FamilyLife Today®

Speaker 1

Those moments when our kids don't perform are like great gospel opportunities for us to say, like, I know it was not great, but, man, I still love you and I'm still proud of you. And let's figure out how we can get better next year.

Speaker 2

Welcome to family life today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson.

Speaker 3

And I'm Ann Wilson. You can find us@familylifetoday.com this is Family life today.

Speaker 2

Brian and Ed are back to talk about youth sports and how you can navigate that as a Christian parent. We need this so bad.

Speaker 3

I think this is going to be a great conversation.

Speaker 2

So let's go.

Speaker 4

You talk about an idol and we throw that word around. One of the characteristics of an idol, why we hold it up as an idol, is that we think it's going to give us something that's going to fill a hole in us or that's going. It makes promises to us that if you'll bow down to me, I will bring you some kind of satisfaction. Isn't that true for all idols? Things that we make into idols?

So again, this is what we are trying to do for people. We all get it. What we want to say is the youth sport idol is lying to you. It's not going to deliver what it promises to deliver. Just enjoy. Let your kid play this sport that they enjoy. It's a game; you worry more about paying attention to what it means for them to walk with Jesus in the midst of it.

And again, first you make sure you're walking with Jesus in the midst of it. We need to keep saying that. And then you're going to be in a position to look for more ways for them to walk with Jesus in the midst of it.

And really what we're doing in the book is just offering up practical ways. Here are things to look for.

Speaker 2

Oh, it's so practical.

Speaker 4

Here's questions to ask.

Speaker 2

Here's what you say on the driveway.

Speaker 3

Give us a few questions. Like on the drive to or from.

Speaker 4

The game, did you have fun today?

Speaker 3

What if they say no? The coach wasn't. No.

Speaker 4

That's great. Tell me why not? They do say no.

Speaker 1

Do you want to talk more about why it wasn't fun? And sometimes we'll just say no.

The last two years with my kids, on the drive home, they get in the car. Is there any that happened today in the game that you want to talk about?

Can you guess what they say 99% of the time?

Speaker 2

No.

Speaker 1

No. And there's so many things I want to talk about.

Speaker 4

Yeah, I got two hours of stuff I've been following. Who am I going to talk to now?

Speaker 1

The answers. I mean, I know why you're not getting passes thrown your way. It's because you should be running the five yard out when you're running the seven.

Speaker 4

Instead, change your body language. You sit over there and pout the whole game. That's. I wouldn't put you in either.

Speaker 1

Go stand next to the coach when he's putting kids in instead of sitting on the edge of the bench.

Speaker 3

So do you say that stuff like your attitude?

Speaker 4

Not anymore.

Speaker 1

Not on the car ride home.

Speaker 4

Not on the car ride home.

Speaker 1

And here's why. 70% of kids are quitting youth sports by the age of 13. Kids are saying this, this is the data, because it's not fun anymore. Many kids are pinning it's not fun to this car ride home experience.

And again, let's say this again, well-intentioned parents who are discipled by an ESPN overanalyzing culture. We want to coach, we want to critique, counsel, criticize. What our kids need from us in those spaces is just to connect instead of trying to fix everything that was broken.

There's a psychological term called the peak-end rule, essentially saying this is how we remember events in our life. It's by the peak moment of that event, but also how the moment ends. So imagine again, let's go back to the soccer field. Something doesn't have to be a great moment, just some big moment in the game that they're going to remember it by. They score a goal or maybe their friend scores a goal or they get knocked down by somebody.

How does every single youth sport game or competition end? It's the car ride home. Most car ride homes are well-intentioned parents saying, "Hey, maybe next time try standing next to the coach or try running a little bit faster to the ball."

So what's happening with our kids is they're remembering youth sport experiences largely by this car ride home where it didn't seem like they lived up to what their parents wanted them to do.

Speaker 4

Oh, and it almost never goes well. I mean, I didn't know.

