“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Those words from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt served as an encouraging rallying cry for Americans navigating the Great Depression. But to an 8-year-old who got pegged in the helmet by a “fastball” in his first at-bat of the new recreational baseball season, they mean nothing.

Sports bring out the best and worst in us, whether we’re fans watching our favorite team (go Knicks!) or participants on our church softball team. That’s a lot for parents to handle because much of our life seems to revolve around watching our children play sports, organized or otherwise, as soon as they can walk. For example, all three of my kids play on rec teams. This means two games a week for each child. Then add on one of two practices — again, for EACH CHILD. Then add that to all three kids’ other extracurricular activities. It is, to put it mildly, a busy life. For me.

This brings me back to FDR’s quote about fear. 

When I checked on my son, Jackson, after he got hit with that pitch, I could see his desire to play baseball had left him at that very moment. It was a brand-new experience for him. Two years ago he hit off a tee in games. Last year was coach pitch, so fathers lobbed slow pitches he could crush to the outfield. He had always been one of the best players on his teams up until that fateful at-bat. I loved watching him play and believed he could be a special player for many years. 

But after taking that less-than-fast one on the helmet, even though was OK physically, he was not OK emotionally. His not wanting to play for the rest of the game hit me in a way I was not expecting.

It got worse after the game. That’s when Jackson told me he didn’t want to play baseball anymore.

I was mad.

‘Fun’ comes first in ‘fundamentals’

Something felt like it was taken away from ME. I had spent time getting him ready, taking him to practice, doing pitching drills, and many other things to prepare him for another great season. The moment became about me, my time and my feelings rather than about my son and his state of mind.

Baseball soon became a struggle between the two of us. Two games later into the season, Jackson was still apprehensive about playing. I would spend an hour getting him dressed for games and practices. We’d argue the entire time about why he had — NEEDED — to go and couldn’t just not show. I was getting frustrated and so was he. I could see he was getting further and further from wanting to pick up a bat again.

Then, one day before practice, I was talking with another dad who coaches the team.  He didn’t blame Jackson for not wanting to play. He even admitted he would be scared to get back into the batter’s box after an experience like that too. While Jackson warmed up with his teammates in the outfield, the dad reminded me of a simple fact.

“They’re only 8,” he said. “This should be about learning the fundamentals of baseball but also having fun. If they aren’t having fun, then why are they doing it?”

That’s when I realized my duty as a father was not only to provide for my family. It was also my duty to listen to them. I wasn’t listening to Jackson about his genuine fear of getting hit by the ball, a fear anyone might have. It is no different than being afraid to get behind the wheel of a car after a traffic accident. Trauma affects everyone differently, and as parents, we must learn to recognize it in our children and address it.

With youth sports, we parents sometimes get caught up in the fantasy. We hear about all the benefits beyond physical health — friendship, teamwork, discipline, etc. — and expect results on Day One. Often it becomes about our kids living the athletic dreams we wanted to come true for ourselves. Maybe we even indulge in thoughts about the riches (or at least the college scholarships) it provides only a select few. We make it about ourselves and think our kids should tough it out. 

Youth sports parents: Listen, learn, enjoy

But these are just children. Some just want to hang with their friends, sing a few fun and clever rallying cries, and then get a hot dog and slushy from the snack stand after the game. Youth sports parents must remember to frequently ask their kids one very simple question, “Are you having fun?”

If you know they are having fun, it makes the long road trips, the late-night games, and the rain-soaked practices worth it. If your kid is not having fun, then you as a parent are definitely not having fun. So what’s the point?

As parents, we want our children to be active, but we must have the wisdom to step in when necessary be it youth sports or violin lessons. We should not let them become overscheduled. We need to be sure they are having fun while building healthy relationships and habits they will carry off the field.

As of this writing, Jackson is halfway through the season. He still isn’t swinging the bat much, but he is playing and his confidence appears to be returning. I make sure before every game to tell him the coaches and the other sports parents are there to ensure he has fun while prioritizing that he doesn’t get hurt. I remind him that getting hit is a part of the game of baseball, but it doesn’t happen very often. And I tell him after every game that I am proud of him getting back out there and facing his fear. 

When I see him out there making plays, catching a fly ball or two, I remind him of all he would have missed if had let his fear keep him from playing baseball. However, I let the coaches do their jobs and coach. Sometimes hearing things, especially instructions, from an authority figure who is not your parent, gets through to a child better.

