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RAISING THEM WELL: Away Game with Ed Uszynski (From the Archives) · All Mom Does Podcast with Julie Lyles Carr

0:01
Speaker 1: Purposely your life, God's Purpose. Listen at purposely dot com.
0:17
Speaker 2: Hey friend, I'm Julie Lyles Carr. This is the Almonds
0:19
Speaker 2: Podcast and you are back in our summer playlist.
0:24
Speaker 3: That's right.
0:24
Speaker 2: We've pulled together some of our best episodes all around
0:28
Speaker 2: the topic of raising them.
0:31
Speaker 3: Well. This is a series.
0:32
Speaker 2: It's going to have you fully equipped and ready to
0:34
Speaker 2: head into the new school year when the summer is over.
0:37
Speaker 2: You're going to have all the latest information on the
0:39
Speaker 2: generation you're raising, ways of looking at all kinds of
0:42
Speaker 2: different things in parenting, including sibling relationships and how can
0:47
Speaker 2: you ever have anybody over for dinner when it feels
0:49
Speaker 2: like chaos? Things like that, and this one, this is
0:52
Speaker 2: a good one. This is going to help you evaluate
0:55
Speaker 2: how you're looking at all the extracurriculars, the sports, the hobbies,
0:59
Speaker 2: all the things that you're kids maybe wanting to do
1:01
Speaker 2: when school kicks off again.
1:03
Speaker 3: How to look at all of that through.
1:05
Speaker 2: A fresh lens.
1:08
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for being with me today.
1:10
Speaker 4: Looking forward to this conversation.
1:12
Speaker 2: Julie, for sure, as am I so ed give the
1:17
Speaker 2: listener a little thumbnail of who you are. I know
1:19
Speaker 2: that you're married to Amy, I know you've got four
1:22
Speaker 2: kiddos age twenty four to fourteen.
1:24
Speaker 3: What other details do we need to know about what.
1:26
Speaker 4: Makes ed ed well? The thing that brings me here
1:31
Speaker 4: primarily is that I've worked in a sports and industry
1:34
Speaker 4: for thirty three years, working with college and professional athletes,
1:37
Speaker 4: as has the co author of this book that we're
1:39
Speaker 4: going to discuss, Brian Smith. That's how we met, and
1:42
Speaker 4: we spend most of our time with college athletes. But
1:45
Speaker 4: about I don't know, ten twelve years ago, we started
1:48
Speaker 4: coaching youth sports. As you said, he's got three kids,
1:51
Speaker 4: I've got four. They were all totally into the youth
1:54
Speaker 4: sport world and we just realized, wow, there we need help. Actually,
1:59
Speaker 4: that's what we realize. We got on this fast moving train,
2:03
Speaker 4: and we are both athletes in our past, college and
2:08
Speaker 4: professional athletes. Like so, sports has been a huge part
2:11
Speaker 4: of our lives. He was a runner, I was a
2:13
Speaker 4: basketball player, and we just looked around and we're like,
2:17
Speaker 4: we do not feel equipped for this. Like we got
2:19
Speaker 4: on this fast moving train and there's so many decisions
2:23
Speaker 4: that we have to make, and something seems really unhealthy
2:25
Speaker 4: about it. Yet it doesn't seem like there's any other
2:27
Speaker 4: choices and just go on and on and looked around
2:30
Speaker 4: and just realized, especially for Christian parents, there just wasn't
2:33
Speaker 4: much that had been written, so we literally have eight
2:36
Speaker 4: years ago. It started talking about how do we start
2:39
Speaker 4: to gather research, how do we get stories from people,
2:42
Speaker 4: how do we gather the best practices as we're trying
2:45
Speaker 4: to figure it out for ourselves. And then it turned
2:47
Speaker 4: into a book.
2:49
Speaker 3: I love that and the name of the book is
2:51
Speaker 3: Away Game.
2:52
Speaker 2: Such a fun title because ed, you're hitting right at
2:56
Speaker 2: the heart of what I became to this realization in
3:00
Speaker 2: the midst of all of.
3:01
Speaker 3: This active parenting.
3:02
Speaker 2: When I was a kid, I did some gymnastics, and
3:05
Speaker 2: I ran some track, and I played some volleyball, but
3:08
Speaker 2: all of it was designed in a way that it
3:11
Speaker 2: fit into the family schedule and everybody was still home
3:14
Speaker 2: in time for dinner. And yeah, you could actually go
3:17
Speaker 2: ahead and get college scholarships based on that level of
3:19
Speaker 2: activity and that level of performance. I started putting my
3:22
Speaker 2: kids into all kinds of extracurricular activities because that's what
3:25
Speaker 2: a quote unquote good parent does, right, We want them
3:28
Speaker 2: to have these extracurricular things. I don't know when I
3:32
Speaker 2: started realizing that the cart was way ahead of the horses.
3:36
Speaker 2: I was like, oh wait what, And I mean on
3:39
Speaker 2: all fronts, financially, time wise, the level of influence that
3:44
Speaker 2: various coaches and teachers were having on my kids because
3:47
Speaker 2: they were with my kids so much. When I was
3:52
Speaker 2: back in school, we didn't have this distinction of competitive
3:57
Speaker 2: dance or soccer versus recreational dance or soccer. It just
4:01
Speaker 2: you played soccer, you dance. I mean, it just wasn't
4:04
Speaker 2: that level. So how do you perceive when that shift happened?
4:09
Speaker 2: Because I have to tell you, I was not equipped.
4:11
Speaker 2: I did not realize this shift had happened. So where
4:14
Speaker 2: do you think it was in our culture that all
4:16
Speaker 2: of a sudden it became more like a job than
4:19
Speaker 2: it was just something to do after school.
4:22
Speaker 4: Such a good question, and it's a fascinating question actually,
4:25
Speaker 4: because we were really in the midst of a fifty
4:29
Speaker 4: year shift in youth sports where it went from being
4:33
Speaker 4: what you just described to literally being a forty billion
4:37
Speaker 4: dollar industry. So he like a little mom and pop
4:42
Speaker 4: shop on the corner basically for forty billion dollar industry.
4:46
Speaker 4: And that's why Brian and I call it the youth
4:47
Speaker 4: sport industrial complex. I mean that that is not hyperbole.
4:51
Speaker 4: It is a machine and it's an industry, but it's
4:55
Speaker 4: a recent it's really a recent reality, and it's really helpful.
5:00
Speaker 4: I think Prus's parents even realized it's not always been
5:03
Speaker 4: like this, and to just step back and realize how
5:08
Speaker 4: we got yourself. You already named some of these things.
