The Strengths of Children’s Sports: Part 2

Emotional Development

“Watch out, batter, batter! Here comes his high, hard one!”
“Hey, batter, this guy knocked a guy out last week!”
“Here it comes! Here it comes! Watch out! Duck!”

This was the atmosphere that our son, Jered, came to bat in a youth baseball game in the final inning with two outs, the bases loaded and his team down a run. What happened? He got beaned and fell to the ground! I raced out onto the field and knelt by him. I asked, “How are you?” He answered: “I’m O.K.” Then he whispered: “It was better than striking out.”

Children’s merciless badgering of opposing hitters has one goal: to scare them to death! And kids have to learn how to handle those emotions. Children in sports are confronted with a host of negative emotions: worry over their performance, fear of being tackled too hard, discouragement over a loss, anger over a referee’s decision. Fortunately, those emotions are usually washed away by other games and seasons. However, later in life disappointments won’t be so easily laundered. For example, the judgment of a man’s boss may limit that man’s lifelong opportunities for advancement. Sports provide opportunities for children to experiment with emotions without suffering enduring consequences.

Kids who are battling emotional conflict at home, may find a refuge in sports. One young woman believes that basketball was God’s gift to her: “To this day I know that God gave me the ability to play and love basketball so that I could have some sort of release in my life. It gave me an opportunity to get out of the house and get away from my family and release all of the emotions that were ripping me up inside.” This young woman is not alone--in numerous studies exercise has been found to act as an antidote to depression and anxiety.

Finally, sports may bolster children’s emotional lives by communicating that it is OK to have fun. Many summer mornings during my youth I rode the city bus across town to play sandlot baseball with my cousins and their friends. My mom was astonished at how early I would get up to play ball! Reminiscing, I find that I am one of those “numberless American males who cling as long as life and common sense will let them to the days when a game of baseball could fill a whole hot afternoon so full that it would run over at the edges.” Some of us work too hard, take life too seriously. The Apostle Paul reminds us that God “richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment” (I Tim.6:17). Sports can be one of God's gifts that simply increase our joy in this life.

Kids' Sports: A Blessing?

No running back has dominated the NFL like Jim Brown. He won the rushing title eight of nine years during his career. He is still the only player to average over 100 yards per game rushing. He was voted to the NFL Pro Bowl every year he played. And he believes that he benefited greatly from his involvement in sports:

Sports basically saved my life. . . . If I had never gone on to play at the professional level, I can safely say that the lessons I learned on the playing field in junior high and high school would have helped me through life in any other field. I walked away from those experiences knowing how to work hard, to concentrate. I knew how to get up after I lost and how to cope with the fact that I wasn’t always going to win. These lessons helped me gain confidence.

I could easily fill several large books with testimonials like Jim Brown's. Unfortunately, I could probably also fill a large book with testimonials of the negative impact of sports on children. What makes for the positive? the negative? To help your child’s sports’ memories be mostly positive, it is important to understand how sports can build or tear down children. The next few blogs will focus on the strengths and weaknesses of children's sports.

Physical Development
“Johnny, would you please mow the lawn this afternoon?”
“Dad, why do I always have to do it? Why don’t you ask Mary once in a while.
“I do ask her to help. But I’m asking you to help this time.”
“But Dad, you always make me do more.”

Ask a child to mow the lawn or clean his room, and he may act like you’ve asked him to wash all of the windows on the Empire State Building! But put him on a basketball court and he has the unconscious energy to play for hours. Sports are a way for children to get needed exercise-- without even knowing they are exercising.

How important is exercise? Exercise can not only by firm up the muscles and make the body look good, but it can also bring about positive changes in the cardiovascular system, reduce cholesterol and triglyceride levels in the blood, produce weight loss through caloric consumption, reduce blood pressure readings, and reapportion body fat.

Though the number of youth participants in sports is exploding, children’s waist-line is also exploding—the rate of childhood obesity doubled during the 80’s & 90’s. How can this be? Part of the reason our kids are obese is that they don’t maintain their commitment to exercise--over 75% of kids quit sports by the age of 15. Thus, one of our goals as parents should be to help our children develop the habit of exercise. No amount of exercise in childhood will be sufficient to support physical health as an adult.

The Time Crunch: My “Stop-doing” List

Jim Collins in his bestseller, Good to Great, advises people to not only keep a “to do” list but also a “stop doing” list. If we will liposuct (is that a word?!) the fat out of our schedules, we will be trim enough to follow God’s call. Here is some of my fat:

• T.V. Being a sports junkie, I can be as easily entertained by a college baseball game as by the World Series. Therefore, I must be selective on what and how I watch. If, for example, I want to watch a Twins baseball game, I start watching in the later innings so I won’t spend 3 hours watching a the game. Most of us would have time for what is truly important if we simply sliced our T.V. usage. In a recent survey, American households had the T.V. on for over 7 hours each day!
  
