School is starting soon so the topic of "kid activities" is on the brain for me. Currently the boys just have gymnastics on Saturday mornings which is focused on gross motor development. It's been good for both of them as gross motor skills don't seem to come super naturally to either of them - probably because of me.
You see, I am incredibly unathletic, at least in terms of how "athletic" was defined when I was a child. I run and strength train, but I am terrible at sports. I didn't find the sport of running until after I graduated from college. Because I grew up in a very rural area (population of 500, graduating class of 28), my sport options were softball in the summer, basketball in the fall, volleyball in the winter, and track and field in the spring. I was required to try all of these sports when I was young so I did t-ball/softball when I was in early elementary, basketball in 5th and 6th grade, volleyball in 7th and 8th grade, and track and field from grades 7-9. I also took swimming lessons and loved them but those lessons were about acquiring a life skill.
I know my parents wanted me to be healthy and active and to try new things. But to be honest, my involvement in sports was actually worse for my self esteem. I was terrible at all sports involving balls, and was just not great at the distances available to me in track and field (I think I would have loved cross country but that wasn't an option at my small school). And it is so very, very apparent when you are worse than your peers at sports. The only basket I made in basketball was FOR THE OTHER TEAM when I was in 5th grade. It was a completely different story for my husband who is very naturally athletic. He excelled at baseball and was a pitcher, is an excellent golfer, and I think he was probably always kind of "front of the pack" in terms of other sports he tried. I was so glad when I was able to put sports involvement behind me and could focus on things I had an affinity for, like speech, drama, band, choir, piano, math competitions, etc. I was a very busy, involved kid - but not on the sports front. Although I was the student manager for the girls basketball team and was a statistician for boys basketball and football. So I was "involved" but in a way that suited my talents. I don't fault my parents for encouraging me to participate in sports. It's good to try new things and they definitely were supportive of me focusing on activities that were a better fit.
As my kids start to try activities, I am watching closely to make sure they are having a positive experience in the activity. Paul tried soccer this summer and I kept asking - "are you having fun?" I don't know that he touched the ball in any of the 3-on-3 games they played but he was engaged and seemed to be having fun, so we'll do this soccer program again next year. But I'm going to keep asking if he is having fun. Of course there is a fine line to walk between making sure your kid perseveres/not letting them quit too soon and accepting that the activity is not the right one for them... I just don't want them to experience the hit to self esteem that I did when participating in sports.
What I've thought about when reflecting on my childhood is - what if being talented in math was held to the same standard as talent in sports/athletics ? Imagine a kid who struggles with math but keeps having to do things like public math problems and fails over and over and over? And yet, doing this public math was really important and valued so even though you are terrible at it and you kept publicly failing, the idea is that you keep doing it. I was good at math so having math held to the same standard/level of importance as sports would have been amazing for me. And yes, I recognize that math is a major area of focus in schools but it seems like we kind of accept that some kids struggle with math whereas everyone is supposed to like participating in sports. Bottom line, I don't want my kids' self-esteem to take a regular and consistent hit just for the sake of having them in activities that many kids enjoy. Luckily my boys will have access to WAY more options since we live in a major metropolitan area. And Phil and I are both active people (I run and strength train, Phil swims, runs, golfs and strength trains) so we'll always model having an active lifestyle.
As we figure out the right mix of activities, I'm aiming to expose my boys to lots of different things to make sure they find something they love like I love running. Paul is going to check out Karate this fall as we feel like it will help with building confidence and discipline and - most importantly - he's interested in giving it a try. I'm also hoping to get him in swimming lessons... in the summer of 2021 he refused to get in the pool (it was the first time he was old enough for classes without a parent and we'd had a long gap from mom/baby classes during the pandemic) so we've been hesitant to re-enroll him but we are doing a trial lesson tomorrow. He'll continue to go to gymnastics on Saturdays and he is enrolled in a Spanish language program 2 days a week that is part of his after school program. So it should shake out to Karate on Mondays (we're starting him later this fall after he's adjusted to school starting), Spanish on Tues/Thur (at his school so this doesn't add any drop-offs/parent involvement - he would be there anyways so I don't know that this really counts as an activity from a bandwidth/scheduling perspective), gymnastics on Saturday morning and then maybe swimming lessons on Sunday.
Maybe one of my boys will get more of Phil's genetics and be the sportiest person ever - there's probably a 50/50 chance! I'm just keeping an open mind about what their activity participation will look like as they get older.
Were you an athletic kid? Does any one else have complicated feelings about the emphasis that is put on sports?