The most important character quality to teach your child athlete

 

I (David) remember the scene well. Our oldest son Tavita, was crouched on the sideline with his head down. He was discouraged after losing our third game in a row. After a promising start to the season, he was taking more than his fair share of the blame for our losses. Now he didn’t feel like he could face our fans for the post-game thank-yous.

Celebrating with Tavita after beating our rivals just 2 weeks after the devastating loss

Maybe you’ve heard it said; athletics teaches character. Or perhaps you’ve benefited from the teachable moments sports can afford. Or you might be that parent intent on using athletics and not letting athletics use your kid. Regardless, have you ever considered what the most important thing you want your child to take away from athletics? At the very least, what is the one critical character quality athletics has a way of teaching your child, perhaps better than anything else?

In athletics, as in life, you need character. Certainly we want to teach our children Godly character. Sports is a great place to learn things like hard work, teamwork, diligence, sacrifice etc. But these character qualities require one particular character in order to be lived out – and that’s the character of self-control. Think about it, we know what we need to do; we just need the self-discipline to actually do it. If your child isn’t interested in athletics, whatever activity they are involved in, make sure they’re learning self-control.

Here are some practical ways for your athlete to learn self-control:

• Go to practice – make sure they go on time and ready to work especially when they don’t feel like it. Once the newness and excitement of joining the team leaves, what is left often times is the self-control to keep at it.
• 24 Hour Rule – After a loss or a big win we gave our kids 24 hours to deal with the emotion. They couldn’t be mean or disrespectful, but we allowed them a little space to process and get control.
• Partner with their coaches – We know you are going to struggle with some coaches (read our blog on coaches). Be wise but don’t rescue your child every time they disagree with what the coach has done. Often the character gained is far more valuable than the playing time they missed.
• Let them know you are in their corner – in the story I told above, I wanted to help Tavita escape embarrassment, but I knew it was a defining moment. I told him there would be better days. I also told him I’d go with him. We loved going to watch our kids when they won. But we knew it was more important to be there when they lost or if they got beat out or when they were discouraged.

We love athletics and what it has taught our kids. We’re not happy with some of the ways it seems to be trending. We continue to believe it’s an incredible tool to teach your child character… especially if you have the self-control to journey through it with them.

What was the greatest sports moment for your child? What was the hardest? What was your response?

Why you should raise all your kids to be a quarterback

“That’s it! I’m going to raise a quarterback.” I remember the day I made that bold and naive statement. I was coaching at a high school in southwest Washington. The coaches had just come off the field and we were frustrated at how little our quarterbacks seemed to understood the basic elements of playing that key position. My oldest son Tavita was in 4^th grade so I made the decision I was going to raise him to be a quarterback. What I discovered changed my parenting forever.

“Coach” Tavita on the sideline with Andrew Luck

As I looked into what it took to be a great quarterback most of what I read about had nothing to do with throwing or running with a football. Obviously a quarterback had to be able to throw and have some athletic ability. But I heard most often about were things like, leadership, confidence, self-control, able to handle pressure, decision making, smart, tough, respected, integrity. Doesn’t that sound more like someone running for president? Or maybe you shouldn’t answer that question.

I’ve had the privilege of coaching my three oldest boys. They have all been quarterbacks. In fact, 9 out of the last 10 years our high school team has had a Pritchard at quarterback. The oldest, Tavita was blessed with some physical abilities that enabled him to make it to the college level as a quarterback. He started two years at Stanford University. He would have been the most experienced quarterback in the Pac-10 his senior year. That is until he lost his spot to a freshman kid named Andrew Luck.

Today Tavita coaches the quarterbacks at Stanford. So he flies all over the country looking for young men that possess all these qualities. Of course most kids aren’t destined to be the next Andrew Luck. In fact most kids won’t end up playing quarterback for their high school team, much less in college or the pros. In their research, for the book Revolutionary Parenting, the Barna group discovered that 100% of the parents of Spiritual Champions (a term they coined) said teaching Godly character was the most important thing. So yes, you should raise your kids to be a quarterback – just feel free to skip the football drills!

Let me leave you with the big three. All the character qualities are important, but we have found these three to be the most critical when it comes to raising spiritual champions (or quarterbacks).

• Self-control – we actually teach this as one of the three most important things to teach your child. It takes self-control to live out the other character qualities.
• Leadership – we are raising “nice” Christian kids. We want kids to be kind, but we also want them to stand up and lead, especially when so many are following the wrong voices.
• Integrity – lining up what they know in their head, with what they believe in their heart, with what they do in their actions.

With or without a football, these are great qualities to parent into our children. Start early and don’t give up. Maybe you’ll never have a quarterback, but you’ll have something better – a spiritual champion.

Do you agree with our “Big Three” or do you have a different three? We’d love to hear from you. Also, if you subscribe to our blog you will receive an email every time we post a new article.