This is a more general discussion topic, about what sports or other hobbies your kid gets into and how. I was talking with some other parents the other day. Our kids are friends and classmates. They said that they heard the advice to get your kid into things that you (the parents) are into. It seemed like I guess the reason would be that it would just make your life a bit easier and perhaps you could do the things you enjoy with your kid. What shall we call this... the parent-centric approach? The opposing approach would be the kid-centric approach I guess. That would be, it doesn't matter what I the parent is into... I'm going to expose my kid to a variety of things and whatever they decide to do is what I will support them doing. Maybe its soccer, maybe its baseball, maybe its dance or chess or golf. Etc I said to my son's mom "I don't agree with that approach" (ie the parent-centric approach). Sure, you love to golf... but what if your kid doesn't? I feel if you take this approach, it will limit the potential of the child. You run the risk of the child not finding their best fit in life. But from a practical standpoint, I get it. Parents only have so much time and energy to do things. If they bring the kids into their sphere of activities... that probably isn't necessarily a bad thing. I mean, it's not the end of the world if a kid learns to golf even if its not his first choice. He can still enjoy at some point later in life recreationally. Or what if the kid grows up on a farm - probably he will grow up learning to do farm chores. That's just how life was for most of time. I think we have been gradually shifting though as a society from a parent-centric approach to a kid-centric approach. For better or worse.
To me, this speaks a little bit to the over-involvement of modern parents in their kids' lives & activities. If you're not watching every practice & attending every game/performance/recital, your own preferences really don't matter that much. Not gonna lie--we never signed our kid up for the HOA swim team (a big community-building/networking thing around here) in no small part because my wife and I had zero interest in spending long Saturdays hanging out at and around a swimming pool in the heat of the Summer. Good thing our son has never expressed any regret about missing out on that.
Sorry I am not sure I follow. Can you explain clearly - do you like the parent-centric approach or the the kid-centric approach?
My parents were just the opposite. The neighborhood swim pool was the center of my families athletic, social and employment life. Neither of my parents were swimmers or athletes, but the environment that they provided created 6 Division 1 swimmers and 1 D1 collegiate swim team manager, all seven of us paid for some part of our college costs thru swimming. We all have had various levels of successes and failures in swimming, but all of us will tell you that this experience is what prepared us for life. I am the fifth child, so by the time I came around, my older siblings had had some success as youths in swimming and we were a swimming family. So much in fact, I do not remember either of my parents ever coming to one of my little league baseball games that I played in from ages 8-14. The only reason I got to play was my best friends father always coached and I had a ride. This was understood from the beginning. My wife and I introduced the sport to our sons, simple to have some experience the same as most of their cousins, but also to have a life skill and keep themselves out of danger at the beach. They competed at the summer league level (basically rec league) but never expressed any more than that, soccer was their choice. I knew nothing of the sport.
Swimming looks like a great sport. It is great exercise and like you said it is a great life skill so you know how to handle yourself in the dangerous waters of the ocean or at a lake or wherever. My kid isn't built for it. We've got him lessons many times. He still can barely do the freestyle. But I see a lot of families getting their kids into the swim competitions.
We generally went the route of encouraging our boys to try different sports to see what ones they liked. With my younger son, however, he got serious about soccer a lot younger than his brother, partially because he grew up going to his brother's games. He would even practice with his brother occasionally - one year I coached my older son's travel team (U12-U14 ages). He was U8 at the time, but loved scrimmaging with the older kids. Because he got more involved with club soccer at that young of an age, we limited his other sports to rec level, but he still played basketball and baseball, along with things like snowboarding and other activities. He wanted to play football as a young kid, but being a fall sport, we knew it would be too much of a conflict with soccer (that, and we were worried he'd kill some kid He was always an aggressive kid). Older son dropped soccer his senior year of college (coaching conflicts) and hasn't really played since. Younger son probably could have played D3, but decided pretty early on in high school that he wasn't going to play in college because he wanted to focus on academics. He plays intramurals at this point.
This is an interesting topic. Oldest DD tried swimming, baseball, soccer, played softball through middle school, then managed the track team. DS played soccer (obviously), tried a season of baseball, a couple of years of karate, and 2-3 years of basketball. Youngest DD did gymnastics (but not competitively), karate, soccer, and theater (1 year). At the youngest ages, if we saw a sign up, we asked the kids if they wanted to try it. The only "rule" at the time was ONE sport/activity per season (with multiple kids, we couldn't handle multiple sports in season). If they said "yes", we signed them up. There were probably sports/activities that we missed (I'm thanking my lucky stars no one wanted to get into dance).
It sounds like you had the right approach. You did not make it about you and what you liked. Sidenote/rant, but I am dealing with this with my kid's mom now. She does not support his soccer. This weekend was a soccer tournament and I was exhausted. She did not watch any of the games despite the tournament being only a 12 minute drive from her house. What I decided is that if she is not going to support soccer then I'm done supporting baseball, which is her fav sport. I drove him to his baseball camp last week. I signed him up for LL and for travel ball. I'm done doing anything else and I am going to text her and tell her this. I'm gonna tell her that if she does not support soccer then I'm not going to support baseball anymore. I don't have the time to do both. She is a narcissist and this is proof. She only wants him to do things that SHE likes. Whereas I have been supportive of anything that HE likes. Does everyone see the difference? She doesn't and I'm going to lay it out for her. I made a big mistake by getting with a narcissist. Not gonna do that again. Lesson learned. Since he likes soccer better, then he'll eventually give up baseball. That is what I'm gonna tell her; and its true. /rant over
It's not about defeating an ex, it's about maximizing time with your kid. As one who sharea/d a kid with an ex it is not ideal. But do what you can to maximize time with your kid. It's about him winning in a crappy situation not you winning. Support his baseball, soccer, music, theater, dance, basketball, yadda yadda yadda. You will be a winner with him in 10 years if he wins rather than you taking a win now over someone else.
