Finding Balance as a Sports Parent

A difficult challenge I often face in life is finding a “happy medium” when there is no black and white answer to a problem or situation. This dilemma comes up often in parenting my 2 sons in their athletic endeavors. The challenge is figuring out how to maintain genuine interest in their performance without becoming too emotionally connected to their performance.

I often vacillate between letting my kids’ performance on the sports field dictate my mood and, if it’s not going well, letting myself go to apathy (I don’t care) and disconnection. Neither of these responses promotes healthy connection and wise parenting, which are my goals.

This past summer, I experienced a “win” in a situation that initially sent me into the above extremes. My son had 2 really bad games and he was so frustrated with himself that I could see his effort level drop. In my younger years, whenever I failed at sports I would quit trying because that was the easiest way to cope with my failure. I’ve worked hard to overcome this but having gone through it, I can see it in my kids from time to time. After his games were over, I confronted him about his lack of effort and it took less than a second for it to turn into a big argument (I didn’t use my 24 hour rule where I wait 24 hours to talk about a particular game or performance). By the end of the argument, he wanted to quit playing altogether and I suggested that quitting may be a good idea if he was going to give half effort (sarcasm and negativity).

Obviously that’s not the “win” I spoke of. The “win” came when I woke up early the next morning with my wife and we spent some time praying together for my son. Although I was frustrated with him, my heart hurt for him because I know he wants to do well but the failure had completely taken him out. So we prayed that God would restore his joy and help him to have fun – after all, isn’t that the point of playing a game? God came through in a big way. My son woke up in a great mood, went and played his game and played decent, not great. But he was still in a good mood and as we were walking to the car, he was whistling a happy song. My wife and I looked at each other and had a good chuckle. His light mood continued throughout the remaining games at that particular tournament and continued on in future games.

God doesn’t always answer my prayers in such a dramatic way, but in this instance He provided a very impactful lesson in wisdom. Prayer and surrendering our circumstances to Him is a powerful way to find the “happy medium” I was looking for in my sports parenting journey.

“Balance isn’t something you find, it’s something you create.”

Jana Kingsford