5:10
Speaker 4: It went from being primarily about play to being primarily
5:15
Speaker 4: about performance and winning sort of became like the chief end,
5:21
Speaker 4: even for six year old kids. So play has just
5:25
Speaker 4: sort of been drained out of the youth parts experience.
5:28
Speaker 4: It went from being really kid centered and focused on
5:31
Speaker 4: the kids, so now it's more adult and coach and
5:34
Speaker 4: parents centered. In so many ways, it's really about us
5:39
Speaker 4: being involved in trying to make these decisions about what's
5:41
Speaker 4: best for them, like you just said, instead of them
5:43
Speaker 4: just kind of going down the street and signing up
5:45
Speaker 4: to play Little League or whatever. It went from being
5:49
Speaker 4: really affordable for everybody you said this to now there's
5:52
Speaker 4: some exclusivity to it because it costs thousands of dollars
5:55
Speaker 4: to be part of the system. It was local. Now
5:59
Speaker 4: you're traveling state line. We've got a family member who's
6:02
Speaker 4: actually gonna go to France for a hockey tournament. In
6:06
Speaker 4: the near futures, they're literally flying around the world.
6:10
Speaker 5: And it used to be really seasonal, where you play
6:13
Speaker 5: for six weeks, you play the sport for six weeks
6:15
Speaker 5: in a structured way, and then you didn't play it
6:19
Speaker 5: the rest of the year until this same time next year.
6:22
Speaker 4: And now literally every sport is year round. There's an
6:25
Speaker 4: opportunity to be involved in that sport year round, additional training,
6:31
Speaker 4: you know, additional leagues that are out of season. So
6:34
Speaker 4: all of that is is new. It really is. Even
6:37
Speaker 4: in the last twenty years. I'd say that that became
6:42
Speaker 4: how the system works. And I would just say this
6:45
Speaker 4: right up front, that overwhelms everybody. I don't know anybody
6:50
Speaker 4: that's not overwhelmed by all of that. And in some
6:55
Speaker 4: ways there's nothing we can do about it. It just
6:58
Speaker 4: is what it is. And yet in many others, Brian
7:00
Speaker 4: and I are both we're saying this to ourselves and
7:02
Speaker 4: anybody else to listen. You can make choices in the
7:05
Speaker 4: midst of that. Well, you don't have to ride that
7:09
Speaker 4: train at the speed that it's going or ride it
7:12
Speaker 4: to the end of the track. There really are choices
7:14
Speaker 4: that can be made in the midst of that that
7:16
Speaker 4: are healthy for you and your family and your kids.
7:19
Speaker 4: Even while being you're still a part of it at
7:23
Speaker 4: some level. So we maybe we can talk about some
7:26
Speaker 4: of that, but we want to be encouraged and actually
7:28
Speaker 4: in the midst of this, that's the pay the route
7:33
Speaker 4: that we're trying to course through this is how do
7:35
Speaker 4: we encourage ourselves and how do we make better choices
7:38
Speaker 4: in the midst of it.
7:40
Speaker 2: I think when I, you know, you would think that
7:43
Speaker 2: I would have noticed when I was like, Wow, how
7:46
Speaker 2: many nights a week and how much money are we
7:48
Speaker 2: talking about? And oh, there won't be time for summer vacation,
7:51
Speaker 2: Like what are we doing? You would have think that
7:53
Speaker 2: would have been like, oh, But where it really began
7:56
Speaker 2: to dawn on me, like wait, wait.
7:59
Speaker 3: What are we doing?
8:00
Speaker 2: Was when I started seeing more and more reports of
8:03
Speaker 2: parents fighting in the stands, parents fighting in the auditorium.
8:09
Speaker 2: This culture that was supposed to have been about, Oh,
8:12
Speaker 2: this is to enhance our kids' lives, to teach them
8:15
Speaker 2: lessons moving forward that they can take with them into adulthood.
8:18
Speaker 2: Team play and getting feedback from coaches, and how to
8:23
Speaker 2: you know, let everybody have a chance. Wait, that got lost,
8:27
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, when I realized that the
8:29
Speaker 2: parent culture was so competitive, I thought, oh, wait, okay,
8:36
Speaker 2: so who are we going to be in the midst
8:38
Speaker 2: of that? Because I'm not going to be that mom.
8:41
Speaker 2: I'm not going to fight somebody. I'm not going to
8:43
Speaker 2: be like them.
8:43
Speaker 4: We're not going to do that.
8:45
Speaker 2: And so that parent thing was probably when I began
8:49
Speaker 2: to raise my head a bit. And I wish there
8:52
Speaker 2: were things I'd raised my head about before then, but
8:55
Speaker 2: that was what stood out to me the most.
8:58
Speaker 4: Where do you think that comes from?
8:59
Speaker 6: You?
9:00
Speaker 4: Let me try that to you before you even asked
9:02
Speaker 4: me that, because it wasn't that way when we were
9:04
Speaker 4: grown either. There may be the occasional wild parent, but
9:07
Speaker 4: now that really is a culture in the state is
9:10
Speaker 4: where do you think that comes from? What do you
9:12
Speaker 4: think is happening inside of us as parents that's creating that.
9:16
Speaker 2: I have given some thought to this, and I think it.
9:20
Speaker 2: Here's a couple of my theories. Ed take them as
9:23
Speaker 2: you as you think. I think part of it is
9:26
Speaker 2: because at least again, I have eight kids, so I
9:29
Speaker 2: have like multiple generations in my kids because they're sixteen
9:32
Speaker 2: and a half years, So you've got ten years between
9:34
Speaker 2: your oldest and your youngest. I've got sixteen and a
9:36
Speaker 2: half between my oldest and my youngest. And I've said
9:39
Speaker 2: before that it's almost like the oldest four are like
9:43
Speaker 2: one generation. And I'm not talking just millennial or gen Z.
9:47
Speaker 2: I'm just saying there was kind of the parenting I
9:50
Speaker 2: experienced with the oldest four, then there's a three year gap,
9:52
Speaker 2: and then there's the parenting I experienced with the younger four.
9:56
Speaker 2: What was somewhat a bridge with all of those is
10:00
Speaker 2: I feel like my generation of parents was very child
10:06
Speaker 2: centered in their parenting.
10:07
Speaker 3: We were all.
10:08
Speaker 2: Really trying to show our kids lots of intention and
10:13
Speaker 2: listen to their emotions and do some things a little
10:16
Speaker 2: bit differently than maybe the way we had been raised lovely,
10:20
Speaker 2: but what also started to happen was a sense of
10:22
Speaker 2: identity through our children that was a little bit unique. Now,
10:26
Speaker 2: my parents certainly wanted me to behave myself and sit
10:30
Speaker 2: still in church and say yes ma'am and no, ma'am,
10:32
Speaker 2: because if I didn't, that was going to.
