I see a lot of sports posts. The pictures of the kid whose team won their tournament. Or maybe the video of a child hitting to the outfield. We hear a lot from the parents who cheered all weekend or all season.
But we don’t hear a lot from the other kids’ parents. The kids whose team didn’t win. The kid who pitched the ball that was hit to the outfield. But we need to start talking about those kids on Facebook, too.
Why?
1. We do our kids a disservice when we don’t applaud the effort. Erin’s softball team played fall ball this year. They will move up to 10U in the spring, and the rules are changing. Kids will pitch, bases can be stolen, play continues until you get an out. All of that requires new and different thinking.
So for six weeks straight, in rain and sun, we played. Two games each Saturday. And we lost every single one. A couple were close. Mostly, though, we got skunked. It wasn’t the kind of season you ever see posted about.
BUT. It was not a wasted season. Those girls played every game as well as they could. They got better every time they went out. They were playing girls too old for our division, and they never complained. We warned them at the outset we might not win, that we were here to learn, so they threw themselves into learning. And they learned so.very.much.
In other words, they succeeded mightily.
2. We need to remind ourselves about what’s really important. My daughter knew what we were about. But sometimes, when the other coaches put their older girls in positions that would prevent our girls from even making it on base, it was hard to remember myself what our focus was. Sometimes I was that mom. The one who groaned a little too loudly or talked down the ump for a call.
I need to tell you about the games and seasons when my kid doesn’t win because I need to remember why they play. For fun. For experience. For the chance to learn teamwork and discipline and how to show up even when it’s not fun and you know you’re going to lose again. That’s why kids play. And as much as I would love a win, they learned more in this season of losing than they would have with 12 easy wins.
Our kids do not need more pressure to become a world-class player in 10U. They really don’t. And how we talk about them–if we talk about them–when they don’t win is every bit as important as all the pictures when they win.
And I need to remember that.