• Internet. The recent death of comedian George Carlin caused me to search YouTube for some of his routines. Soon I had spent over an hour listening to the good, the bad, and the vulgar humor of Mr. Carlin. It squeezed out my time of quiet with God.
  Furthermore, e-mail can bloat my life. Do I need to check my inbox daily? Is every e-mail worth reading or responding to? I often receive the following e-mail: “I don’t normally forward messages, but you have to read this one.” I very seldom open those messages.
  
• Phone. This was difficult for me. But if the phone is a constant interruption on a quiet evening with my wife, which is more important? With Caller ID's help, I now answer only the critical calls.
  
• Newspapers. I used to invest 30 minutes every morning reading the newspaper. But then I asked myself: Did I really need to know about the latest murder or natural disaster? Now I often let several days pile up and then read them all in 10-15 minutes.
  
• Kids’ activities. At some point I realized that I wouldn’t be arrested for missing one of my son’s ballgames! At times, there were more important tasks for me—spending time with one of his siblings, attending an adult Bible study, helping a friend.
  
• Shopping. On my way home, I feel the pull to stop at Menard’s even though I don’t really need anything. I am trying to avoid shopping unless I have a specific need.
  
• Job. In the last two decades, because parents are working more, children have lost 10-12 hours per week of time with their parents. How can you cut back? Take extra time off between jobs. Ask for more vacation—even if it must be unpaid. Don’t volunteer for overtime. Change jobs.

My grape vines are constantly sending out side shoots which will only sap the strength of the main vine. The result? Small, bitter fruit. Similarly, my life tends to sprout in every conceivable direction. If I don’t make a regular practice of pruning it, I won’t enjoy the abundant harvest God has planned for me.

The Time Crunch: Protecting Your Children

During our season of parenting I once calculated the commitments that my boys’ involvement in soccer required. One of them played on his school soccer team. All three of them participated on a city league team--which had a spring and a fall season. Two of them played on a traveling team. Adding up all those soccer practices and games, the commitments totaled over 100 separate entries on our family calendar!

Children are inundated with opportunities today. Our kids can play a dozen or more sports--many of them year-round. They can learn to play a musical instrument. They can sing in the school or church choir. They can attend a church or computer camp. Oh, yes, and they still have school nearly 40 hours each week! No wonder Marie Winn has said that many children today look like tired businessmen. And we parents must take the blame for allowing them to become overscheduled. We fill our children’s schedules because we fear that we might be depriving them of something important. But what do our children really need?

Many parents keep their kids (and themselves!) busy, busy, busy, because they don’t really know what children need to grow up and become a mature disciple of Jesus Christ. If your daughter is playing on the school’s volleyball team will her life be stunted if she doesn’t join the dance team also? Does your seventh grade boy—who has shown only moderate interest in basketball—really need to attend 2 basketball camps this summer? Will your child actually drop hopelessly behind his peers if he skips one season of softball?

Many parents seem to believe that if a child complained: “I’m bored”, it would be an indictment against their parenting. You are not your child’s Recreation Director! It is very important that children learn how to be alone, to be quiet. It is in boredom or quietness that they have the time to think, rest, reflect, read their Bibles.

A recent poll by KidsHealth found that over 40% of kids feel stressed most or all of the time because they have “too much to do.” Let your children be children and give them an ample amount of unstructured time.

The Time Crunch: Hearing God’s Voice

I often hear people ask: “How do I hear the voice of God?” This is a problem in our noisy world. If you want to have a serious conversation with your spouse, do you make sure that every T.V. and radio in the house is blasting at full strength? Obviously not. You want quiet. Similarly, if you want to hear God’s voice you must reduce the noise. What is noise? It is whatever fills or distracts our minds—radios, CD players, the internet, T.V., household appliances, children’s voices, etc., etc. If the decibels are not turned down, trying to hear God’s voice is like trying to converse with a friend at a very loud rock concert or a playoff football game in the Metrodome.

In several of these posts on The Time Crunch I have urged you to hear God’s voice as the basis for escaping from a harried lifestyle. When you know what God wants you to do, it is much easier to say “No” when asked to do something different. But how do we turn down the noise?

Cathy and I recently returned from a vacation with our kids and grandkids. Wow! We had forgotten how demanding young children can be. All day long we were engulfed by their chatter and their arguments and their shrieks and their laughter. How does a mother of young children find time to hear God speak? She may need to rise early because it is the only time she can have uninterrupted time with God.

Jesus also made quiet time with God a priority. After a strenuous day of ministry that lasted well into the night, very early the next morning, while it was still dark, he left the house and went to a solitary place to pray. Jesus knew what was coming. He knew that the daily racket of people’s needs would make it difficult to hear the voice of His Father throughout the day. So he began the day tuning his ear to the Father.

