Teaching Kids Character Through Sports

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What we have now, it's way more than we ever had before, and that I ever even dreamed of in the marriage. Discover more at HopeRestored.com, that's HopeRestored.com. It really does start with us as a parent, just taking a deep breath, it's just a game. The game that they can play and enjoy, and we can sit back as their parents, and enjoy the stage of life, and watch them play, and not put so pressure on them to be what we hope they can be at 16 while they're six years old. Let's Brian Smith, and he joins us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Bailey.

We're going to be talking about how sports can be an opportunity to disciple your kids. I'm John Fuller.

John, I'm always about sports. I love sports.

I hope I don't make it an idol, but it's fun. It's fun to compete. I love playing football, basketball, baseball, and high school, and I just love it. In fact, it became structure for me, because of my structure, less home. I lived with my brother through high school, and I didn't have a lot of boundaries, but sports taught me so much about what it meant to do the right thing and be part of a team. And all those good things, and it was my sophomore year football coach that actually led me to the Lord through a fellowship of Christian athletes camp.

So for me, sports are huge, and spiritually, physically, and they do so much for us emotionally too, both boys and girls, but to grow up with confidence, and to be in the game, and then the game of life. So I'm excited to talk with our guests today about what we need to do to be mindful of doing it well as parents. And I'm sure there are many parents watching and listening right now that you're part of that high school baseball game, and you're going wow, or these people really healthy parents, because it's screaming and you know, and we want to get into some of that.

How to be a missionary in the stands, which is part of our guest proclamations. And as I said, Brian Smith and Ed use in ski join us, they're both dads of kids and sports, and they're both involved in sports ministry through athletes in action, which is the sports focus ministry of crew. And we'd be talking about their book called A Way Game, a Christian parents guide to navigating youth sports. You can learn more about our guests in this terrific book at our website, and the link is in the show notes.

And Brian, welcome to focus for the first time. It's great to have you guys good to be here. Let me kick it off here.

Brian, let me aim this one at you. So many parents are told that they have to buy the expensive sports equipment and put them on the travel team.

“I am so thankful with our two sons Trent and Troy. Good announcer names, right?”

I picked their names. I said next in Trent daily. I mean, oh, that's awesome. That's Trent's name. Next in Troy daily. I was like, oh, that's good. But Jean looked at me and said that's pathetic. She was teasing me. She was sports. Yeah, that's great. But Brian, and I'm again grateful that they didn't pressure us to do a travel team, but there seems to be this proportionality with those teams. The more you invest in your kids, the less likely they are to enjoy their sporting experience. I don't know if that's factual, but what's your experience?

Yeah, I'm going to say you, it sounds like you actually read the study. There has been a study. Other has shown like the amount of money that parents spend in youth sports is associated with that their kid actually having a decline of joy in sport. Wow, that's so sad actually. Why do you think that is what's happening? Yeah, we've kind of just like pontificated like it. It's probably you're getting the kid the most expensive thing. You're traveling across state lines. You're getting the expensive hotels. You're going out to eat.

And the parents think it's really, really fun. We're almost like professionalizing youth sports for kids. It's fun. We love sports. But the kids are receiving all of this good stuff. They know they're on the big team. They know they're traveling across the state lines. And they're internalizing this as pressure. And so it's causing anxiety. It's causing them to, to maybe not even reach their potential and sport because they're so afraid of failure. I want to be careful because there are success stories in that environment as well. And some young people go on to do great things and maybe even college scholarships and all that.

“So I don't want to bet too much of a dampening effect on that. But what, what is a healthy way to kind of look at that opportunity?”

So my son comes home and says, hey, the coach thinks I should be on the travel team. Baseball and soccer are probably the two most prevalent. Yeah. How, as a Christian parent, how do we avoid some of those traps?

You said dad's Jim, but it really is mom's dad's having to kind of explore what are the things that are going on inside of us.

There were bringing into this to our kids you sport experience. And so there's past regrets that we have. There's past missed opportunities. We feel like maybe we weren't treated fairly. If we just got to do this over again, it could have looked different.