So if this turns out to be his last season of baseball at the ripe old age of 8 going on 9, I am OK with that. If he’s not having fun playing a game, then why should he? He will have plenty of time to do “not fun” things when he is an adult. 

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This blog post is part of the #NoDadAlone campaign. Fathering Together/City Dads Group, the National At-Home Dad Network, and Fathers Eve are joining forces to amplify messages that help dads recognize we are not alone! Follow #NoDadAlone on Instagram, and learn more at NoDadAlone.com.

Photo by Ben Hershey on Unsplash.

If you have teen daughters, you may be very familiar with eye rolls. You may also have frequent moments of frustration, confusion, and a feeling of irrelevance. But fear not. A new book by Kimberly Wolf says an eye roll means you’re engaged in your daughter’s life. This can foster her confidence immensely in her adolescent years.

In Talk with Her: A Dad’s Essential Guide to Raising Healthy, Confident, and Capable Daughters, Wolf writes “if your daughter shuts you down, that means you are right where you need to be: present in her life. It may seem like she’s not listening to you, but she can hear you, and that’s what matters most.”

Wolf’s book is about “finding your own father-daughter communication style,” which can become trickier during the teen years. She encourages dads to look for common interests with their daughters and “facilitate shared screen-free experiences.” These, she writes, naturally lead to healthy conversations. Examples include playing sports and board games together, hiking, cooking, making art or volunteering.

Wolf recommends dads and daughters try to “bond over wellness.” For example, one father she interviewed runs with his daughter but they have a “no-headphone rule.”  The result is “a compound bonding opportunity, incorporating discussion, connecting over shared interests, and setting a positive fatherly example” of self-care. In a similar way, my teen daughters and I have bonded over biking. Our rides have produced many fruitful conversations.

Some conversations are harder than others

Granted, sometimes dads and daughters need to have difficult conversations to address conflicts. In these situations, Wolf recommends deciding on a time and a time limit.

“Having a start and stop time can help you consciously contain conflict, compartmentalize the conversation, and move forward with the rest of your day,” she writes.

This strategy can also be helpful when stressful topics like the college admission process need to be addressed. In our house, we came to an agreement that the time for those discussions was on Sunday nights. If I brought up the topic outside that schedule, I risked an eye roll.

Two difficult conversations that Wolf feels dads are especially well-equipped to have with teen daughters involve over-apologizing and insufficient boundaries.

“It’s important that we catch girls if we think they are being unnecessarily apologetic, overly people-pleasing, or sacrificing their own feelings and needs for others,” she writes. Wolf laments the “nice girl narrative” because it can make girls wary of setting boundaries or taking time for themselves.

“Kindness is usually an excellent value to emphasize to your daughter, but she needs to know that if a relationship or dynamic doesn’t suit her, it’s OK to set a respectful boundary and move on,” she writes

“Converse” by writing cover letters together?

One of Wolf’s most intriguing suggestions for dads of teen daughters is simple: “Write some cover letters with her.”

She recommends beginning the process as early as 8^th grade. “Highlighting our best personal qualities doesn’t always come naturally, and we can never get too much practice talking up our strengths,” Wolf writes.

Upon first reading, I balked at this idea. It seemed like it would add pressure to teen girls already stressed out about grades and the college admission process. But Wolf’s point is that simply the practice of girls thinking about both their academic and non-academic skills — and how they could communicate them — can be invaluable to their self-confidence.

Wolf suggests a girl could consider a dream position and write a cover letter that “references skills she currently holds that would qualify her to be a productive team member.” Along the way, her dad could point out qualities she may be overlooking about herself. Ironically, many of those personal traits were likely discovered during those “bonding over wellness” conversations that happened in the past.

Personal, moral confidence through cover letters

Another way to think about the cover letter idea is to make multiple cover letters together. These would be not only academic and professional ones but also personal and moral ones. For example, help your daughter think about what experiences and milestones have shaped her life so far. And how has her identity grown over time? In larger terms, who is she, and how does she know that? Such reflections go far beyond the usual listing of accomplishments needed for high school and college applications. They often turn into fodder for application essays and job interviews in the future.

It’s important for dads to remember that, as Wolf explains, research suggests “women self-promote and self-advocate less often than men do.” Dads of teen daughters can help change that by fostering what I would call “cover letter confidence” that no one can take away. In other words, talk with her for sure, but also write with her.