Unfortunately, there are only so many hours in the day. So if I am supporting other activities... but not getting any help with soccer... well something has to give. My kid will decline in soccer because I am negleclting it due to helping with other activities. There is not an infinite amount of time and energy. Therefore one must decide what to spend it on. I think you have it backwards so let me clarify again. SHE only spends time/money/energy on the activities that SHE likes. I spend time/money/energy on the activities that MY SON likes. Do you see the difference?
Yes I see the difference, but still show up to every baseball game practice whatever. You dont have to play catch with him. I'm not saying quit soccer and do baseball but keep showing up.
Baseball is the biggest time waster of a sport. She picked the right sport to destroy your son’s soccer. You should definitely practice baseball with your son. He will hate baseball after 3 months of you working with him.
But you're making the difference to not support baseball to spite your EX. What, a week or two ago, you were "all in" about how good he is in baseball and trying to figure out if he could play D1 baseball as well as soccer. Now? "I'm not going to help him in baseball." Is he already committed to the fall baseball season? Then you help do whatever you can. How about this... a conversation with the THREE of you. Layout that doing two sports in the same season isn't realistic (for all the reasons many of us have laid out for you) and you'll only support one. You feel he's better in soccer. Your ex feels baseball is better. The tie vote goes to your son. He can only play one competitively. Which one does he choose? BUT, whatever commitments that are made are made. This is discussing signups going forward.
Has she seen him play? Uninterested parents are often suddenly interested once they realize how good their kid is. You've mentioned before that he's a very talented player.
I generally took the stance that watching my kids do anything they enjoyed was worth my time, regardless of how boring I found that activity to be. Because eventually, they're grown and you can't get those moments back.
Now wait just a second. You just spent a zilliion pages telling us your plans for him to play 2 sports in D1. You can't back out now... D1 or bust! Go big or go home! In all seriousness, I think your son is lucky for having parents who have the finances and time to help him pursue his interests, whether soccer, baseball, or both. Many kids don't have that chance. Best of luck to you.
I would actually argue it's more than OK for a parent not to watch practice. If the Mom has already taken the kid to practice, that's good enough IMHO.
You guys are all missing the point. The ex is pushing baseball to piss him off. She knows how much he is pushing soccer. The only way to reverse it is by him pushing baseball harder than soccer. He has no leverage over the ex. The ex just hates soccer because that’s what he likes.
Why do we have marriage counselors but no ex-marriage counselors? It’s not like the problems end when the marriage does especially if you have kids.
We don't know that, we just know that is what he thinks. Here is a novel idea, try to put the kid first and let him do what he enjoys without the endless wars between parents, I know, seems like a stretch right?
I love to watch him play, so yes I would like to show up. But at the same time... I have been spending a lot of time on his baseball this year, because he did Little League (it was 22 games in just the Spring season, including playoffs). Since he was 4 or 5 I did a lot of soccer with him. But lately that soccer time was replaced with baseball since I was helping him develop baseball skills. BUT I don't want his soccer skills to fall behind his peers. And it is hard to do both. So now, if the mom isn't going to help me with soccer, then I feel I need to focus solely on soccer and let her deal with baseball. Yeah in a sense it is a way to get her to help me with soccer, which she should since as you agree, a parent should support the kid in their interests, and soccer is his biggest interest. So SHE should be helping with soccer, not just me.
I've been working a lot with my son on baseball the past year. Hence why he did so well this season. Time waster? uh ok He doesn't hate baseball. He likes it. He likes soccer more. Little League is fun. They do chants and hang out at the snack shake. At this age, its more about the experience than anything else. He's a social kid so any team sport he'll enjoy. But now, I have to focus on soccer with him. He's doing well still, but I need to keep working with him to keep him on track.
Its not to spite my ex, that's only a side effect in a sense. It's really pragmatic actually. One parent can't do it all. Therefore she needs to add support. If she doesn't, then I just don't have the time to do both soccer and baseball. So I will focus on soccer and she can focus on baseball. Yes he is good in baseball. But again, I just don't have the time. I realized it after this weekend. There was a soccer tournament. I don't think people understand how hard it is for a single parent. I have to prep his uniform and gear, cook, make sure he gets up on time, feed him, make sure we're on schedule, pack the chair, umbrella, ball, water, alternate jerseys, air pump, sunscreen, snacks, team bench, camera, tripod, cart to carry all this stuff... now maybe you're a great multi-tasker... more power to you... I'm just so-so and I was exhausted. This was a weekend of 100+ degrees. 4 games. I have to clean the house, do the laundry, take out he trash, do the dishes, make sure my kid brushes his teeth and gets to bed on time... I'm guessing you are not doing ALL of the above all by yourself. My point is... the mom needs to help out... OR at a minimum come to damn game to support your kid. Is that asking too much?
Yes she has seen him play. Here's the problem, and the greater context. She is not able to see objectively that he's good. She associates soccer with me. And since she doesn't like me... she doesn't like soccer. If I didn't play soccer myself, let's say I was a staunch golfer only, then she would probably see soccer more objectively and see it more of thing that my son likes... rather than something she thinks he is playing because I want him to. I let my kid decide every year if he wants to continue or not. He has tried nearly every sport. And soccer is his favorite sport. So this isn't me pushing him into it. It is just a coincidence that he likes most the sport that I like most. But of course, it does not appear that way to anyone looking from the outside, esp her. When parents have a falling out... some of them are way too consumed with emotions and unable to see thing sobjectively. That's her. Unfortunately.