“We're, it's become an idol for us. You know, we use that work that it's become more important to us than anything else in our life sports has become that.”

And so now our kid is a projection of that. Here she is sort of an extension of that for us.

There's regrets. There's just insecurity that I feel right. So there's all these different words that go with a sort of an internal evaluation. And it's that's the hardest thing to maybe do. We've said that. That's the, maybe the work that we don't want to do as parents is to look inside and see how much of our own baggage is actually being brought to bear on our kids life right now. Yeah, let's go into an example or two that we can all put forward. I mean, Jean and I were talking about this. I was traveling and, and my youngest son was on the baseball team at the time.

It was, it was in a way game, probably 30 miles away from Colorado Springs. I don't recall exactly where, but she brought her a little beach chair and didn't know if the place would have a bleacher did.

And I had people in the bleachers all parents, you know, it's a baseball game. And two dads were sitting near her and chairs as well.

And she said, one of the dads was just at a control. Like his son came up to bat and he struck out and he was yelling at the sun from the other side of the backstop fence.

“And I mean, you're just going, wow, what was going on there, you know, that is so destructive think of that poor son and how he feels, you know, like a failure, not able to succeed. What are all the erosion things that are going on?”

And then dad's going, I'm trying to make him a man or whatever excuse he's having, but how negative is that? Yeah, yeah, and it's a distorted view of manhood. Again, it's we could just go on and on about it. There's usually some fear involved. A fear that he's missing out if he's not performing a certain way right now. He's not going to measure up or she's not going to measure up in high school or not going to get to the next level or whatever. So we just we need to look at that and Brian and I have not been in the business at all of telling people what level they should try to play out or whether they should or shouldn't travel. Yeah, there's all kinds of great stuff that happens in these travel environments. There really is what we're saying is we need to be a different kind of parent in the midst of whatever it is that our kid is doing when it comes to sports.

We need to we need to have a different set of metrics that we're bringing in terms of how we're evaluating this experience can't just be based on performance metrics and skill metrics because if it is, then this guy who's at the baseball game, he's got so much invested in his kid, right? So he's paying top baller for all of this things and kids really can become if we can use this language like commodities or products that we are investing in and what happens when you invest a lot into a commodity or product. You you expect to return and when when you put that level of pressure on a 12 year old or an eight year old, they're never going to get you the return that you want so it really does start with us as parent just taking a deep breath is just a game.

The game that they can play and enjoy and we can sit back as their parents and enjoy the stage of life and watch them play and not put so pressure on them to be what we hope they can be at 16 while they're six years old. You get to expect this idea of purpose for the Christian parent then what are we going to sports with what's the attitude how do we how do we create that purpose. Yeah, it's an opportunity for us to disciple our kids. If you think about when when your kids are going to school and they get home you ask them the question. How is your day today and you're going to get the response every time it's it was good.

When you watch them play sports you don't have to guess what their teachers said to them at school or who's who they said next to the lunchroom you get access to everything that they're going through. And then you as their primary decipherer get to be the one later at home or wherever it's going to be to be the ones to say like hey I noticed when the ref made that call today. It looked like you wanted to say something maybe you did say something to tell me what was going on in your heart during that time.

“So we have all this access to this information and that's what we're arguing for you sports provides us a front row seat to seeing them go through all of this stuff, which is incredible discipleship opportunities for you know,”

and it was talking about you're not perfect. So Brian I'll ask you about your input story. Let's start with you guys again. That's great. Let's start by. Yeah, it was actually it was one I talked to my wife about this morning when I woke up read the prep got into the book and that was the referee at the end of a game who made a bad placement on a penalty goes through the story and I love the outcome.

I knew he wasn't going to get all the playing time in the world, but the plays he was in, I was just going to sit back and enjoy it. Not I think we were actually in the process of writing this book while this is happening. So I even had this in mind of like this is the cycle ship. Oh, you're enjoying it. Yeah, so this is even better. The refs were they were bad. And we've all had those games where we can say this was the worst ever. This is what I'm always going back to is it was just not I had more invested in the game than they did and it showed by the calls that they made one column particular though was it was late in the third quarter.

