Over the summer my 7th grader to be had a homework assignment to collect 3 bugs. They were stored in my freezer for perfect preservation until the start of school. Today, several weeks into the school year school I’m still asking my new 7th grader when that assignment can be turned in.
“I don’t know.”
It is the same answer I’ve gotten each day I’ve asked since school started.
I frequently begin the day with reminders like, “Why don’t you write yourself a note to remember to ask about turning in your bugs.”
To which I receive the standard shoulder shrug to indicate, “Maybe I will and maybe I won’t.”
To date I still have a grasshopper, a beautiful butterfly (which we found already dead) and worm found in an ear of corn entombed in Tupperware beside my icemaker.
And just when my patience runs thin I draw from another parenting experience for understanding and support.
It is through this other parenting participation that I have learned much more than I bargained for and now I frequently rely on this wealth of knowledge to guide me in my day-to-day challenges with my own boys.
Maybe you have had the same opportunity for growth and discovery when you innocently volunteered for the role of team parent.
Yep, this is the place to be if you want a real lesson in parenting.
Some of the sports organizations I’ve been involved with call it a team rep, or a team manager or try to dress it up with all sorts of businesslike names to camouflage the real job. That’s why I prefer “team parent” because that’s what you are.
In this role, depending on the sport or activity, you have all sorts of responsibilities from recruiting volunteers to preparing game day fields or official paperwork to organizing fund raising events.
Over the years I have volunteered a number of times for this role, and now, I simply feel it would be a vast waste of resources to allow some inexperienced sole to attempt to take on these people.
It really is much like dealing with my own children. Telling them once just isn’t sufficient. They will need numerous reminders, emails, texts, and even taps on the shoulder on the day of the required service so that they can remember not to forget. Like my kids when the dishes need to be cleared from the table, when it comes time to do the chores, they will sit in silence hoping someone else will volunteer first so they don’t have to. And like at home, when it’s time to do homework, everyone will want to know, “Can’t we do it later.” Asking is never as effective as telling. And a reminder of the consequences can sometimes come in handy as motivation to get the job done. They will need a little nudge to clean up their mess or to help set up for the game.
But it’s nothing a little tough love and firm rules won’t fix.
Don’t get me wrong; I am the last one to criticize, since I’m no expert keeping my own life organized. On our day to bring the Gatorade to a game I had to stop and buy it on the way because I forgot it was my turn. And when it was time to run the scoreboard I didn’t respond to the email because I hoped someone else would do it first.
But it has all served as one big learning curve to dealing with life’s unexpected crisis’ that sometimes are only as big as you let them be. If someone doesn’t show up we figure it out. If our score is reported late I remind myself that the players are only 10 years old, and their college scholarship isn’t hanging in the balance of the outcome of this game. If the clock is wrong because the operator doesn’t know what he’s doing, we just smile and feel thankful it’s not us with that responsibility on this day.
And so, this week I will send reminders for game assignments made weeks ago but likely forgotten, I will gather $8 per family even if it’s in $1 installments, I will remember not to forget a copy of the team roster and carry an extra in my car, and I will simply smile and nod good morning yet again to the bugs in my freezer when I’m getting out the waffles.
