My dear child,

You sometimes ask why we make you (you say “make,” but we prefer “highly encourage”) join groups and teams. Why you have to learn an instrument, play a sport, try out for a play, sing in a choir, help with Sunday school. You are not generally angry or fed up or defiant when you ask these questions, (we know your role is to test us as parents—push the boundaries, ask the questions, keep us on our toes—which you do a very good job of, I must say), but we want you to know something.

We want you to know that we do carefully consider your questions. We carefully consider your words and your feelings.

We observe your actions. How you interact with your group and team members, with your teachers and coaches. We watch your body language and your facial expressions. How you act before and after practices and meets and games and performances. Then we hold up these observations with the wonderings and worries that you share when it is just the three of us. We listen when you tell us that you are feeling super scared and nervous and not accepted and not strong enough and not good enough.

We want you to know that we consider all of this. We pray about all of this.

We are constantly discerning what seems like the best way to parent you during any given season, any given day. You may or may not be able to yet grasp what we are trying to say. Maybe it will click for you really soon, or in a few years, or maybe not until you are “all grown up”. But this is what we hope you hear:

We want you to experience what it feels like to be part of many groups and teams. We want you to experience what it feels like to try something new, how exciting that can feel and just as important, how terrifying, uncomfortable and uncertain that can feel. We want you to experience what it feels like to be led by different leaders, coaches and teachers with varying personalities and styles and techniques.

We want you to experience this so you will have examples to learn from and reference.

Hopefully you will find people that you admire and trust, and this will help you think about what qualities and traits you want to focus on and emulate. You will also find people that you butt heads with, whose ideas and methods you disagree with, people who will hurt your feelings. We want you to feel tension and controversy, and we even want you to be disappointed and to struggle (even though sitting back and watching this happen feels like a dagger in our hearts).

Yes, we want you to deal with the adversity as well.

We want you to learn how to handle conflicts of ideas and interests respectfully and appropriately. We want you to learn how to process feelings and emotions when someone’s words or actions surprise and hurt you, or when you (hopefully unintentionally) hurt someone else.

We want you to compete with a teammate so that you push each other to a point where neither of you realized you could go, and then make sure at the end of the race you find that teammate and offer a high five. We want you to play a wrong note when you perform in a concert so you have to work through what it takes to find your place again, make the correction, and keep playing, all while keeping your head up and not crumbling under the pressure (but if you do happen to crumble, we will be there to pick up the pieces).

We want you to experience what it takes to figure out your role in different scenarios and settings. Maybe you will learn that you best serve others by taking on the role of Encourager, or Aggressor, or Listener, or Leader; or maybe all of these things in different ways at different times.

So what is the point?

How does dribbling a basketball or running five miles or reading a musical score connect to “real life” now and in the future? Do we want you to play sports so you can win a certain number of meets or games and accrue a certain number of medals and trophies? Do we want you to play an instrument so we can take pictures of you performing and post them on social media, hoping people think we are good parents? Do we desire to live vicariously through you, because we have certain experiences that we want to recreate? (Let’s put a sticky note on these questions, as they are something we should certainly explore deeper at some point.)

Believe it or not, none of that is not why we want you to play sports and participate in so many activities.

Life as an adolescent is hard. It is complicated. There are high highs and low lows. There is acceptance and betrayal and too many lessons learned the hard way. There is confusion and heartache and love and laughter, and everything in between.

But here is the kicker: Life as an adult is hard. It is complicated. There are high highs and low lows. There is acceptance and betrayal and too many lessons learned the hard way. There is confusion and heartache and love and laughter, and everything in between.

So, dear child, we will push you. We will push you to explore and figure out ways to serve humbly and contribute positively to whatever group, team, or community you find yourself in. And know that at the end of the day, you are enough. You are enough simply because you are you.

And we will always love you.

Love,

Your parents