jumps she makes in a rope-jumping time trial, the number of times she kicks a ball in a soccer game, the number of rebounds she makes in a basketball game. If you keep individual statistics for your child, you will help her feel good when she has improved her performance.
Furthermore, the emphasis given to comparative differences will often determine how children are affected. Another sports psychologist explains: Unless you give everyone the same kind of trophy, you’re telling the loser, “You’re different from the winner.” But children know who the better ball players are. To give out trophies simply accentuates this difference. It makes the youngster who doesn’t have talent feel even less capable, and it give a distorted perspective to the child who gets the higher trophy.
Eventually children must use these comparative differences in positive ways—e.g., to push themselves to become better or to determine that their gifts lie elsewhere. In the meantime, we adults must protect the weaker athletes from being crushed by what they observe.
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