“The whole thing penalty which for all people know is it's a 10 yard penalty and the ref started walking it backwards and he passed 10 yards and he kept going to 15 yards to 20 yards.”

And I just like instinctively without even like I didn't think at all I just said, rough holding is a 10 yard penalty not 20 without even realize that I just set it out loud for the entire stadium to hit out from the set it or you project it was not.

It was just not in my thought to go away. What did the ref said? And the ref looked up with the stands and he said who cares.

And then we keep saying like the everything that had taken place prior with the referees and coaching decisions it was like soaking the field and the stands and gasoline just waiting for somebody to light a match and I was the person to do it and then the crowd jumped in and it was chaos like it was chaotic and it was ref started getting amplified the ref started making bad call more bad calls and the stands on both sides started to get aggravated in the people that affected the most were the kids.

And that was afterwards on the drive home I was like what did I you know what am I doing how how did I in that moment how was I the person to start the chaos yeah no that's so true and you know it gives you a perspective but that's where you got to be cautious about how we live through our kids and the kids they had to feel horrible. I mean especially even here in that when the ref turns and says who cares look up bad score is what it did those it gave the kids and the coaches and the other parents permission to act like I did there everyone was just waiting for somebody to say or do something stupid and it came from the Jesus guy in the stands and so I went there with this expectation of I'm going to be an ambassador for Jesus in the stands and my secondary identity of being an ambassador for my kid and then even for my own school.

“Over to that I want to explore that and I mentioned it in the opening this idea that you need as a Christian that's involved as a parent.”

To be a missionary in the bleachers I love that that would have saved me a lot of embarrassment and I wish I would have heard it a long time ago, but now we're going to tell 2 million people hey here it is.

It's so good to think of it that way because it's putting God first and you know your kids not going to appreciate really bad behavior from his mom or dad.

I mean that doesn't spark enthusiasm for your child it's embarrassment. How am I supposed to be expected to teach my kid about self control in the days and weeks after I just show that I have no self control in the stands and so that is like I'm a missionary to my own kid. But to everybody else in the stands too, they're looking at me in that moment of man if he and they know I love Jesus they know I'm a Christ follower.

“If he acts this way what does that say for for people who love Jesus?”

He's been a true and most very every chapter in the book too as far as the virtues that we're talking about we could focus on really trying to cultivate these so. How our kids ever appreciate what it means to love other people to be others centered if we're completely self centered about this experience.

It's how to experience peace if we're always bringing anxiety into the playing arena into the car with them to not be entitled when we are always talking about just getting ours.

So it really again, it starts with us doing some devotional work with our own heart we've been saying this like really one of the places that we need. We need to be taking some time out for ourselves and having some devotional time is before you go into a basketball arena before you go into the pool before you go into the football stadium before you go sit by the diamond. Take a few minutes and interact with the Lord and when when I know that my mouth is what gets me in trouble I need to ask the Holy Spirit don't let me say that anymore when I feeling angry would you convict me before it happens and help me get out of my seat and go for a walk if I need to or whatever it is that my coping mechanism is to deal with with myself.

But we really do we need to walk with God and instead what too many of us do and again I just think this is it's a reminder to us as Christian listeners that we tend to keep our faith and our Christian life completely separate from our sports life.

Some of the practical things and I think you had this story in the book where your son had a swim mate and you did some things to help prep him for that because some kids can get really anxious before and I was not really I played baseball to stay in shape for football. Now that sounds weird because baseball you don't stand around a lot but it was fun the camaraderie was gay I loved it I didn't that particularly well I played in field I was a good in fielder but I didn't hit well and I would always be anxious at the plate I just I don't know what the problem was I just didn't have that I hand coordination and you know so.

playing that into your son's swim mate what was something that you did to help calm his anxiousness yeah well and I think we need to get better in understanding the difference between a performance goal and a process goal so performance goal is totally tied to the end result. Whether you want or lost on the scoreboard did you get the blue ribbon the chest ribbon and a process goal is saying well we're actually going to look at steps along the way to get to that place where you could actually win and so in this particular case my son was going to be in the finals of a swim mate in which he knew already ahead of time that his times were like 10 seconds slower than the kids that were fastest in this meet.