Fittingly, Wolf ends her book with the voices of teen girls providing advice for eye-roll-suffering dads.

One girl notes: “It takes time and patience to develop that strong relationship with your daughter, but once it is there, it stays.” Another gives a simple but helpful reminder about how dads can build their daughters’ confidence: “Make sure you tell us when you’re proud.”

Photo: ©be free  / Adobe Stock.

My family owes a lot to ice skating. In fact, my first date with my wife of 25 years was at a festival of lights that featured outdoor skating. I still remember how we both pretended we were not good skaters so we could cling tighter to each other.

I grew up in New York’s Niagara Falls area right next to the Canadian border, so ice skating has always been a part of my life. When I was a child, one of my best friend’s fathers created that magical oasis that cold-weather kids crave: a backyard ice rink. Looking back, the rink was quite small, but in my memories it had NHL proportions complete with chain link fence “boards” my friends and I would check each other into. I’ll never forget how heavy an actual puck felt on your hockey stick compared to a street-hockey tennis ball.

As our bodies grew and our skating skills sharpened, we eventually moved our pick-up hockey games to a nearby frozen creek. But I miss the backyard rink more than the creek, which required more shoveling and did not include a post-game meal in my friend Tim’s warm house.

Learning to skate benefits children

Such memories flooded my mind when the time came for my two daughters to learn how to ice skate. While our yard has never been suitable for an outdoor rink, my wife and I made sure they took skating lessons at a local rink. The look of pride and wonder on their faces when they first learned to keep their balance was priceless.

No one remembers the feeling of gaining balance when we learned how to walk. But we can relive a fraction of that conquest of gravity by learning how to do things like ice skate, roller skate, ride a bicycle, snow ski or waterski. That’s why it’s important to help children achieve at least some of these balance-focused abilities that also fuel self-confidence.

Over the years, my family has enjoyed skating together every winter at local rinks or school events. A few times one of my daughters would even choose to have an ice skating birthday party. Caution: if your child wants such a party, make sure everyone invited knows how to skate reasonably well. My back nearly gave out one year trying to help an adorable but very wobbly boy make his way around the rink.

Skating backward benefits parents

My most poignant memory of ice skating with my daughters as teens occurred a few years ago. I was with my friend, Greg, who has two daughters the same age as mine. We were all skating on a little practice rink, and the older girls were trying to skate backward. I can only skate backward very slowly, and I was having trouble explaining how to do it.

Suddenly, Greg’s older daughter figured it out by herself and excitedly showed me how to skate faster. Basically, you push outward on alternating skates while leaning back slightly. I tried it — and it worked! Life had come full circle … or more like a figure eight. Years ago Greg and I had helped teach our daughters how to skate forward, and here they were teaching us how to skate backward.

Then it dawned on me.

Metaphorically, all children eventually teach their parents how to skate backward. When we meet our mates and start a family, our eyes (and skates) are fully on the path ahead. But as our children grow and push forward in search of their own missions and mates, their skates leave a trail in the ice that parents can’t help but retrace, savor and — let’s face it — miss terribly.

Photo: © pressmaster  / Adobe Stock.

“I feel important.”

That was my younger daughter’s surprising answer to a mundane question. I had been wondering why she liked her job as a hostess at a busy restaurant so much, especially since it was her first “real” job as a teenager beyond watching kids or walking dogs. Frankly, I had expected the job would not appeal to her.

I was wrong. But shortly after she announced this surge of self-esteem, I remembered my own first real job as a teenager beyond mowing lawns or shoveling snow. My employment history began one summer at a grocery store in my hometown where I bagged groceries and stocked shelves.

My most vivid memory from that job? The day my manager walked by as I was working and said: “Vince, I wish I had 10 more just like you.” Talk about a shot-in-the-arm. I started hurling those cereal boxes on the shelf at lightning speed.

There are many benefits of a teenager working a first job, but this feeling of self-confidence is paramount. An endorsement from a first boss helps teenagers see themselves in a new light. Sure, all parents, relatives and friends try to surround children with positive messages about their self-worth. Hearing it from an objective source, however, makes it feel more authentic.

Indeed, on a recent tour of colleges with my older daughter, the admissions officer explained his committee likes students with work experience. For him, it shows the applicant understands that only quality performance earns praise in the “real” world.