10:33
Speaker 3: Be a reflection on them.
10:35
Speaker 2: But there's something I think in the parenting vibe, at
10:39
Speaker 2: least the ages that my kids are and my youngest
10:42
Speaker 2: are now eighteen. I can't even believe I'm saying that
10:44
Speaker 2: your youngest is fourteen. So I'm not speaking necessarily that
10:48
Speaker 2: this is how it's going to be for this newest
10:50
Speaker 2: generation of parents coming up, and for example, my daughter
10:52
Speaker 2: with my two granddaughters. But what I do think is
10:55
Speaker 2: interesting is for all of us, every generation maybe fights
10:59
Speaker 2: us a little bit. We see our children as an
11:01
Speaker 2: extension of ourselves. We see them as a proclamation of
11:04
Speaker 2: how our parenting is going. And maybe for some of us,
11:08
Speaker 2: because we didn't have competitive soccer, competitive dance and whatever,
11:12
Speaker 2: and we maybe believe that if we could have been
11:14
Speaker 2: pushed harder and had more opportunity, what we could have
11:18
Speaker 2: been And so then we translate that onto our kids.
11:22
Speaker 2: You're getting the opportunity I never had. This is going
11:25
Speaker 2: to be a game changer. If only you can achieve this,
11:28
Speaker 2: then you can go so much further than that. Maybe
11:31
Speaker 2: that plays into some of it, that parent identity has
11:34
Speaker 2: gotten too wrapped up in the performance because we've elevated
11:38
Speaker 2: the platforms these kids are on. The equipment is way
11:41
Speaker 2: more complex, the schedules are far more robust. All that's
11:45
Speaker 2: involved is at such an advanced level that we're expecting
11:49
Speaker 2: advanced results and we're putting so much of ourselves into it. Boy,
11:53
Speaker 2: it better be worth something. It better not just be recreational.
11:57
Speaker 3: Maybe that's it.
11:59
Speaker 4: Love every bit of that answer that we've identified so
12:03
Speaker 4: closely with our kids, which is that is some kind
12:06
Speaker 4: of a recent ish phenomenon where we're more we're we're
12:12
Speaker 4: more in control. And again I don't even mean this
12:15
Speaker 4: in a bad way. We're just more involved with every
12:17
Speaker 4: aspect of their lives. We have more disposable income. Again
12:23
Speaker 4: for a significant portion of Americans, we have way more
12:26
Speaker 4: money that's available to invest in these sorts of things.
12:29
Speaker 4: And when you put a ton of money into something,
12:31
Speaker 4: you have high expectations for it. And I love this
12:35
Speaker 4: whole idea of just the regrets of my own past
12:37
Speaker 4: or the fears that come out of my own past.
12:39
Speaker 4: There's so much to talk about inside of that that
12:42
Speaker 4: I I either am trying to make up for something
12:45
Speaker 4: that happened to me insduced my child's youth sport experience,
12:50
Speaker 4: or I'm trying to protect them from having something happen
12:53
Speaker 4: to them. Where there's this imagined future that I have
12:56
Speaker 4: for them that I'm I'm that again is a good future,
13:00
Speaker 4: but it's an imagined future that I have for when
13:03
Speaker 4: they're twenty that needs to start happening when they're six.
13:07
Speaker 4: Like that ten he starts with, there's a and so
13:09
Speaker 4: there's this stress that we feel that when we don't
13:14
Speaker 4: see the end result product right now, we start to panic.
13:18
Speaker 4: And then this industry takes advantage of that, so that
13:22
Speaker 4: the entrepreneurs that are behind the whole youth sport industrial
13:25
Speaker 4: complex these days, they know how to take advantage of
13:27
Speaker 4: those fears that we have as parents that were missing
13:30
Speaker 4: out or our kids are missing out where there's some
13:32
Speaker 4: opportunity that they're going to miss out on if we
13:35
Speaker 4: don't get on this a team or this particular select
13:38
Speaker 4: team or this other team in the community next door
13:40
Speaker 4: that we heard about that's doing such great things with
13:42
Speaker 4: our kids, and it just becomes this chase. We talk
13:47
Speaker 4: about the Uncle Rico syndrome. Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite.
13:52
Speaker 3: Which, Oh your Dynamite.
13:54
Speaker 4: A lot of listeners unfortunately, are probably really familiar with
13:57
Speaker 4: that movie, and yeah, well he was. He was a
14:01
Speaker 4: character who just had these great regrets about his athletic past.
14:06
Speaker 4: And that if he could have done it all over again,
14:08
Speaker 4: or coach would have just done X, Y or Z,
14:10
Speaker 4: everything would have turned out different. And probably a lot
14:12
Speaker 4: of us have some kind of healing like that inside
14:14
Speaker 4: of ourselves. So if we can control that right now
14:17
Speaker 4: for our kids, we can get him in the right situation,
14:19
Speaker 4: with the right coach, with the right teammates and the
14:22
Speaker 4: right equipment, they will have a different result. And of
14:27
Speaker 4: course most of that's not true. We can just say that, well,
14:31
Speaker 4: that's not true. The reality is in Julie, you said
14:36
Speaker 4: this even about the opportunity for kids to be professionals
14:40
Speaker 4: or to play in college. And didn't you say you
14:42
Speaker 4: had two of your kids wound up being high level
14:45
Speaker 4: of answers?
14:46
Speaker 3: Right, they did, but man, the odds were not in
14:48
Speaker 3: our favor.
14:49
Speaker 4: No, and I had one child that played college basketball.
14:53
Speaker 4: But look that's a half percent, yeah, of kids. So
14:58
Speaker 4: just again think about that, and we all think that
15:00
Speaker 4: our kid is going to be one of those half percent.
15:02
Speaker 4: And here's the reality. After thirty three years of working
15:05
Speaker 4: with college athletes and being in that world, the reality
15:08
Speaker 4: is if a child becomes a professional dancer or ends
15:13
Speaker 4: up playing college basketball or volleyball or whatever it's gonna
15:17
Speaker 4: be because they were given physical abilities by God to
15:22
Speaker 4: do something better than everybody else. It's a natural ability
15:25
Speaker 4: that they have. Okay, that immediately sets them apart from
15:29
Speaker 4: other people's what their bodies are able to do. But
15:32
Speaker 4: just as important, maybe even more important, they're also going
15:35
Speaker 4: to have a psychological dimension about them that is different.
15:39
Speaker 4: They're going to want to do the extra rock. They're
15:44
Speaker 4: gonna work on the thing that's hardest for them. They're
15:47
Speaker 4: not afraid of being challenged here. It doesn't bother them
15:51
Speaker 4: psychologically to be pushed beyond their limits. There's a whole
15:55
Speaker 4: bunch more that goes into that. But their mentality sets
15:59
Speaker 4: them up part. And as a parent, I can't make
16:03
Speaker 4: either one of those things happen inside of my child.