Speaker 1

Has it ever gone well? Has Trey ever said like, man, dad, no, thank you so much for that feedback? No, my oldest gonna do that next time.

Speaker 4

My oldest son, so he was the first one to get unsanctified. Dad.

Speaker 1

That's a good way to put it.

Speaker 4

And I hit him with everything. And I was his coach in basketball. So that's another thing. It's my sport. I'm the coach and I'm the dad. That just is like a trifecta of this is gonna be bad.

Well, he wouldn't say anything back to me. He would not respond to any of my statements, my questions, my harassments.

Speaker 3

Give us just a picture of that conversation, of how you would bring it up.

Speaker 4

Why are you being so passive on the court? You're never going to get the ball. I've been telling you this for literally weeks now. They're not going to pass it to you. And if they don't pass it to you, you're never going to get to shoot.

You've got to get yourself open so you're not yelling, "I'm driving."

Well, that's pretty stern.

I am, coach.

It is somewhat stern. It's exasperated. It's dad saying, "I'm starting to struggle watching this." I hate watching this in my son.

So I'm driving. I'm looking straight ahead.

Speaker 1

It's also true.

Speaker 4

It is also true.

Speaker 3

You're well intentioned.

Speaker 4

This is what I don't like about what your mom did, which I want to love what your mom did. But let's just say this. I want your mom to say, yeah, you were bad today, but I still love you. Two for 12 is lousy. Let's go get ice cream.

Speaker 2

Hey, thanks for bringing it back to you.

Speaker 1

Are you okay?

Speaker 2

Still in love?

Speaker 1

We need to have a little session.

Speaker 2

Can I go cry somewhere?

Speaker 4

But let's do both, you know, and I'm not getting any.

Speaker 2

So you didn't. You didn't hurt.

Speaker 4

I'm not getting any response. Nothing. So now I'm looking at him like. You have anything you want to say?

Speaker 1

No.

Speaker 4

Well, why not? Do you not care? Do you not care about this? Are you okay with never getting the ball?

Cuz you know what's coming next. You're not even going to be on the court anymore. Because we can get anybody just to run up and down passively.

That's another thing. You could get rebounds like you're one of the taller kids. Like this is what it turns into, right? It just keeps going.

Speaker 3

This was my life with every brother sports. After every single game, this was the conversation.

Speaker 4

So I got silence from Eric. And we've worked through all this. He's 25 now. We have a great relationship. Can we say I have apologized a lot?

So again, we all feel like we've done this wrong. What do you do with it? You start with apologizing just like you do in your marriage.

You repent, Eric. I'm sorry I did that. This is what I was afraid of for you.

Speaker 2

What's he say now about it again?

Speaker 4

And every kid's different. He loves me for being honest with him. And he actually ended up playing college again, completely different route. It wasn't because I harassed him. And it's a whole nother story. So we have a great relationship.

He was already a person of few words, but he sure wasn't going to process any of this right after the game. Now, my daughter Maria and Jack, they had different variations on, "Why don't you just stop talking to me right now? This is none of your business. Why do you want to talk about anything that just happened? The game is over, dad. Leave it alone, okay?" I would get that from both of them.

Speaker 3

My second grader, I think I just said I think when you're batting, I think if you're. If you had your elbows up. He goes, mom, I don't want you ever to say anything to me. He's my verbal one. He's the youngest, thank goodness.

And he goes, I don't want you to ever say anything to me about anything in sports, okay? I'm like, well, I'm just trying to help you. He said, whatever you think that I did wrong, I'm thinking it a million times more than you are.

He could express that. And I was like, whoa. So your kids, they're verbalizing all kinds of stuff.

Speaker 4

So I'm on the 4th and I'm listening to all of them, so I don't yell stuff at him anymore. I mean, you can change. We don't have to keep repeating the same mistakes. He has asked me not to do it. That's something you could do.

What do you want from me during games? That's a great question. What do you want me to do? How do you want me to be present for you at games?

