One of the things we worry about as parents is that our kids will give up on something too soon. That they won’t give it a fair chance. Sometimes we worry that our child will be a quitter. But what happens when it might actually be time to quit?
My son started playing competitive soccer kind of by accident. When he was 5 years old he made the community league’s tournament team. At the time he was playing house league hockey but, like most 5 year-olds, he wasn’t playing any competitive sports so had a pretty open schedule. He enjoyed the soccer and the commitment was minimal. We were all happy.
Plus, wasn’t he so cute? This was when he was nearly 7 and started playing on the regular competitive team. Good times.
However, over the years things have changed. The soccer team has become very competitive and this year they won the league and the cup advancing them to the highest level of play next year. The commitment is year round. At least 2 days per week in the winter and 4-5 in the summer. Plus, my boy now plays AA hockey. Summers are off but it is 5 days per week in the winter.
If you did the math that means no free time, ever. That means no lazy summer days. No vacation. No time off. It means a major commitment on two extremely competitive sports teams. in the early days it was not an issue but now, as he gets older, it began to become difficult to balance it all and still have time for whatever.
So, the time had come that he had to make a choice. Did he want to continue with his fabulous soccer team? A group he had been with and grown up with for the last nearly 6 years? But a team that was requiring more and more of a commitment. Or did he want to free up some of his time for other things? We could actually consider a summer vacation.
It was a very tough decision for him but, in the end, he decided that it was time to quit. He wanted to explore other things and didn’t want to give up hockey. He is confident his decision is right but knows that he will miss his buddies and the team. It was a great run!
The hardest part was making a choice toward change. Change is scary. What if the unknown is not as good as the status quo? Life lessons for sure.
The Your Biggest Fan Blog Series is sponsored by Chevrolet. All content is true, based on Jen’s personal experience.