16:06
Speaker 4: I can't make them have more God given ability than
16:09
Speaker 4: they have, and I can't change their mentality about how
16:12
Speaker 4: they approach the sport or life for that matter. And
16:16
Speaker 4: so we saw this all the time. If our kid
16:18
Speaker 4: winds up playing college sports, or your kid winds up
16:20
Speaker 4: playing college sports, it's not going to be because of you.
16:24
Speaker 4: It's primarily going to be because of them were created
16:27
Speaker 4: to be. If anything, I might actually get in the
16:30
Speaker 4: way of somebody who's really naturally gifted. It has the
16:34
Speaker 4: right mentality by putting so much crussure on them so
16:37
Speaker 4: early that they end up wanting to quit by the
16:40
Speaker 4: time they're thirteen or fourteen, which is what statistics say
16:43
Speaker 4: most kids do when it comes to sports, Which is
16:45
Speaker 4: amazing that most seventy percent of kids quit sports by
16:48
Speaker 4: it's owner thirteen or fourteen years old. Yeah, and so
16:52
Speaker 4: even just realizing that it's removed so much pressure from
16:56
Speaker 4: me now, even with my last child, as I see
16:59
Speaker 4: how this whole thing works, that it really has very
17:02
Speaker 4: little to do with me nagging, or me trying to
17:05
Speaker 4: create opportunity, or me trying to find the best at
17:08
Speaker 4: that or the other. I really should be putting my
17:13
Speaker 4: energy in other aspects of their growth and not worrying
17:17
Speaker 4: so much about their playing time or trying to get
17:19
Speaker 4: them on the right team. And that's one of the
17:21
Speaker 4: conclusions that Brian and I have came to.
17:24
Speaker 3: After looking at all the data. And the other thing.
17:26
Speaker 2: That is so evident to me now that did not
17:29
Speaker 2: feel evident in the moment is yes, all of my
17:34
Speaker 2: kids danced, all eight of them, two of them ended
17:38
Speaker 2: up doing it professionally. Even at that ed one of
17:42
Speaker 2: them is still very active and is still and is
17:45
Speaker 2: still in professional dance. However, that run, when your kid
17:50
Speaker 2: has been attuned to doing something very physical, whatever that
17:53
Speaker 2: sport is, that run is still short. And my one
17:57
Speaker 2: who is still professionally dancing, is very honest about the
17:59
Speaker 2: fact that you know, he's doing great.
18:01
Speaker 3: He's in the core of it right.
18:02
Speaker 2: Now, He's in the middle of it, but he knows
18:05
Speaker 2: that the clock is sticking, and he may go on,
18:07
Speaker 2: he already teaches, he may go on to continue to
18:10
Speaker 2: teach or do something like that. He may always you know,
18:13
Speaker 2: end up in the arena of the sport itself, but
18:17
Speaker 2: he's aware that the performance part of it, and this
18:19
Speaker 2: is true for any athlete, there.
18:21
Speaker 3: Is a clock ticking.
18:24
Speaker 2: And so that's part of the challenge to me and
18:26
Speaker 2: part of what I hope that we imbued in our
18:28
Speaker 2: kids through all of this is the character and the
18:32
Speaker 2: values that they are going to need to carry them
18:34
Speaker 2: beyond just being in the spotlight, being the one running
18:38
Speaker 2: the ball, being the one calling the plays, Because there
18:41
Speaker 2: is a whole lot of runway on the other side
18:44
Speaker 2: of when you're at that pink performance period in that time.
18:48
Speaker 3: Of your life.
18:50
Speaker 2: So that's a perspective that I think is important for
18:52
Speaker 2: parents to remember as well. Even if you do have
18:54
Speaker 2: the kid who's got all the heart, all the desire,
18:56
Speaker 2: all the.
18:56
Speaker 3: Natural gifting that God gave them, you.
18:59
Speaker 2: Still are looking at a career run that's pretty short really.
19:05
Speaker 3: About the context of someone's.
19:06
Speaker 4: Entire career, That's right. And so again I've been saying
19:12
Speaker 4: as well as I've been thinking about this for myself,
19:14
Speaker 4: I just thinking about my twenty four year old son.
19:19
Speaker 4: I don't remember hardly anything at all from things that
19:23
Speaker 4: happened when he was twelve years old. In sports. I
19:25
Speaker 4: was as baseball coach, I was around him for basketball.
19:28
Speaker 4: I really don't have memories of what was going on.
19:31
Speaker 4: He was pretty good, and that has almost no impact
19:35
Speaker 4: on who he is as a twenty four year old.
19:38
Speaker 4: But you know what, the way he went through handshake
19:40
Speaker 4: lines after games, the way he learned to see other
19:45
Speaker 4: people around him or not, the way he learned how
19:50
Speaker 4: to manage his own emotions in the midst of things
19:52
Speaker 4: not going well for him, which is the case all
19:54
Speaker 4: throughout life. Yes, when you're feeling lost, you're feeling disappointed,
19:58
Speaker 4: you're feeling like a failure or whatever those negative feelings
20:02
Speaker 4: become when bad things happen. His ability to regulate himself,
20:06
Speaker 4: all of that is super important as a twenty four
20:09
Speaker 4: year old, right, And this is why we're saying the
20:13
Speaker 4: discipleship if we can even introduce some of this language,
20:16
Speaker 4: the discipleship role that I have on my child's life
20:19
Speaker 4: to help him or her actually be on a trajectory
20:23
Speaker 4: to follow Jesus. And I can't guarantee that either. I
20:25
Speaker 4: can't force that, but I can put them on a
20:28
Speaker 4: trajectory by the things we talk about, by the things
20:30
Speaker 4: I'm measuring, by the things that I'm celebrating with them,
20:34
Speaker 4: by the things I'm calling out. If all I'm ever
20:38
Speaker 4: talking about is performance after the game, or all I'm
20:42
Speaker 4: ever talking about is trying to correct some aspect of
20:45
Speaker 4: the way that they're approaching the sport itself. But I
20:50
Speaker 4: don't have any categories within which I'm talking about their character.
20:53
Speaker 4: I'm talking about, Yeah, what does it mean to be Jesus?