We tell he was all jammed up about it before we went into the pool and and this is one of the things we talk about all the time too I just reiterated to him that tray I want you to know that I don't care whether you win or I really don't care whether you win or losing terms of you and me I just love you I love going to watch you do this so does mom we're going to have fun no matter what happens and our kids need to hear that. Of course I wanted to do well he wants to do well we said what if what if our goal today wasn't to worry about who comes in first or second what if you just beat your your last best time in this just see if you can beat your own time and why don't we see if we can catch one of those last kids.

He just keep up with one of the last kids let's just make that a process goal I said you think you can do that he's like yeah let me let me try to do that which in any ended up doing that you know he beat his old time and he was right alongside this other guy and we celebrated that. He lost by a ton but there was something to celebrate in that he stepped into the fear he kind of recalibrated his mind so that he wasn't so jammed up about the fact that he was going to get embarrassed by the guys that one and he just set a different goal and that became a victory in and of itself that we could build on.

This is focus on the family with Jim Daley and you're listening to Ed Yuzinski and Brian Smith who wrote the book away game a Christian parents guide to navigating youth sports this book is going to help you really see sports as a gateway to instill biblical values in your child. It's going to empower you to embrace the role of being a spiritual mentor and it's going to help you to counter some of the toxic culture in today's youth sports get a copy when you call 800 the letter A in the word family or stop by the show notes for the details.

You know it's so good at times I think well every time but you see professionals who are doing the right things sportsmen like behavior whether that's in football and the the opponent you know you're helping them up after you just crushed them in a tackle or whatever it might be but it always catches my attention I used to point that out to my boys is if we're watching a football game or something that's awesome that that guy did that and when I coached you know a little bit that was one of the things I challenge the kids to do you know if when you knock somebody down.

“Help him up and just give him a pat and then move on to the next play because it communicates something so good which is we're out here having fun.”

Yes absolutely we keep using the phrase that what we celebrate our kids will replicate and so if we have a value system of yeah when you see somebody on the ground.

Help them up that and we're celebrating that like it hopefully means when we're watching them play we're looking for those character type moments and yeah we want them to score the touchdown and hit the home round or whatever it is. But what if we started looking at the game with new metrics what if we start watching to see are they paying attention to the kid on.

“On the end of the bench are they helping the opponent up after they knock them down and then on the back end of the game are we celebrating those things so they have new categories to be like man mom and dad really do care about.”

When I pick somebody up after the game that's going to matter a lot more when they're 30 years old than whether or not they can hit the outside corner.

That is so true and that the good thing is you feel good doing it. I mean that's okay. We could play hard on the field. It's accessible. That is accessible every practice every game for them to show love to somebody else.

They might not catch a pass they might not do the thing whatever they need to do they had the opportunity every single practice in game to show love to somebody else.

Brawls at games. I don't remember that in the same volume when I was playing many years ago.

It seems to be a relatively new phenomena that these parents and people in the stands are just taking it to an entirely absurd level of actually fighting at a game over a call over whatever. In that context that's a great place for the light to shine and back to your missionary bleacher idea. What a great place for Christians to be Christian parents Christian grandparents Christian antis and uncles to show up for junior or his sisters sporting event and do something different.

We've said this a lot. What is our biggest takeaway for us even as we think about this whole sports thing?

“I need to talk less. That's what I need to do as a dad. I need to stop spending so much energy on correction before games during games after games talk less and connect more.”

That's really what we've been saying talk less connect more. I've got two hours of things to say to my kid after a game about what he or she did wrong. They don't want to hear it, especially if they lost. Yeah, they just don't want to hear it. I've already done this with three. I got one left down ninth grade those three didn't want to hear it. One of them wanted to play in college basketball.

They didn't want to hear from me after the game. They want me to play a different role in their life.

If I could just keep doing that. Say less things. Be present. Yes, asked did you have fun. Ask who did you connect to today? Who was it fun to play with or practice with?