Each person’s life circumstances are somewhat different. At this stage of my life it isn’t difficult to find quiet time in my daily schedule. But if you do struggle to find time for God, look carefully at your habit patterns. Do you need to watch Sportscenter each morning? Could you get up 15 minutes earlier? Could you put off checking your e-mail until you have had some time to read your Bible and converse with God? Could you devote your lunch break to be alone with God?

Learning to discern God’s voice takes time and diligence. A five minute devotional at the end of the day isn’t enough. How well would you know your mate’s desires if you only spent five minutes a day communicating?! As with a marriage, so it is with God—there must be extended times of quiet interaction to be able to hear His voice. Would you set aside some extra time this week to be with your Father? He is waiting and wanting to talk with you.

The Time Crunch: Focus On Key Relationships

Have you ever tallied the people you encounter in your daily life? My partial list includes: my wife, my kids, my grandkids, my neighbors, my students, members of my church, extended family, fellow board members of a local ministry, business associates, athletic friends, men from a morning Bible study. But that isn’t all. Modern technology allows me to have regular contact with former students & classmates, missionaries in the Ukraine and Israel, former Sioux Falls residents, couples I taught at a summer Family Camp. Furthermore, I am presently corresponding with two former candidates for Senior Pastor of our church (I was the chairman of the Search Committee) and the wife (whom I have never met) of a troubled former student.

Many of us feel like we are drowning in a crowded sea of relationships. This isn’t the way it was a century ago. Professor Ken Gergen explains: A century ago, social relationships were largely confined to the distance of an easy walk. Most were conducted in person, within small communities: family, neighbors, townspeople. Yes, the horse and carriage made longer trips possible, but even a trip of thirty miles could take all day. The railroad could speed one away, but cost and availability limited such travel. If one moved from the community, relationships were likely to end.

Now obviously, in a Biblical lifestyle, people are very important—the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. But that doesn’t mean that I am obligated to develop a relationship with every person who drifts through my life. In descending order, Jesus spent the most time with his closest friends (Peter, James and John), next the Twelve, then a committed group of 72 disciples, the larger body of disciples, and finally, the masses.

Many of us feel harried because we are trying to keep up with too many relationships. Thus, relationships—which are designed to be renewing—become a drain on us. When I flit from one shallow relationship to another, who knows when I am tempted? when I am hurting? when I need encouragement?

When I try to maintain too many relationships, I don’t have time for the most important relationships. Who begs me to spend 15 minutes reading with my kids at bedtime? Who exhorts me to spend quiet time with God? Who twists my arm to date my wife? In Deuteronomy, Moses explained that a newly married husband was freed from work and military duties for one year so he could bring happiness to his bride. Wow! A 52 week honeymoon!

God wants us to give priority to our most significant relationships. We can’t do this unless we say “No” to many other relationships.

The Time Crunch: On a Mission to Everywhere

Busy. Busy. Busy. Most of us are caught up in a frenzy of activity that leaves us exhausted and edgy. But in spite of the crush of human need, Jesus never appeared to be in a hurry. Why not? An incident from early in his ministry is revealing.

Jesus had spent the day teaching and healing in Capernaum. (Mark 1) But the day didn’t end until well after sunset because the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed--it appeared that the whole town had gathered at the home of Peter’s mother-in-law. Very early the next morning, Jesus retreated to a solitary place to pray. When the miffed disciples finally found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” What an opportunity—doors flung wide open for ministry. Why not rent a public building and have nightly meetings for the next 30 days? Imagine what Jesus could do in a month—there wouldn’t be a broken bone or a broken marriage in the entire city.

But astoundingly (to the Twelve) Jesus declined the invitation: “Let us go somewhere else so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” Jesus knew his purpose. He knew what God had called him to do. That made it possible to decline such a tempting offer.

Mark Buchanan in Your God Is Too Safe, has observed that “at the heart of Jesus’ ministry was a holy must. He must go through Samaria. He must go to Jerusalem. He must suffer. Everything he did or refused to do centered around that.” This must brought “wonderful clarity” to Jesus’ choices.

Many of us have no God-inflamed purpose which drives and directs our choices: “There is activity. There is opinion. There is busyness. But there is nothing ... to convert selfish ambition into holy purpose.” We are like Jerry Sittser who lamented his inability to say “no”: “I am like a man on a mission to everywhere.”

Jesus didn’t heal every sick person or preach in every synagogue or accept every invitation. But he did accomplish every task the Father assigned to him. Many of us let friends or relatives or pastors, rather than God, fix our agendas. We need to respond to significant requests of our time by praying: "Lord, is this how you want me to use my time and gifts?"