20:56
Speaker 4: What does it mean to be the hands and feet
20:57
Speaker 4: of Jesus in the midst of this sport, whether you're
20:59
Speaker 4: six or six team, then I'm actually not getting enough
21:03
Speaker 4: out of my sport experience. That's really what we've been saying,
21:06
Speaker 4: we actually should expect more for our dollar, because what
21:10
Speaker 4: our dollar is really buying us is a front row
21:12
Speaker 4: seat to watch our kids and experience the full range
21:16
Speaker 4: of emotions very publicly with us, and we have an
21:20
Speaker 4: opportunity to connect with them in the midst of that
21:25
Speaker 4: instead of just correct with correct them in the midst
21:28
Speaker 4: of that. So I just put a lot of stuff
21:30
Speaker 4: out there. But that's that's really yeah, that's what we
21:34
Speaker 4: are challenging ourselves and challenging other parents to just kind
21:37
Speaker 4: of rethink how much time we spend on performance versus
21:43
Speaker 4: virtue and character and like being their primary discipler. And
21:48
Speaker 4: they're like, we don't, just we don't usually think of
21:50
Speaker 4: ourselves that way. I know I don't by default, but
21:54
Speaker 4: I really am my child's primary discipler, the primary one
21:59
Speaker 4: that's supposed to be kind of showing them the way
22:01
Speaker 4: to follow Jesus and what does it look like to
22:03
Speaker 4: follow Jesus even in the midst of sport, which just
22:07
Speaker 4: usually exists as sort of this separate category for us
22:09
Speaker 4: when it comes to our sanctification in Jesus. We don't
22:13
Speaker 4: think of sport being a place where that can get
22:15
Speaker 4: itself worked out, but it really is.
22:20
Speaker 2: You think that you are in the final round of getting.
22:24
Speaker 3: All this parenting done. You've got kids.
22:26
Speaker 6: Who are in high school, You're starting to think about college,
22:30
Speaker 6: and you're thinking, this is it. I'm Julie Lyles Car,
22:32
Speaker 6: I'm a podcaster and I'm a mom of eight, and
22:35
Speaker 6: here's what I want you to know about. George Fox
22:38
Speaker 6: University is a different way of doing college. Why Because, yes,
22:43
Speaker 6: it's all about getting a fantastic degree to set your
22:46
Speaker 6: kid up for their future.
22:47
Speaker 7: They have sixty undergrad programs available at George Fox University, but.
22:52
Speaker 3: That's not where the story ends.
22:54
Speaker 2: It's also about equipping them spiritually.
22:57
Speaker 8: If you get out of college with a degree, but
22:59
Speaker 8: you don't have a closer room relationship with God, that
23:01
Speaker 8: obviously is going to deeply impact what your young.
23:05
Speaker 3: Adult life looks like.
23:07
Speaker 8: So for your kiddos, I want you to consider what
23:10
Speaker 8: would it mean for your child to be able to
23:12
Speaker 8: go to George Fox University where ninety three percent of
23:16
Speaker 8: George Fox students say they now have a closer relationship
23:20
Speaker 8: with Jesus. George Fox University is located in the Pacific
23:24
Speaker 8: northwestern Oregon.
23:25
Speaker 7: They have twenty three Division three athletic programs and one
23:30
Speaker 7: hundred percent of students at George Box University receive financial aid.
23:36
Speaker 3: George Fox University is dedicated to their promise.
23:39
Speaker 6: They want every student to be known for who God
23:41
Speaker 6: created them to be.
23:43
Speaker 2: So listen, parents, Yeah, you are getting into some of
23:46
Speaker 2: those final laps, but you definitely want to make these
23:50
Speaker 2: last laps count in a big way when.
23:52
Speaker 3: It comes to the legacy of your parenting. So be
23:55
Speaker 3: sure and check out for your student. George Fox dot edu.
24:00
Speaker 3: That's Georgebox dot.
24:01
Speaker 2: ETU tell me because you said you believe that parents
24:09
Speaker 2: have choices they can make, and yet I can hear
24:11
Speaker 2: a couple of listeners just like screaming in their own heads,
24:13
Speaker 2: going but my kid loves this activity. And their coach
24:17
Speaker 2: says that we have to do xyz. We have to
24:21
Speaker 2: be at conditioning and this and that, and we're going
24:24
Speaker 2: to have these away games that are going to keep
24:26
Speaker 2: us out of town every weekend, away from our faith community,
24:29
Speaker 2: away from family all the rest. And it's going to
24:32
Speaker 2: be but we have to because this is what my
24:34
Speaker 2: kid loves. This is what my kid wants to do
24:37
Speaker 2: that intersection of our kids' desires, but their kids they
24:42
Speaker 2: don't have the broader picture wisdom that hopefully we bring
24:46
Speaker 2: to the table, also the expertise of a great coach.
24:50
Speaker 2: I mean, how do we take all of that, synthesize
24:52
Speaker 2: it and say, this is what we're going to do
24:55
Speaker 2: as a family, and this is how we're going to
24:57
Speaker 2: create a decision tree for what our kids are involved
24:59
Speaker 2: in and.
25:00
Speaker 3: To what level.
25:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, good, Julian, this is where I'm I always feel
25:04
Speaker 4: like I'm going to get myself in trouble with kinds
25:06
Speaker 4: of things that I'm about to say. I am not naive, okay,
25:10
Speaker 4: to how this whole process works. We've already established that
25:13
Speaker 4: I've been little in this. I grew up with in
25:15
Speaker 4: a football coach at home. My dad was a super
25:17
Speaker 4: successful high school football coach on the west side of Cleveland,
25:22
Speaker 4: and so I've been around this my whole life. And
25:27
Speaker 4: I've been part of this youth sport industrial complex for
25:30
Speaker 4: the last fifteen years. So I'm not naive when I
25:33
Speaker 4: say what I'm about to say. I don't have a
25:35
Speaker 4: problem that my kids want to play the sport. So
25:38
Speaker 4: even when you say they want to do this. But
25:41
Speaker 4: I don't think that most of the time when coaches
25:43
Speaker 4: are telling you you have to do this, that that's true.
25:47
Speaker 4: You don't have to do this. What is this. You
25:51
Speaker 4: don't have to do the additional training, you don't have
25:54
Speaker 4: to specialize as a ten year old in this sport,
25:57
Speaker 4: or you're you know you're going to miss out on
25:59
Speaker 4: something in the future. Look, here's what so much of
26:02
Speaker 4: this is precipitated on. This need to continue to be
26:06
Speaker 4: on the best of this and go year round in
26:08
Speaker 4: the sport. Is always that you're not gonna you're not
26:10
Speaker 4: gonna make your high school team. Let's say you're in
26:14
Speaker 4: a super upwardly mobile area like I don't know where
26:18
Speaker 4: you live, Julie, but I in the communities around us,
26:21
Speaker 4: there's a gazillion kids playing sports and there's a limited
26:24
Speaker 4: number of high school roster spots. Yep, yeah, I mean
26:28
Speaker 4: that's true everywhere, right, regardless of what's going on socioeconomically,
26:34
Speaker 4: that is true. There's lots of kids that want to
26:36
Speaker 4: play this sport and there's a limited number of slots.