And you know what? They might not even have an answer right away.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Is there anything I can say during the game? How do you want me to cheer for you?

Speaker 4

How do you want me to cheer for you? That will be.

Speaker 2

Think about on the drive there and after.

Speaker 4

Totally.

Speaker 2

What do you mean you want me to say nothing before the game? Would you like me to pray anything?

Speaker 4

Good day.

Speaker 2

Maybe prayer put pressure on them, too.

Speaker 1

Because we don't want our silence to be indifference either.

Speaker 3

It's so hard, you guys.

Speaker 4

Lord, I pray that Eric today would play with aggressiveness. I pray that he would catch and shoot quick.

Speaker 1

Would you say, though, like, now that you're fixing things with Trey, like, even now that you're finally, even as he, like, is just getting done with his golf season?

Like, have you enjoyed this version of Ed as you show up at the course more?

You still have this, like, inner angst of, like, I want to say all these things.

Speaker 4

Oh, both for sure. The reason why I'm enjoying it, though, is I know it's true. I really believe what we're saying here right now. We're not just saying we've seen. Seen it. We work with college athletes. This is not going to end well. My harassment of him is not going to end well for him or me or us.

And so I can make a different choice right now, because what I want is for him to come home at 25 for Thanksgiving because we're still in relationship with each other. I don't want him to resent me through his 20s again.

This is what we don't realize: over a decade's worth of this kind of pressure causes our kids to not want to come to us with anything when they get in their 20s.

Speaker 3

Feels abusive.

Speaker 4

Yeah. Youth sports. Because we're spending so much time in youth sports. I mean, that fact is strengthening our relationship.

Speaker 2

Shows how critical it is that we do this right as parents.

Speaker 4

Talk about it.

Speaker 2

Dave, if your son or daughter in their 20s doesn't want to come home or even comes home, but sort of like that's something we'd done wrong.

Speaker 4

Well, I probably am treating them in other areas of life the same way I treat them in sports. So I'm this way with their boyfriend or girlfriends. I'm this way with their grades. I'm this way with their college choice. It's the same thing.

Speaker 3

Disappointment.

Speaker 4

It's constant disappointment. It's constant pressure. It's constant.

You're not quite measuring up to what I want you to do. Again, it's this imagined future that I have for you, and you're not pulling your end of it.

And they just. They feel that. Yeah.

So how do you deal with that?

Speaker 3

Parents are pushing back. They're like, so we say nothing.

Speaker 1

It doesn't mean we say nothing. It means what we say has a tone and posture of grace there.

Man, I really want my kids, when they inevitably mess up in life, to feel comfortable coming to us. Right? When relationships don't go well, or when they look at things on the Internet that they maybe shouldn't, I want them to know that they can come to mom and dad and just say, "Hey, this happened."

I don't want them to have a history of us screaming at them during their youth sports games and competitions. I don't want them to feel that every time they mess up, mom and dad are really upset or disappointed or let down. Because what's happening again is that we are teaching them that when you mess up in sport, we're going to respond with this older brother mentality.

Speaker 4

Good, Brian.

Speaker 1

I do want to use words, I do want to talk, but I want to save the most words probably for when they're the worst at sport, like when it goes the most poorly.

I want to let them know that they're loved. Like, hey, you and coach may not be good right now, but me and you were good. I still love you.

Here's what you did well today. I know you went two for 12. That was not good.

Speaker 2

Hey, you guys gonna keep bringing up mine?

Speaker 1

You brought it up.

Speaker 4

You put it on the table. Here you go. Can I train myself to say you were 2 for 12? But.

And again, this isn't a cop out. We do sports. We hang out with people at a high level of sports. You were lousy in the game today, but your preparation was great.

I watched you during warmups. You did everything that you could have done in warmups to be ready. You had a lousy day. That happens and not this.

Speaker 2

Which parents do. You're two for 12 because the guy ran the wrong routes. He dropped three of your balls. Those guys are losers, man. You were. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1

Is that where some of the incompletions came from?

