“But how much is too much? Don’t you think he should just be a kid?”
Even as I write this, I am falling asleep, catching up on work and emails and messages after driving five hours for a hockey tournament on the other side of the state.
“Are you overdoing it with the sports? Is it too intense? Too much?”⠀
I know.
Six days a week, multiple games or practices in one day . . . is a lot.
I know.
He’s a kid.
I know.
Some mornings, he’s tired and cranky. ⠀
I know.
Our schedule is hard to make other commitments.
I also know hockey is something he is growing to love even more with each practice, each game, each win, and maybe most importantly, each loss.
This weekend’s tournament was a loss, and maybe his coach said it best: “You can’t really appreciate the win until you’ve really rumbled with the loss.”
I mean, how can we NOT all learn from this?
My son, with each game, is learning to lose and still love the game.
My son, with each game, is learning who he is as a team player.
My son, with each game, is learning how he shows up matters more than leaving the game with the “one up”.
We aren’t raising a son to be a future Olympian or an NHL player. If he makes it, great, but that’s not the point.
The point of playing is the character it’s creating.
We’re raising a good kid to be a great man.
I find it critical. Gosh, no, I find it ESSENTIAL.
I just know the struggles his generation will no doubt have with communication.
To raise a child who knows how to look a teammate or an opponent in the eye after a game, shake his hand, and walk away a little more humble than he was the game before, that’s the goal.
It is my job to teach my child to look up, communicate, shake a hand, accept a loss, and humbly receive a win.
I want to raise the kind of kid who reminds the people around him to keep looking up when the world is too busy looking down.
So when people ask me, “Don’t you think he should just be a kid?”
Yes.
This is him, being a kid.
And I am pretty sure that hockey will have an impact on who he’s becoming as a young man.
xoxo,⠀
Katy (just another crazy sports mom)⠀
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