26:38
Speaker 4: So here's the reality. If there's one hundred kids in
26:41
Speaker 4: your community that are part of the basketball program, let's
26:45
Speaker 4: say and there's only fourteen slots on the high school team,
26:49
Speaker 4: A whole bunch of those kids are not going to
26:51
Speaker 4: make the team, no matter how much time, no matter what. Okay,
26:56
Speaker 4: you don't know who's going to move into the community
26:58
Speaker 4: that's not currently here. You don't know who is going
27:00
Speaker 4: to be eligible or ineligible. You don't know what the
27:02
Speaker 4: coach is going to be like and who he or
27:04
Speaker 4: she is predisposed to be attracted to as a player.
27:07
Speaker 4: You don't know if the position that your kid is
27:09
Speaker 4: really good at, maybe there's gonna be ten other kids
27:12
Speaker 4: that play that position, or you're gonna be in a
27:15
Speaker 4: situation where he or she is the only one that
27:18
Speaker 4: plays that position. Well, Like, you don't know what those
27:20
Speaker 4: dynamics are going to like be Like, you don't know
27:23
Speaker 4: who's gonna get who pregnant from high school? Can I
27:26
Speaker 4: say that you don't who's going to be eligible? Great,
27:30
Speaker 4: there's so many packers. You couldn't not even want to
27:33
Speaker 4: play anymore six years from now because he or she
27:36
Speaker 4: just wakes up one day and realizes they actually would
27:39
Speaker 4: really rather play the piano or played a different sport
27:43
Speaker 4: that you did not even have on your radar, which
27:46
Speaker 4: is happening in my house right now. The ninth grader
27:49
Speaker 4: that we already mentioned, really good basketball player right now,
27:52
Speaker 4: he's a very good swimmer. He wants to play golf,
27:56
Speaker 4: like that's his thing now. He just like he's out
27:58
Speaker 4: in the front yard hitting golf ball all over the place.
28:01
Speaker 4: It we're just like golf that come from, you know.
28:07
Speaker 4: And so he's gonna use his fall and we're gonna
28:09
Speaker 4: let him. He wants to play golf this fall. I
28:11
Speaker 4: was hoping he was gonna do more with basketball before
28:14
Speaker 4: where came and it's like, well, now he wants to
28:17
Speaker 4: do something different. And so this belief or this this
28:23
Speaker 4: fear that's created that if we don't do what the
28:26
Speaker 4: coach says, they're going to be left out. I think
28:28
Speaker 4: we just we need to like give a stiff arm
28:30
Speaker 4: to that a little bit. Yeah, the Sunday mornings like
28:35
Speaker 4: that comes up all the time. Look, it still is
28:38
Speaker 4: a very real option. If you're in a family and
28:41
Speaker 4: you have a conviction that you want to be with
28:43
Speaker 4: the community of God on a Sunday morning, you can
28:46
Speaker 4: tell coaches before the season starts, we're fully in on this.
28:51
Speaker 4: We're gonna be at everything every tend. The doors are open,
28:53
Speaker 4: but we're not going to be available from the nine
28:55
Speaker 4: am game wherever that's at. We're not doing that. Or
29:00
Speaker 4: we could be very very intentional. If we're on the road,
29:03
Speaker 4: let's say to still go to a house of worship
29:05
Speaker 4: and go to church and give our kid an experience,
29:08
Speaker 4: not only give them experience in a different but a
29:10
Speaker 4: different congregation, listening to a different pastor. And I literally
29:14
Speaker 4: this month have talked to multiple dads who have said, oh, yeah,
29:17
Speaker 4: we actually do that. We try to go to church
29:19
Speaker 4: even when round the road, because what they want to
29:24
Speaker 4: say to their kids is this is going to be
29:26
Speaker 4: part of our rhythm. And we've only got a few
29:29
Speaker 4: years for us to really show this to you and
29:32
Speaker 4: teach you this that being with the people of God
29:35
Speaker 4: once a week will not only save your soul, but
29:39
Speaker 4: it'll protect your life. And so we're gonna we're gonna
29:42
Speaker 4: model this rhythm. Or look, we're gonna we're gonna be
29:46
Speaker 4: willing to miss five Sundays a year or seven Sundays
29:50
Speaker 4: or again, make your number up, but draw your own
29:53
Speaker 4: limits for how many you're gonna be willing to miss. Uh,
29:58
Speaker 4: And don't feel like you just have to go to
30:00
Speaker 4: everything that every coach or every team says you have
30:04
Speaker 4: to go to, you don't. And most of the time, yeah,
30:08
Speaker 4: most of the time coaches will understand that, Julie.
30:11
Speaker 3: They will yeah, and there's some who won't. I mean,
30:15
Speaker 3: we had to.
30:16
Speaker 2: Make the choice to move our kids from one dance
30:18
Speaker 2: school that they've been here in Austin and shout out
30:21
Speaker 2: to Balance Dance Studio.
30:22
Speaker 3: We moved our kids over there several years ago.
30:24
Speaker 2: Because part of what sometimes makes someone a fantastic coach
30:30
Speaker 2: makes them a terrible person to put in the decision
30:34
Speaker 2: making position within your family. Jo They're driven, they have
30:39
Speaker 2: a business, they're trying to drive to the top. They
30:41
Speaker 2: want the bragging rights that their team won this many
30:44
Speaker 2: state tournaments or their competitive dance group won this many
30:48
Speaker 2: titles at national. They're really a great business owner, and you,
30:54
Speaker 2: as the parent, have a product that helps them promote
30:57
Speaker 2: their business.
30:58
Speaker 3: And when you start digging in and saying we're not going.
31:02
Speaker 2: To do X, Y and Z, you may experience some pushback,
31:05
Speaker 2: and that's the point at which you have to fire
31:08
Speaker 2: the coach.
31:08
Speaker 3: And you can fire the coach.
31:12
Speaker 2: I don't know why it took me a long time
31:13
Speaker 2: to figure that out.
31:14
Speaker 4: Ed.
31:14
Speaker 2: It took me a little while to figure that out, Julie.
31:17
Speaker 4: That's the great thing about it being in industry. Now
31:19
Speaker 4: there's another team. Yeah, there's another dance stario somewhere. It
31:23
Speaker 4: may cost you a little bit more, you have to
31:25
Speaker 4: drive a little further or whatever, but there's somewhere else
31:27
Speaker 4: we can go. You just gave a shout out to somebody.
31:30
Speaker 4: There's other opportunities and other options. So and you know,
31:34
Speaker 4: here's another one. That a kid really wants to play
31:37
Speaker 4: with his or her friends and his are her friends.