Speaker 2

I have no idea. I doubt it. I probably threw them into the stands. But that's what parents do.

Speaker 3

They blame the coaches.

Speaker 2

They blame the coach. They blame everybody else. I mean, in some ways. And again, when I read your book, I thought, this is what you're saying. The sport, whatever sport it is, is a vehicle.

Speaker 4

It is, Dave, for your goal, for.

Speaker 2

Your son or daughters to become like Christ. It's just a vehicle because we know this. I don't know the number. It's got to be 90, 95% of all these kids, even at high school level, are never playing at the next level.

Speaker 4

Oh, it's no, Rich.

Speaker 2

They're not gifted enough to play on a full Division 1 or 2, 3 scholarship.

Speaker 3

But they have other gifts.

Speaker 2

They have other gifts, but we are so into the sport that we don't think. Wait, wait. The sport is a gift from God as a vehicle to help get to the Christlike character we want.

When you play, it should be fun. That should be the goal. This should be fun for them. And if they have a coach that's a horrible coach and mean, like Ed said earlier, it's like, okay, maybe there's something they can learn about playing for somebody that's unreasonable or they're better than the kids that are playing in front of them.

It drives you crazy, but guess what? They're going to learn. Rather than saying, "We're leaving the school, we're going to another school," which is now the deal with NIL, I'm just out and I'll go somewhere else.

Speaker 3

But those are painful times when your kid doesn't start when you feel like they should be.

But to let God in it and to say and to pray like, "Lord, we don't know what you're doing and it feels frustrating for our son or whatever, but we can grow in this."

You can grow in this.

Speaker 1

Yeah. And we need to have those phrases ahead of time so when it comes, we know what to say.

I'm a high school cross country coach. We just got done with the state championship. Our team took eighth. We were projected to be top five. We had one runner who just didn't have the best day. Right.

And so as a coach, this is my opportunity. As I'm meeting with him right after the race ends, he's coming towards me. What's my posture? Like, what's my tone? Like, what are my words like?

I have an opportunity to actually embody the gospel to him without actually sharing the gospel. I can look him in the eyes, which is what I did. I just grabbed him by the shoulders. I said, "Man, I am so proud of the effort you gave today. I know it didn't go as well as you wanted to, but, man, I love you. I'm so proud of the season that you had today."

Speaker 3

Oh, that's so good.

Speaker 1

That's like gospel type posture and language for somebody who's like, I didn't perform. But my coach had a different metric that day for me.

Like, I'm still bummed that we didn't take top five. But those moments when our kids don't perform are like, great gospel opportunities for us to say, like, I know it was not great, but, man, I still love you and I'm still proud of you, and let's figure out how we can get better next year.

Speaker 4

That sticks and shapes his life totally. He won't remember what place they came in 25 years from now. Probably the kid won't, but he probably will remember at least the feeling that came from a coach that said, "Here's grace. Yeah, we weren't as good today. Here's what grace feels like now. Go on, let's keep living life." Sport provides so many opportunities for that.

Again, hopefully people are here. And we're not saying you put your head in the sand. We're not saying there's never any place for correction. Listen, if my kid is disrespectful to a referee, he's getting snatched up before we leave the gym because he or she is gonna go over and actually apologize.

Cause we're not gonna come back to this moment. You need to go find him right now and you need to look him in the face and say, "I'm sorry I was disrespectful."

Speaker 3

We're talking character things.

Speaker 4

We're doing that right now. What we're saying is most of what we wind up doing has something to do with performance, sport performance, lack of skill, execution. And that's what we're saying just needs to be lessened.

Speaker 3

Well, if you're married and maybe you're the culprit, that's like, oh, man, this is so convicting.

But a lot of times we can hear this for our spouse. Like my husband or wife, they're out of control, you know, so it would be the temptations.

I'm going to send this to them. Or, you know, which could be good.

But what are your suggestions?

Speaker 4

Read a lot of marriage books.

