“We’re in an ambulance. Don’t freak out. They think Lynden broke his leg.” 

My heart sank. My wife’s voice was calm, though, despite our son screaming in the background.

That was April 23, the last soccer tournament of the spring, two weeks before a full summer of fun was to be had. Gone – just like that. 

Scared and bummed out, I forced myself to focus on the positive, thinking, ‘At least it’s the end of the season, Lynden will bounce back quickly.’

Nearly four months later, Lynden has not bounced back from his injury.

In fact, he is still limping, favoring his previously broken leg and complaining about pain if he attempts any physical activity. Despite being given full recovery status from his doctor, he is, in my view, at half speed.   

My patience with his slow recovery from this injury is waning. My sympathy is quickly turning into disappointment at his lack of grit. I am beginning to wonder if his elongated recovery says as much about me as my son.

Rehab of injury deliberately slow

Lynden’s cast and walking boot came off June 15. ‘Go time,’ I thought, assuming the two months of inactivity would have him itching to start moving again. We had marching orders from our doctors: a list of rehabilitation exercise to complete daily and no limitations on participation. 

Nothing, though, has happened. Lynden seldom does the prescribed rehab exercises.  He has completed short jogs only a handful of times over his summer months of freedom. And, no, he has not attempted to kick a ball with his left foot since the day his leg buckled on the pitch that April day. 

I have tried everything to get him going. From being supportive to helping devise a workout schedule to, now, demanding he complete the assigned injury rehab exercises in the morning each day without exception, I tried.

I can feel my frustration mounting. 

I shouldn’t have to urge him to get off his butt, and get to work, right? 

But I shouldn’t be the one who watches him limp while worrying that soccer practice starts in a few weeks. 

I shouldn’t have to create a workout schedule, another thing I will have to oversee so it is completed daily.

The simple fact may be that he may not want to come back from his injury as much as I want him to.

Does this reflect poorly on me?

Reflecting on the slow pace of Lynden’s return to the soccer field, I am facing a fact that I hadn’t before – I may be experiencing some personal self-worth vicariously through my kids’ activities. After all, many of our friends are connected to our children’s sports. Much of our non-working time is spent attending games, practices or traveling to the pitch. The financial and familial impact of these activities on all of us is all-encompassing.    

I may also be taking an ego hit as Lynden’s slow injury rehab casts doubt on the level (or lack thereof) of perseverance that my wife and I thought we had instilled in him. Our kids need to overcome adversity and, from my view, every limped step Lynden takes tells me that he might need a lesson in toughness.      

So, why do I care so much? 

After all, if Lynden does not return to the soccer team, I benefit – freeing up the time and money associated with keep him on the field. I guess I care because I know he’s capable. I care because I want my children to be active. Team sports, to me, are an excellent way to help our kids deal with diverse groups of people socially. And, somewhere deep maybe I care because all the efforts over the years feels for naught if this is the end of the road.   

My own self-interest is involved, and it should not be. After all, none of this ordeal – not the broken leg or Lynden’s slow return from it – has anything to do with me. 

From this point on, I’m done being frustrated. Everything will work out in due time.

I’m done trying to over zealously attempt to cultivate passions for my kids. I’ll provide the paths; it is their choice to continue or not.    

It has been a slow process for me to learn these lessons. Not, though, as labored, limped, and lethargic as my son’s comeback (or not) to the soccer field.

Injury rehab photo: © Elnur / Adobe Stock.

Around the time children reach middle school (or certainly by high school), they often encounter an academic subject they do not like. Whether it’s English, history, science or math, they will find the class boring, meaningless or irrelevant to their lives — no matter how much they love learning in general. Then parents have to confront the inevitable question: “Why do we need to learn this?”

In my experience, there are several layers to answering this question. The surface, knee-jerk, I’m-very-busy response involves a stream of words like “because the school requires it / that’s the way it is / I had to do it so let’s stop whining and get to work or there will be consequences.” This is the least effective reply.

A deeper layer of understanding involves asking a few questions before responding. Are there any social, nonacademic reasons he or she does not like the class, or is it simply the subject matter? If they confirm it is only the subject matter, it might be helpful to review the “well rounded” argument. You could explain that it’s important for everyone to be exposed to diverse fields of knowledge to grow into educated, culturally literate citizens. Also, some topics might become more interesting to them later in life, and at the very least there is value in learning of their distaste for a subject early in their educational journey.

At this point, you risk an eye roll from your kid, which I know from experience. But that eye roll led to my deepest layer of responding to the “why” question: I consulted my former self. Determined to keep trying to answer the question, I recalled that I once wrote a column for my college newspaper over twenty years ago about this very topic. Because I’m a hoarder of memories, I eventually found a copy of the column.

My own voice from the past spoke to my daughters in the present

Sharing that column with my daughters was revelatory for all of us. First, the headshot proved that I did, in fact, have voluminous hair in the distant past. More importantly, it showed that when I was close to their age I empathized completely with their concern: “For a long time one of my major pet peeves about certain subjects in school was their apparent lack of meaning and value in my life.” So a frustrating history was repeating itself, but I felt that by addressing the problem, we were not destined to repeat all the frustration.

Speaking of history, my attempt at humor back then focused on the seeming triviality of learning about The War of 1812: “I once learned all about the War of 1812 and used all the best memory-retention study techniques at the time, but now I could tell you little more than the date the war occurred.”

Fortunately, however, my former self developed an answer to the why-study-this-topic question that has become food for thought for my daughters. I argued that “by achieving good grades in those classes we view as meaningless, we prove to potential employers and admissions committees that we have learned how to learn [original italics]. Attaining a good grade in a class outside our sphere of interest displays that despite our negative opinion of its value, we were still able to produce enough motivation, intellectual ability, and sheer hard work to learn the material. … In the future we will be prepared to master the skills of our careers.”

Granted, this answer contains traces of a college student’s overconfidence and overlooks the value of self-improvement. It also does not settle the issue. But my daughters read it with begrudging acceptance, and we continue to talk about the motivation issue for certain subjects. Most importantly, we have learned that their current selves and my former self have more in common than we thought. Such empathy and validation can go a long way toward helping your children find value in—or at least survive — their least favorite class.