31:41
Speaker 4: Wind up on the C team, and you've got an
31:44
Speaker 4: opportunity to be on the A team and everything that
31:46
Speaker 4: goes along with being on the eight team, which is
31:48
Speaker 4: usually more of everything. It's okay to leave them on
31:54
Speaker 4: the C team for a couple of years. In fact,
31:57
Speaker 4: they will enjoy the sport more being able to play
32:01
Speaker 4: with their friends rather than chasing again, chasing to the
32:05
Speaker 4: to the next level in the next community or the
32:08
Speaker 4: next coach or whatever. You don't have to do that,
32:12
Speaker 4: you don't we I have so many stories. I could
32:14
Speaker 4: fill an hour just with stories of families that regret
32:18
Speaker 4: the fact that they left a really good situation that
32:22
Speaker 4: again wasn't whatever we're calling It wasn't the top level elite,
32:28
Speaker 4: it wasn't the eighteen Okay, they left the situation so
32:33
Speaker 4: that they could chase that, and then they wound up
32:35
Speaker 4: miserable and they burned their kid out and their kids
32:38
Speaker 4: didn't get to play as much, or they you know,
32:40
Speaker 4: they didn't have fun because they weren't with friends sitting
32:42
Speaker 4: on the bench, or it was so much pressure, or
32:46
Speaker 4: the coach was a maniac. You know, it's like, don't
32:49
Speaker 4: leave the good situation to chase what you consider the
32:52
Speaker 4: better just because it shinier or promises more. You don't
32:58
Speaker 4: have to do that, right right.
33:01
Speaker 2: I think that is fantastic advice.
33:03
Speaker 3: And I want to go back to to what you said.
33:06
Speaker 3: You know, I hear a.
33:06
Speaker 2: Lot of times where people there's a meme that went
33:09
Speaker 2: around about a year ago that just got bigger and bigger.
33:11
Speaker 3: You know, eighteen summers. We just have eighteen summers with
33:13
Speaker 3: these kids.
33:14
Speaker 2: When I think about kids, sports, kids, extracurricular, yeah, you only.
33:20
Speaker 3: Have eighteen years.
33:21
Speaker 2: I mean to the point that you were making, it's
33:24
Speaker 2: not just that, Okay, we're going to have this little
33:26
Speaker 2: sports windows season. I do think about and I do
33:30
Speaker 2: have some regrets about realizing that there were some important
33:33
Speaker 2: formational times during some of my kids' lives that we
33:38
Speaker 2: were chasing the next competition, the next convention, the next whatever,
33:42
Speaker 2: to the detriment of some other pieces of things that
33:45
Speaker 2: we could have been doing in community. And when your
33:49
Speaker 2: kids launch, they launch. I mean it's not like you
33:51
Speaker 2: get to hit a redo button on that. And I
33:53
Speaker 2: don't say that to make a listener feel scared or paranoid.
33:56
Speaker 2: I say these are the things that we have to
33:57
Speaker 2: consider as part of it. About this really quick, too,
34:01
Speaker 2: because I probably have a listener out there who's thinking this.
34:05
Speaker 3: We sometimes would.
34:06
Speaker 2: Adopt this position and then we had to kind of
34:08
Speaker 2: stop ourselves and go, wait a minute. I've heard other
34:10
Speaker 2: families say this, well, yeah, we started this season and
34:14
Speaker 2: my kid is miserable, and it's really stressful in the family,
34:17
Speaker 2: and it's way more expensive than what we thought. But
34:21
Speaker 2: the Smiths aren't quitters.
34:23
Speaker 3: We aren't quitters.
34:25
Speaker 2: We are going to hang in there. We're gonna now.
34:28
Speaker 2: I think there's something to be said for talking with
34:31
Speaker 2: your child, particularly if they're of a certain age, and say, look,
34:34
Speaker 2: you're joining XYZ group. You are you've been asked to
34:38
Speaker 2: be in this position. Do you really want to do
34:41
Speaker 2: this thing? Here's what it's going to take because we
34:43
Speaker 2: do have a responsibility to the other members of the team.
34:46
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the great takeaways that we
34:48
Speaker 2: can move forward into adulthood understanding the implications of our
34:51
Speaker 2: decisions and behaviors on others.
34:53
Speaker 3: That's important.
34:54
Speaker 2: At the same time, I have also seen this mantra
34:58
Speaker 2: of we are quitters make everybody miserable. So so what
35:03
Speaker 2: is the point at which that you measure out?
35:06
Speaker 3: You walk in good faith.
35:08
Speaker 2: You want people to know you know, you're a person
35:10
Speaker 2: of your word, But at the same time, equip your
35:13
Speaker 2: kid to understand when something's not working, or how to
35:17
Speaker 2: discern when God says, hey, we were doing this thing
35:22
Speaker 2: and now we're not and it is time to move on.
35:24
Speaker 2: How do you advise parents to take a look at
35:26
Speaker 2: a situation like that.
35:28
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, this is something that we haven't said
35:31
Speaker 4: this yet, and Brian and I have tried to put
35:36
Speaker 4: this to the forefront of almost every one of these conversations.
35:39
Speaker 4: We need to pray together as a couple, and we
35:44
Speaker 4: could have done this whole podcast even just talking about
35:46
Speaker 4: what you've sported us to us, our marriages.
35:49
Speaker 3: As a whole.
35:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, yeah, right, that's a whole. No, maybe that's
35:52
Speaker 4: the second episode.
35:52
Speaker 3: Okay, that's I'm going to bring you back. We're gonna
35:54
Speaker 3: have to have that conversation.
35:55
Speaker 4: Yep, yes, yep, Okay. So there's a lot going on
35:58
Speaker 4: inside of us. We're not a always on the same
36:00
Speaker 4: page with each other. We might have different values, we
36:04
Speaker 4: might have different insecurities, all these things that we've talked about,
36:06
Speaker 4: but now we're trying to make decisions as a couple.
36:09
Speaker 4: Let's pray, let's ask God to give us guidance, and
36:13
Speaker 4: then let's come back in a day or two and
36:15
Speaker 4: just kind of see what's going on inside of our
36:16
Speaker 4: head and heart. So just as a rhythm, I would
36:20
Speaker 4: hope we would learn to be doing out as part
36:22
Speaker 4: of muscle memory for everything that goes on in our family,
36:26
Speaker 4: but especially in this that kind of a situation that
36:28
Speaker 4: you just created. My default is always, Julie, I am
36:32
Speaker 4: on the side of if we made a commitment, then
36:36
Speaker 4: we're going to see it through. Now here's my two probabats.