Speaker 3

I mean, is this a conversation we can do? Like, maybe we do listen to it together or send it to each other.

Speaker 2

I mean, we had this conversation when Ann was barking at our 8-year-old.

I'm like, you know, in the car, it's like.

Or later, it's like, honey, it's 8-year-olds playing basketball. It doesn't really matter that much what is going on here?

So we had a conversation.

Speaker 3

We did.

Speaker 2

I'm not saying I was right or wrong, but it was like we wanted to confront it. You don't want your spouse to be that parent.

Speaker 3

I'm just asking what's going on? Like, what do you feel?

Speaker 4

Well, what is the communication climate in our relationship right now? This is sensitive, and it's tapping into lots of emotional spots inside of our bodies. Spots and triggering wounds and triggers and idols. I mean, we've used a lot of big language. Okay. So there's probably a lot more going on that, yeah, does need to be talked about.

But if we don't have a communication climate already in our marriage where we can talk about sensitive things, then no, I probably wouldn't just send the podcast over to them because that's not gonna go well. There needs to be some other healing maybe that needs to take place in other of our relationships so that we can have these kinds of conversations.

If you do have a communication climate, though, where we can say, "Hey, I heard a podcast the other day," or "There was a book written, I think we should read it together and just see if we can have this conversation together," then that's why we wrote the book.

Speaker 3

I was gonna say, have you had couples or small groups go through this? Because I'm thinking a small group in a community of people, that would be helpful.

Speaker 1

We're starting to get stories of. Yeah. Small groups of churches doing it.

Speaker 4

Christian school.

Speaker 1

Christian school. Who are giving it to all the parents who are signing up for a sport that year.

Speaker 3

Yeah, that's really good.

Speaker 1

To get back to your question, though, like, man, sports has this weird. Almost like, brings out our true self.

Speaker 2

Yes.

Speaker 1

As a fellow Lions fan, I'm normally like a 7 to 3. Like, that's my emotional range. But the Lions, man, can bring me to a 10. And the more I've thought about it, it's like, man, that's actually who I am. The 10 sports can actually bring out the truer version of Brian than just about anything else in life.

And, man, if my wife, Lindsey, does not have permission to explore what's going on of, like, man, why were you so intense today? Do you know your son, after they just lost the playoff game, is crying in bed? Do you know he's probably doing that because he's learned to love the Lions as much as you seem like to have this climate where she has permission to say that to me, it's an idol, but it's not just affecting me.

I'm actually discipling my kids to care way too much about how this team dressed in blue performs on the screen, and it's causing him to cry. That's a problem, but I'm almost blind to it. I need somebody like Lindsey to be able to come at me and give me this blend of grace and truth that'll help me.

Speaker 2

And a brother. Ask a brother. Ask a sister. This would be a great question. Hey, how do you think I do at my son's games, my daughter's games?

Speaker 1

How do you experience me?

Speaker 2

You know, am I doing a good job? I want you to tell me I'm an idiot or go ahead.

Speaker 3

Dave has done that with his friends.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3

You called a friend and just said, dude, you are an idiot.

Speaker 2

Oh, I sat beside my best friend, played football at Iowa. Great guy. He's probably listening right now. His daughter was playing high school basketball where I coach, and he coached with me. When I decided to coach out of high school, I called Rob and said, "I don't want to go in there as the only Christian on this staff. Will you go with me?" You said it earlier, go in there as a brother. So he was with her.

Anyway, we're sitting there, and he is belligerent toward this ref. It's a little gym, so everybody that plays heard it. I'm sitting beside him, thinking, "This is embarrassing," because he didn't stop doing it. I hit him a couple of times, but he just kept doing it because he was at a 10. I called him after the game and said, "Dude, I'm going to be a brother to you. You are not Christlike at all. It was embarrassing. Your daughter was embarrassed. The referee thought you were a jerk, and you were supposed to represent." I mean, I just sort of said, "Dude, I'm just telling you that was... I was embarrassed."