First job teaches about self, others

Unfortunately, research shows the number of teens in “first” jobs — especially part-time summer jobs — has been declining steadily over the past few decades. The reasons include not only a less retail-oriented job market but also more college-prep activities for teens like summer classes, unpaid internships and volunteering. While such resume-building activities are understandable, the value of part-time jobs for teens may be getting lost in the process.

A first job has many helpful byproducts beyond self-confidence. For example, teens’ communication skills usually grow exponentially. They must learn how to navigate their first job interview, interact with customers and colleagues effectively, and respect authority while also expressing disagreements with tact. Such “soft” skills are even more valuable for teens to develop in today’s social media-saturated, eye-contact-optional, way-too-few-actual-conversations culture.

Another benefit of a first job is the teens’ entrance into our economic system. Yes, a teen quickly learns about a savings account as well as money (and time) management. But simply helping teens fill out their first tax form also leads to larger family discussions about how government works, the nature of capitalism, the minimum wage and the role of the social safety net, among others. While teens may learn about these ideas at school, they are never more attentive than when learning how such ideas directly impact the money they are earning.

Ironically, perhaps the most important skill a first job teaches teens is how to craft an exit strategy. Since most first jobs do not become careers, at some point they call for an appropriate parting of ways. When my older daughter needed to end her first job, the occasion gave us a chance to discuss the importance of informing a boss with enough time for him or her to find a replacement. Taking care to exit a job in the right way also preserves the ability to use that boss as a reference when applying for future jobs.

In our fast-paced, disposable culture of often-fleeting relationships, it can be invaluable to talk with teens about how the legacy of their work ethic truly begins with their first job.

Photo: © JackF / Adobe Stock.

Much of parenting is an illusion, one that starts with the children’s belief in parents’ omnipotence.

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When I was in elementary school, my dad was the world’s greatest mechanic. He could fix a flat tire on my bicycle with ease. His strong fingers and hairy forearms would silently maneuver this way and that, projecting an air of competence and security that enveloped me.

When I was in middle school, my dad pulled open the “way back” door of our rusty, wood-paneled station wagon and it fell right off our car in the middle of a crowded parking lot. I burned with embarrassment as my perception of my father’s mechanical skills crashed to the ground as well. Thus began my realization that my dad was more intellectually gifted than mechanically skilled.

Fortunately, however, the illusion of my secure, fixable world had been so ingrained by this point, I did not have a crisis of confidence. In retrospect, I realize my father’s self-talk, or more accurately self-silence, fostered my own developing self-confidence and can-do attitude. I know now that all those “fix-it” situations were not his strength, but he did not engage in negative self-assessment. Instead, he simply stayed quiet while he worked, which led me to fill in the blanks with an aura of security. Sometimes, silence is indeed golden. And when I would call him some kind of amazing “bicycle fixer,” he would not deflect the compliment or explain that others could do it better than him. He simply said “thanks.”

I try to remember this when faced with various mechanical situations in my own family life. For example, I have two daughters with voluminous hair so our shower and sink drains are often clogged with rodent-size globs of hair. While my extraction skills (and tools) have improved over the years, I am far from a plumber. My personal low occurred when I almost got a gnarled coat hanger stuck in a drain, but that’s another story (that I kept to myself).

Your self-confidence begets your child’s

But because I usually avoid engaging in negative self-talk—at least the audible kind—while I’m wrestling those tumbleweeds, my daughters think I’m the world’s greatest plumber. (Though that title is fading as they get older.) And any time they declare me a fantastic “drain fixer,” I simply say “thanks.”

Granted, a child’s development of self-confidence is complex and involves questions of age and stage—e.g., sometimes it is appropriate to share with children certain personal weaknesses and then model how to overcome them. And older children gain self-confidence by learning how to fix things by themselves. But with young children, the experience of a parent’s can-do mentality can be invaluable, even if that parent can’t actually do something well. Children are not always ready for full transparency. While we don’t want them to be deceived, we also don’t want them to worry or to learn self-doubt.

In the end, much of parenting is an illusion, one that starts with the children’s belief in parents’ omnipotence—hence the proverbial “my dad could kick your dad’s butt.” Inevitably, the illusion transforms into a more sober “my dad can barely fix our drains,” but hopefully by that time the aura of security modeled by devoted dads and moms can help children develop their own sense of competence.

My father was not, in fact, a good mechanic. During my early years, however, his constant presence, visible effort, and quiet confidence made me believe he was. That taught me so much more than how to fix a flat tire.

Photo credit: Tightrope Cycling via photopin (license)