36:40
Speaker 4: Even based on what you said, the entire family is
36:43
Speaker 4: melting down, and again, there could be a whole bunch
36:45
Speaker 4: of different reasons why that's happening. Absolutely, I think I'm
36:50
Speaker 4: just like going to say as a as a dad, I
36:52
Speaker 4: would hope Amy will say the same thing as a mom.
36:55
Speaker 4: Youth sports is like way down the list of importance. Okay.
36:59
Speaker 4: If we're melting down, which means we're in crisis with
37:02
Speaker 4: each other, kids are having mental health issues, we're never
37:07
Speaker 4: at church, and our souls are starting to wither, those
37:11
Speaker 4: are way more catastrophic realities than saying we're not going
37:16
Speaker 4: to come to this game anymore. Okay, So again, let's
37:19
Speaker 4: just say that my default would be we're going to
37:22
Speaker 4: finish the season, which means let's say we and this
37:26
Speaker 4: actually happened with our with one of our sons, so
37:29
Speaker 4: we paid for a year's worth of soccer. It was
37:32
Speaker 4: part of this great soccer club. We actually really loved it.
37:35
Speaker 4: We loved their values, we loved what they were doing.
37:37
Speaker 4: But it was year round, and Jack in the middle
37:41
Speaker 4: of the season, in the middle of the fall season,
37:44
Speaker 4: was starting to say he just didn't have interest in
37:46
Speaker 4: it anymore. He didn't like it anymore. Yet other things
37:49
Speaker 4: that he wanted to do, and so what we desire
37:52
Speaker 4: and we pushed on and like, why is somebody picking
37:55
Speaker 4: on you? You know what is it? Is there some
37:57
Speaker 4: other thing that's going on. No, I really just don't
37:59
Speaker 4: want to play anymore. Well, we're going to finish the
38:02
Speaker 4: fall season and then let's see where we're out at
38:05
Speaker 4: the end of that. Okay, And if you still feel
38:08
Speaker 4: the same way, and we take all things considered, then
38:11
Speaker 4: we will. You can go and talk to the coach.
38:14
Speaker 4: We're going to send him to go and talk to
38:15
Speaker 4: the coach and this is when he was sixteen, and
38:18
Speaker 4: explain why. And then you're going to pay back some
38:22
Speaker 4: of the money to us that we paid for this
38:25
Speaker 4: whole year. So you're going to take responsibility for that,
38:29
Speaker 4: you know whatever, it was five hundred dollars that they
38:30
Speaker 4: weren't going to give us pack even though our kid
38:32
Speaker 4: wasn't going to be anymore. You're going to take some
38:35
Speaker 4: responsibility for that. And then okay, it's okay. But again,
38:39
Speaker 4: this decision has consequences financially, it has the consequences for
38:43
Speaker 4: the team, and so let's just make sure that this
38:46
Speaker 4: is the right thing to do for you and for
38:49
Speaker 4: us as a family and then we'll take the steps
38:51
Speaker 4: that we need to do to get out of it.
38:53
Speaker 4: So that was kind of a middle ground situation. We
38:55
Speaker 4: finished the fall season, but then let him get out
38:58
Speaker 4: of the year commitment while still taking responsibility for it.
39:02
Speaker 4: He had to talk to the coach, he had to
39:04
Speaker 4: pay for a percentage of it, and we moved on. Yeah.
39:08
Speaker 2: I think that's a great way of looking at it
39:10
Speaker 2: and again teasing out that value that there are commitments involved,
39:14
Speaker 2: there are consequences to our decisions, but it doesn't mean
39:17
Speaker 2: that we can't course correct if something is not flowing
39:20
Speaker 2: in the right directions.
39:22
Speaker 3: And again, it's sports. It's sports.
39:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's okay, it's okay, it's supposed to be fun. Yeah,
39:29
Speaker 2: well Ed, we could have a much longer conversation. I've
39:33
Speaker 2: got to have you come back on the show. I
39:34
Speaker 2: would love to have you come back on and for
39:36
Speaker 2: us to talk about youth sports and marriage. I think
39:39
Speaker 2: that is a huge topic that we could spend some
39:41
Speaker 2: time on. But tell the listener where they can go
39:43
Speaker 2: find the new book, find all the great stuff that
39:45
Speaker 2: you and your co author Brian are doing.
39:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, the book is on Amazon and a bunch of
39:50
Speaker 4: other retail outlets. We have a lot of material at
39:54
Speaker 4: the christianathlete dot com, the christianathlete dot com, there's bonus chapters,
39:59
Speaker 4: there's a ton of articles that we've written over the
40:01
Speaker 4: last decade. And this book really, this book is not
40:05
Speaker 4: railing on youth sports, even like you and I just
40:07
Speaker 4: did as we were just assessing it. It really is
40:10
Speaker 4: like a discipleship curriculum for how to have conversations with
40:14
Speaker 4: our kids and how do we grow virtue right in
40:16
Speaker 4: the midst of wherever we're at in that youth sport complex.
40:21
Speaker 4: How do we buy up the opportunity to move into
40:23
Speaker 4: their lives and have conversations. So there's tons of practical
40:26
Speaker 4: stuff in it on how.
40:27
Speaker 3: To do that love that we all can use that guidance.
40:31
Speaker 2: I'm so glad that you and Brian identified this spot
40:34
Speaker 2: that so many of us as parents need people to
40:37
Speaker 2: be speaking into, need these great reminders and these conversation starters.
40:41
Speaker 3: So I will make sure that.
40:42
Speaker 2: Rebecca gets those links all in the show notes at Yazinsky.
40:44
Speaker 2: What a delight to having on the show. Thank you
40:46
Speaker 2: so much for your time today.
40:48
Speaker 4: Thank you, Julie really enjoyed it.
40:50
Speaker 2: All, right, friend, you know what to do. You know
40:52
Speaker 2: the drill.
40:53
Speaker 3: You go check out.
40:54
Speaker 2: The show notes because you're going to find a transcript
40:56
Speaker 2: linked everything that Ed's been talking about. Be sure you're
40:59
Speaker 2: following Almand Does Alman Does on the socials. You're going
41:02
Speaker 2: to find community there for moms walking through all the
41:05
Speaker 2: kind of same stuff that you are. And I love
41:08
Speaker 2: to hear from you too. I'm Jude Lyles car all
41:10
Speaker 2: the places, mainly over on Instagram. I love when you
41:12
Speaker 2: come over and tell me about topics that you would
41:15
Speaker 2: love to see us cover here on the podcast. Grab
41:17
Speaker 2: this link and send it to a friend. That's one
41:19
Speaker 2: of the best thank yous you can give us, and
41:21
Speaker 2: I will see you next time on the Almand Does podcast.