3 Ways Youth Sports Parents Win

Game day gives parents a whole new way to see their kids.

Karen Scholl

| 5 min read

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You may hear that youth sports are bad for kids, families, pets, friends, finances, and free time. But let me tell you who’s cashing in big. Me.

Thanks to my kids’ soccer schedules, I can’t spend my weekend doing chores and running errands, even if I want to. And while I may worry about getting to a game on time or whether my kid can keep the ball out of his own goal, you know what I’m not worried about? Everything else.

But the perks don’t end there. Access is the biggest prize of being a sports parent. Each game gives me a view of my kids I can’t get anywhere else.

At its core, parenting is about watching. In the beginning, we watch them sleep, eat, and walk because we like to avoid emergency rooms, and maybe we’re a tad paranoid. By the time they’re toddling, they demand our attention. “Watch me!” build a tower of blocks, knock down a tower of blocks, go down the slide, go up the slide, blow a bubble, blow a bigger bubble, blow the world’s biggest bubble. Watching them becomes second nature, and I didn’t realize how important it was to me until my kids were in zit-zapping distance of adolescence. That’s when everything changed. They retreated behind bedroom doors and phone screens. “Watch me!” became “Stop looking at me!”

Then sports came to my rescue. Soccer games gave me the opportunity and permission to watch them for 60 to 90 minutes straight. Multiple times per week. It was like my favorite show, which had been canceled by the network, was suddenly renewed on a streaming service, and now it’s way better than the original. Here’s why.

1. Staring isn’t rude. It’s the whole point.

On a normal day, I don’t cross paths with my kid before school. I’m working when he comes home. He’s studying/sleeping/teenagering when I’m done. I may hear the creak of a bedroom door, smell a waft of Old Spice Swagger, or glimpse a hoodie near the fridge. That’s about it. But on the field, I don’t just see my kid, I stare. Like a jealous ex. Shamelessly. With no apologies. I see that his hair curls more than it used to and that his shoulders test the seams of his jersey now that he lifts weights. I see that I’m not the only person he’s towering over and that his acne products aren’t doing the trick. And when he lobs a pass down the field, and his teammate scores a goal, I score too — a rare dimple sighting.

2You can enjoy the action without having to supervise it. 

3. You’ll have something to talk about besides their grades, their room, or their attitude.

You already know certain topics are not to be discussed after the game — or ever. Like how they played or how their shorts were on backward the whole time. Luckily, the game itself is, well, fair game for discussion. Let’s face it, it’s hard just to find a movie we all want to watch, so I love that the game gives us new things to talk about. Opinions on a call. Why they switched formation in the middle of the half. I mention how cool I thought a particular play was, and he tells me what made it cooler. He describes the pressure he felt making a pass and his joy when it got where it needed to go, and I’m careful not to suggest he put that much passion into his schoolwork.

Watching your kids play sports doesn’t just let you see more of them, it lets you see more of who they are. We can’t see them in their classrooms and won’t see them in their jobs, but watching them make decisions and deal with consequences out on the field helps us know who they will be when they’re out in the world. And if the tradeoff is letting their sport run my life, just hand me the schedule and tell me where to set my chair.

Karen Scholl writes about parenting kids who play soccer at Carpool Confidential. This piece was originally published by our friends at ilovetowatchyouplay.com 

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