“Ask what he's talking about. You don't even have a category for that. You're playing a game. Who was it fun with?”

Keep letting them know that you love them and that's not going to change based on how they perform in the game. So we want our kids to have a growing understanding of what it looks like to go out and play from a position of love instead of for love. You know, one of the other attributes is this idea of developing self control. I mean young children particularly don't have great self control. You learn that over time. The sooner you learn it, the better. I've had multiple instances with my own kids where they have thrown lacrosstics. They've done things that they that would make me as the Jesus guy in the stand. Just kind of be like I want to get out of there as soon as possible.

That needs to be caught and taught. So what I've done with my kids is I will get out sticky notes and I will I'll put like things that they cannot control like the the roughs calls how much playing time they're going to get what their opponent does with the fan say and then things that they can control their attitude their their effort and I'll put I'll kind of mix them all up and I'll make two sides and say hey I want you to put everything that you can control and to one side and what you can't control put into the other side and they'll re-arrange them.

Then we have the conversation about it. And so we begin to give them categories in areas in sport that they can then look back to hopefully when they're playing to go like oh yeah the roughs just made a bad call. I can't control that. What I can control though is the next five minutes of this game. And so we're really teaching them on that on the front end and then on the back end that sport is it provides a really good opportunity to grow this stuff.

“Yeah, and I think right at the end here perhaps the last question we should cover and there's so much good content in this book away game a Christian parents guide to navigating youth sports is really good.”

I wish I had it. It would have saved me a lot of embarrassment but this idea of in that moment remembering what are the eternal things what are the things that are going to last you've touched on that and add you've punctuated that each time like that's what they're going to need at 30 that's what they're going to need when they're older. And I think the question would be how do we stay fixated on those things in a healthy way and coach them up in a way for life not just for a sporting event. Yeah, you got to do together. I need to I mean this is true for every area of my Christian life. I need to keep getting that perspective from the end that then makes its way back into the present.

And so what what is relevant here. I'm going to stand before God and give an account for the environment that I created for my wife and my kids. I'm not going to give an account for whether or not I prepared them to make the varsity team. Yeah, and so seriously I keep coaching myself to say what are the things that really matter that I need to ask about today with my kids even the ones that are out of the house now.

I have gotten too caught up in being concerned about their sports performance. I mean we've already set that at the beginning of this thing. We've we know that we've messed that up. Okay, let's make an adjustment.

“So you know as you're listening, you've made mistakes. Let's make an adjustment and say, let it be different moving forward. Maybe the first thing I need to do is go and apologize to my older kids.”

I wish I had them. You know they probably love it. Yes, I wish I had done this differently. Here's what I was afraid of. Here's what I wanted to happen and I'm sorry that I put so much pressure.

Really good. Yeah, that's a great place to start and then guess what that does. That's relationship. Yeah, now in a game they might not even know what to do with that at first. But that's a start to say, okay, mom and dad are actually somebody I can trust and that actually care about my heart more than just my performance. This is really good. What a great book. And you don't see a lot written in this space. How to be a had to be a good Christian parent at sporting events, but we desperately need it to those listening.

“We hope this episode has equipped you to represent Christ and sports and to teach your kids to do the same. We need to be intentional about teaching our children to live counter culturally.”

Instead of letting the culture of sports influence our children. You want to learn more about practical ways to do that with your children or maybe your grandchildren. You'll want a copy of Brian and Ed's book, away game. We have copies for you here at focus on the family.

And when you make a gift of any amount, we'll send you a copy as always saying thank you for supporting the ministry.

You know, at focus, we offer so many great resources for parents to navigate the cat, a culture we live in and raise our children in Christ, which is the goal. Every year, we help strengthen hundreds of thousands of parents. When you partner with us financially, you help us to reach those parents and equip them to build the next generation in Christ. So be a part of what God is doing.

Donate today, request your copy of Brian and Ed's book when you call 800-232-6459-800-the-letter-A and the word family.

Or give the details, donate online when you click the link in the show notes. Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daley. I'm John Fuller and finding you back next time as we want more help you and your family thrive in Christ.

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