Wednesday, January 20, 2010

A Meal of Minor Sports

originally printed on January 19 in the Waterloo Region Record

Perhaps you’re familiar, as I am, with the tendency to have had strong opinions about parenting before actually being one. You know, the opinions that prompt verbal expression about those thoughts, only to find yourself later eating those very words? My biggest feast to date includes a healthy helping of minor sports.

Before I had kids, what I did have was all the necessary information to raise them. (Luckily, the aforementioned “meal” has left some room to implant my tongue firmly in my cheek.) I was intensely reluctant to have my unborn offspring participate in minor sports, because of skewed information that convinced me I would be doing them a huge disservice by exposing then to an environment where the norm is swearing, hollering, and ridiculous parents pressuring their kids to win, at all costs.

Now, after gulping those words down with the spray of a sports water bottle, I can say that minor hockey has been an almost entirely wonderful experience for my 13 and 10-year-old-kids.

Before telling you why, I must first say that it is unlikely that either of my kids will make a career of playing hockey. Although some of our four family members take the game more seriously than others, my husband and I embrace the sport for our kids because it works well as a part of their lives…but not their whole lives.

After a couple of mildly injurious sporting mishaps, my daughter had little confidence in her athletic ability, or more specifically, the ability required to escape further bodily harm. Now in her second year of hockey, she is comfortable and confident on the ice and her skills and knowledge of the game have improved immensely.

During their first year, Elena’s house league team did not win a single game, but it was so obviously not about winning for this group of girls who simply enjoyed being part of the team. Laughter, song and cheers often echoed from the change room, before and after games, regardless of the score. They also noticed and commented on the individual progress of their fellow players and marvelled at how much better they all were becoming.

My son’s teams have been different. For the most part, the 13 and 14 year old boys play a game that is faster and more intense. (It’s also safe to say there is no singing in the change room!) Nick indulges his competitive drive and makes good use of an excessive amount of energy. He also loves, and is entirely committed to the sport.

But although his game is different from Elena’s, the younger girls gain no less from the experience. In fact, when it comes to skills that are valuable in real life – team work, fair play, acceptance of different abilities, value of physical activity – both teams benefit equally. Another positive is that both my kids’ teams are comprised of players from different schools and areas. If this was an NHL or Olympic training camp, I understand that the priorities would be different. But it’s not.

As a means to an end, I do feel that skill development is valuable, and, of course, we all want our kids to know the satisfaction of a job well done that a win can provide.

But sometimes that win can be bittersweet, especially at a tournament if it means we have to stick around for another couple of hours to watch yet another game…

I consider myself a dedicated hockey parent, but when I have a house to clean and food to buy for the upcoming week, there is definitely some appeal to a loss!


another hockey column..... and another..... and another, kind of

Friday, January 8, 2010

Not enough of one, too much of another...

originally printed in the Waterloo Region Record, January 5, 2010.

There’s nothing like the Christmas holiday season to clearly illustrate both what we do not have enough of, and what we have too much of. I couldn’t help but notice during the past couple of weeks, and I suspect it might be same with your family, that what we don’t have enough of, is time…and what we have too much of, is stuff.

As I write, we are in the glorious midst of a much needed break from the regular hustle and bustle of everyday life. While we enjoy our holiday, we are making a concerted effort to spend some family time just the four of us…which sounds ridiculous because, isn’t “family time,” by definition, something that should just naturally fall into place, rather than requiring a shoe horn to fit it in?

During a typical, non-holiday, we seem to run around at almost constant breakneck speed trying to keep all of our responsibilities and activities running smoothly. It’s not unusual for our 13-year-old son to eat dinner and do homework in a moving vehicle in order to maintain a travelling hockey schedule.

During this holiday, all four of us have sat, on numerous occasions, in the same room together for more than 15 minutes. More than once, I found myself wondering, why it is we don’t do this more often? The answer, of course, is obvious: we don’t have the time.

So even though we’re doing our best to avoid the feeling that, at the end of the holiday we’ll need another holiday during which to recover, there is still some obligatory rushing, but it’s “fun rushing,” usually without start times, or deadlines. These events are different, since we rush to them, and then we can slow down and relax once we get there.

Another thing I’ve noticed during this break - as if my housekeeping skills weren’t lacking enough to properly organize the belongings we already had – is that with the onslaught of kids’ clothes, games, activities and gadgets, we are now the dubiously proud owners of even more stuff.

And along with the new stuff comes an increased urgency in my never-ending quest to find a logical system with which to organize. In the interest of honesty, and the hopes that this personal purge will help me feel better, I must admit that my method, “Out of sight, out-of-mind” was recently challenged when I found a partly-organized pile of papers and items belonging to my daughter…from school last June. I was tempted to quickly tuck it back away, but realized (as if I didn’t know this before) that part of the problem in storing new stuff was that I first had to organize old stuff.

Unfortunately, apparently due to my children’s genetic make up, they too are sorely lacking in housekeeping skills, and also have some pack rat in them…so we all regularly succumb to: but what if we want to use it again?

Also obvious during the holidays is the need to consider our financial situation when preparing for the big day, and of course, shopping for the deals afterwards. Similar to Norad’s tracking of Santa’s journey across the world on Christmas Eve, my husband discovered another use for the internet when I was out Christmas shopping and Boxing Week bargain hunting. He could track my journey and see where and when my debit card had been used, and how much… longer I’d be gone. I’m sure he was simply eager to have the whole family home spending time together, rather than continuing to increase the amount of stuff coming into the house.