I know what you’re sayin’, “How dare this cat suggest that my kid play sports? When my child doesn’t even like athletics.” Well…this has nothin’ to do with sports and everything to do with life. Remember the movie “The Karate Kid” when Daniel asked Mr. Miyagi to teach him karate? During most of the movie, Daniel spent his time at Mr. Miyagi’s doin’ what he thought were trivial tasks like pantin’ the fence etc. Only to find out that he was actually learnin’ the fundamentals of karate that would make him a great competitor. Well…sports will prepare your child for life in the same way.
So many people want to teach their children the lessons of life but can’t figure out why their kid can’t pick up the information at an early age. We can talk to our children about teamwork, dedication, overcomin’ obstacles, perseverin’ etc. until we’re blue in the face. However, they won’t understand it until they experience it for themselves. Sports will allow a child to experience all of those things at a young age. I don’t care if the kid is a natural athlete or not. That’s irrelevant. It’s about the experience that they will get from learnin’ how to compete that will last them for a lifetime.
It’s also important for the child to experience some adversity along the way. It’s OK for your kid to experience defeat every now and then, to get benched even when they are clearly the better player for whatever reason. More importantly, parents need to learn how to stay out of the way when it happens. When the parent jumps in to rescue their child they are teachin’ the kid that it’s always goin’ to be some one there to fix their problems.
I get so upset when I see parents interfere and take their child off of the team because of playin’ time. As parents we all want to see our kid play in the game but remember this has nothin’ to do with the game. This has everything to do with life. If we allow our kid the opportunity to experience that adversity we can use it as a teachin’ moment. However, if we let them quit we’re teachin’ them that it’s OK to walk away from things because it doesn’t go their way. Then they become adults that walk off of jobs at the drop of a hat because somebody upset them. A wise man once told me that we’re not raisin’ kids, we’re raisin’ adults.
I remember when my son was in 6th grade and was on the travel football team for the little league. From 2nd grade up to that point he had been the stud on every team he’d played on. That’s why he was chosen for the travel team. Well, all of the kids were very good and there was very little difference in their talent levels. So therefore, the coaches seemed to play the kids that they liked or were more familiar with. My son would cry because he wasn’t playin’ as much as he thought he should. I was upset and disappointed as well but the kid that was playin’ ahead of him was clearly better than he was though. However, I didn’t get in the way. I just talked to my son about increasin’ his work ethic and constantly workin’ to be prepared to play. I told him to ask the coach what he needed to work on to get better so that he could get more playin’ time. I also told him that he needed to know the plays better than anyone else and most importantly keep a great attitude in the process. Why did I tell him that when he was clearly gettin’ screwed?
In real life one day he may be the best candidate for the promotion on his job and may not get it. He won’t get so upset that he didn’t get the job that he’ll curse everybody out and quit because he’s been in this movie before. He’ll simply increase his work ethic, be more prepared than everyone else on the job and become better at what he’s paid to do. He’ll handle things professionally and that goes along way. Now did those things I told my son change his playin’ time? No, but he learned how to handle adversity, increase his work ethic, be a team player and have a great attitude. That’s more important than playin’ football in the 6th grade. So what do we learn from this joint? We learn that all kids should play sports. Stop me when I start lyin’!
Playas Thesaurus:
The G is excluded from the endings of all words because the G is near and dear to my heart because I’m from “The G” which is Gary, Indiana. So I only use the G when I’m talkin’ about “The G!”
The caption under the photo isn’t real but its real talk!