What If My Kids Are Average?

VolleyballRight now, we are in the middle of our first “mini club” season of volleyball. It’s so awesome to watch my girls play. I always tell them, “My favorite sport is the one you are playing.” I mean it. We’ve done soccer, basketball, gymnastics, horseback riding, swim, and volleyball. It’s all so fun. I enjoy watching them improve their technique and have fun with their team. It is so good for them to have to listen to their coach and deal with the consequences of not doing so. Oh! You watch that ball bounce on the gym floor without even trying to go for it? Take a run. It shows their character when kids experience winning and losing.  We tend to take a more chilled approach to sports and whatnot – we are just glad to see them moving and getting exercise breaking a little sweat. Honestly, I don’t even understand the whole game of volleyball! Remember when we used to play and there was a rotation and you played the position for your turn in the rotation? Those days are long gone, kids. This is like a well choreographed volley dance game thing with cheers and chants and it is no joke. These girls are so cool and their moms have play books, and I’m over here all like, “Was that in?”

Are we in the minority? Is this a total jacked up approach? Seriously, moms. I’m asking. I’m in the throes of wrestling through all this right now. The pressure is on here. In order for my child to be competitive, do I really have to sell my soul to the “Club Level Devil”?! I’m kidding. I don’t think club level sports are the devil. It’s just a whole ‘nother level!

We have had two weeks of practice, and our first tournament is this weekend. The season isn’t over for eight weeks, and parents are already asking me, “Are y’all going to play Fall Club?” Um. Oh dear. We are just happy to be here! Ha! I don’t have a clue yet! I’m hearing moms talk about the YouTube videos they found that were really helpful for their daughters to practice serving. Oh. Y’all look up videos? My poor kids. Now, let me explain something… We just moved. Like the day before volleyball started. Which was also two days before our semester of homeschool classes started. We also thought now would be the best time to do a complete kitchen remodel, cause we are brilliant. So our YouTube videos have more to do with tile installation and backsplashes than volleyball. I say that to make it known to you sweet readers that, like many of you, we just got a lot going on!

BasketballAnd, ya know what? What if my kids are average? What if my daughter enjoys basketball, likes being a part of a team, and we don’t pay $60+ per hour for a private coach? The same for volleyball? Or you and your son’s baseball. What if you take your son to practice 3 nights a week, and he plays a game he enjoys, and you opt not to do that same sport year-round beginning at 6? What if our kids are average players who hold their own consistently, show up for practice, and get good exercise? What if they are B students? Or C? What if we just don’t want to be traveling all over creation for sports every weekend and paying out the nose for a club-level sports? What if they don’t get a college scholarship for their chosen sport? Or instrument or whatever?

You know what will happen? Lord willing, adulthood will happen. I hope they will become adults with fond memories of youth athletics. Or band or whatever. I mean, honestly. What are the stats on the number of middle school athletes that make it on to the pros? I have no idea, but it’s not very many, I know that.

It’s not that I want my kid to aim low, but ya know. Volleyball is just not our target.

SoccerI’m {hopefully} aiming our girls toward a life of world-changing awesomeness. You know who changes the world? Average, everyday people. People who live their lives and go to work for a greater purpose. Those who live their lives beyond themselves. Not for trophies or medals {…although, we don’t turn them down!}.  My hope for my girls is that they find their purpose, what they were created to do, and that they do it BIG.

My prayer for your kids and mine is that they live out their purpose with reckless abandon.

If volleyball is a part of that, yay! I can dig it.

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Melissa H
Melissa is a native Floridian currently making Houston home. She has a background in English education, but ended up teaching sex ed to middle and high school students. This passion for teaching healthy relationship education transformed into a ministry of teaching parents to speak early and often to their kids about healthy sexuality. {Which she says was way more fun than teaching poetry.} But that’s all “Doppleganger Melissa” now. These days, she is a full-time homeschooling mama to two future world-changers, Meghan and Maddy. She is an unapologetic sanguine who loves having people around her table eating off of paper plates and drinking sweet tea. When “Mel’s Diner” {the kitchen} isn’t open, she may be working off calories at the gym, driving her girls around town, or trying to round up some twenty-somethings to feed and mother. Melissa believes in a few things pretty strongly :: Jesus, her spouse, the power of Diet Coke, and that traveling should be a sport. You can find her over at Spouseisms, or on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, or Facebook {@Spouseisms}.

5 COMMENTS

  1. This this this. Whatever happened to just letting them have fun? It’s like everyone is trying to mold their kids into pro athletes from the day they start walking. Sheesh.

  2. This was such a great article!! I too battle with the “new” way of doing things….sports with trainers at age 6, WAY TOO MUCH as far as stress and activities for kids in school, and the like. You gave me a refreshing reminder that I’m not the only mom who wants a sense of normal for my kids in a world that is dead set on making everyone anxiety ridden by age 11. I look forward to more of your postings.

  3. My son loves baseball, he’s six so we are not planning for him to hit the pros lol. We allow our kids to pick the sport their interested in and we commit for that season. If their interest change after that we try something new. My son is six he is not the best player on the team but he tries his best and is always ready to practice and play. That is where we are at. We have three kids and lots of commitments so we try to pick one sport a season and it can get crazy. I am all for having the dedication and teaching character building. He will have great childhood memories, my goal for him is to enter adulthood prepared and seeking God.

  4. LOVE this!!! I think sports and activities can be great (emphasis on the word CAN), but so often I think they become all consuming. I want my children to be children! I want them to play outside, build with legos, climb trees, invent things, make mud pies, etc. I want to be able to spontaneously make plans without having a commitment every day of the week. I want to eat dinner as a family, at our table most nights. I also want them to enjoy sports, but we just aren’t that family that has the commitment to have those sports become our lives. Just not going to happen!

  5. Kids have so much going on these days, every child is different. My wish is that parents could honestly ask themselves if the child is living out their dream or the parents dream. It seems to me that competition is on the rise with parents more than anything. My kids are going to engage in lots of different activities and participate in activities they feel passionate about. No one has all the answers. Parents have to trust in their kids and follow their lead.

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