It got real quiet, and I'm like, "Okay, this could go really bad." He goes, "You're right. I need to hear that. I need to apologize to my daughter. If I find that ref..." You know, in the moment, he missed it, but he responded, and he was different for the rest of his daughter's high school career. Sitting beside him, I thought, "Okay, he heard it."

Speaker 4

Well, good for you to take the initiative. We need more of that. That's a takeaway to have the courage to initiate those kinds of conversations. And good for him to have the humility to realize he was being a bit of an idiot. Can we do that with each other? We need help. That's why we wrote the book in the first place. We realized we needed an intervention. Yeah, we needed help.

Okay, so let's admit that I've got stuff going on in my life that brings out the worst and it's heading towards our kids. So let's check that together. And then again, how do we be on the offensive now? That's really what this is, is let's go on the offensive. Like every day that we show up, there's something good happening in here for us to grab onto as parents.

Let's find the language to use. Let's keep reiterating our values and what's important to us because our 6-year-old's not going to notice the kid on the end of the bench. Maybe. But after hearing that for five years, maybe it just becomes part of who he or she is. That's why his son is getting asked to pray, because prayer is a part of their life together.

Speaker 2

Yeah, that's.

Speaker 4

And the ninth grader actually has the capacity to replicate what his parents have modeled, what Brian and Lindsey have modeled.

Now, he probably wasn't doing that five years ago. Hudson wasn't doing that five years ago.

But, like, just constantly living amongst that kind of language, and this is how we operate. It starts to show up, hopefully in.

Speaker 2

There, you know, Brian, maybe that kid. What's his name?

Speaker 1

Hudson.

Speaker 2

Maybe Hudson will be the Detroit Lions chaplain someday. They need somebody praying for him. Just need as much as they. You never know.

Speaker 1

Let's go.

Speaker 2

Hey, let me say this, you guys. You guys want people to buy your book, right?

Speaker 1

We absolutely do.

Speaker 2

Tell them. Tell them how they can get your book at Family Life Today.

Speaker 1

Yeah, they can get at really any online retailer. So the most common one is just. It's just Amazon.

Speaker 2

I'm sort of kidding you. I was going to look at the camera and say, you can go to familylifetoday.com, click on the link in the show notes and you can buy their books.

Speaker 1

Erase that part of it.

Speaker 2

Or you can go to Amazon and get their books there as well. You can get it anywhere books are sold. Right? You can get them.

Speaker 3

So good is so needed. I feel like we're floundering right now in our culture when it comes to youth sports and being a believer. Like, how does that all tie together? And you guys, this book does that.

Speaker 4

We're trying to give people permission to have these conversations.

Speaker 3

That's so needy.

Speaker 4

So hopefully it'll start that and people.

Speaker 2

Are not having this conversation. That's why I got so excited to endorse this. Like, this is. Honestly, guys, I thought it'd be just a cute little book. I'm not kidding.

Speaker 3

I didn't know, you know, Ed, he's not gonna write a cute.

Speaker 1

I didn't cute with that.

Speaker 2

No, I didn't think cute, but I didn't know it was gonna go theologically. I mean, you go through a history of how we got here. I was like, oh, my goodness. We don't even know that we could.

Speaker 3

Do this for days. Talking about.

Speaker 2

So get it. The book is called Away A Christian Parents Guide to Navigating Youth Sports. Click the link in the show notes.

Speaker 3

@Familylifetoday.Com we know life is full of challenges, and families today need biblical truth more than ever. And as a family life partner, your monthly gift helps bring the truth into homes every single day through podcast events and resources.

Speaker 2

So let's make a lasting difference together. Become a partner today. Just go to familylifetoday.com and click the donate button.

Speaker 3

We would love to pray for you. I would personally love to pray for you. And we even have a team at Family Life that can pray for you. Just go to familylife.com prayforme.

Speaker 2

Family life today is a donor supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry. 3:50 years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.