“The coach says that he has the talent to play D-1 one day.” A friend’s son had just tried out for an elite club soccer team and they were weighing the decision. The travel club came with a hefty price tag and a commitment to regular out-of-town tournaments. They would say yes to the club. In a few years their son would burn out from playing soccer. But the impact on their family couldn’t be undone. They had built the patterns of their family in their kids’ early years around healthy spiritual rhythms, including regular church attendance. Club soccer changed those patterns.
Competing voices
As another fall kicks off, your family is about to be ambushed by those who have strong convictions about where your family should spend its time. Well-meaning teachers, coaches, 4-H leaders, and drama and choir directors all want you to devote untold hours to their passion. And not a single one of those opportunities is bad. But they are dangerous.
Football season is about to kick off. Last year, the behemoth of the American sports landscape, the NFL made $23 billion. That is a staggering number. Youth sports nearly doubled it, raking in $40 billion in 2024 according to The Aspen Institute. And that number “does not include the public spend by schools and municipalities, or that of private facility operators and sponsors. That breaks down to $1,016 for the average US sports family spent on their child’s primary sport, “a 46% increase since 2019.” What is the return on that investment? Pretty poor. If your child is good enough to make your high school’s varsity soccer team, they have less than a 1% chance of getting a D-1 soccer scholarship.
Over-scheduled families
As Jonathan Haidt and others have pointed out, American families' lives have become scheduled and optimized. Parents feel the pressure to curate their children’s lives to maximize their potential. Free play has shrunk considerably. Horizon Health news reported that, “Sixty-five percent of parents surveyed said they played outside every day during their childhood, while only 30% of their children do the same today.”
Kids spend more time at school than they did in the past, more time on homework, and more time with extracurricular activities. Is it surprising, then, that church attendance has dropped by over 50% from the 1980s to today? What will you prioritize as a family?
What will your schedule look like this school year? Where are you going to invest your family’s most valuable resource: its time? Every parent wants their child to thrive: intellectually, socially, physically, and spiritually. But what will your schedule say you prioritize? Your children’s intelligence? Their extracurricular achievements? Or their hearts?
Rhythms in your home
Author and sage Annie Dillard once said, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” I’ve been a master of deceiving myself that I’m just making commitments “for a season,” only to have those seasons become the norm. Dillard would suggest I’m not the only one.
This was a constant battle for us as parents. And the pressure didn’t just come from outside the home. Our kids would get excited about an opportunity and beg us to join. Or we would want our children to experience something and sign up without counting the cost. I recall several instances where our kids would come home from the first day of school and share that their teacher had told them to expect (insert absurdly large number here) hours a week from their class. I understand that these teachers were just trying to raise the bar of their students’ performance and then under-promise (on how easy the class would be) and over-deliver (they wouldn’t really have to do as much homework as the teacher said). But such expectations from an authority teacher can communicate priorities that are internalized.
Every time we told our kids that we didn’t want them spending that much time on their school work. School was important, but it wasn’t the only or even the most important thing in their lives. We had expectations of how much school work they would do a week, and if they were unable to get it done during that time, we would support them. Rarely did the teachers’ threats pan out. There were more than a few nights we cut our kids off from homework. For us, homework was good, but there were more important things: sleep, time as a family, and our spiritual time together.
Making purposeful commitments
How can you push back? How do you make hard decisions about commitments as a parent? One of the helpful exercises we have done through the years as a family is creating a family values statement. It has helped us make decisions that keep what we think is most important at the center. Instead of responding to the requests and demands, make pre-emptive decisions that simplify your choices.
I want to be faithful with my days because I want to be faithful with my life. Have the courage to make commitments this school year for your family that aren’t normal. I think your kids will thank you one day. Your soccer coach has a plan for your life. But I’m sure you and God have an even better one.
You may also appreciate:
Photo by Alliance Football Club on Unsplash