Good sport

Basic parenting is easy. The kid has to be fed a few times a day. We have to wash him and keep him dressed appropriately for the temperature. He has to sleep for a while. And we have to remember to pick him up from day care. Easy-peasy.

But the concept stuff is not easy. It's quite hard. Sometimes you can convince yourself that you just can't win. That no matter which answer you come up with, there's another answer that might be just as right as the first.

We've been working with Biscuit on sportsmanship. The boy likes to win. Or more accurately, the boy doesn't like to lose. And therein lies the problem.

We want to teach Biscuit that it's okay to not win. But we don't want him to think it's okay to be a loser.

See the problem? We want to teach him to be gracious when he loses, but we also want him to try to win. And for a little man, that's a hard concept.

Biscuit has been asking for a while if he could be on a baseball team. So I looked around and found a local T-ball league called Bitty Ball. Signup is in February, and since Biscuit still doesn't have a firm grasp on time, he thinks it's going to take FOREVER before he can play on a team.

One thing that surprised me is that parents of kids who play have to pay $5 and watch a video on good sportsmanship. Parents who are supposed to be teaching their kids how to be good sports have to watch an online movie to learn how to be good sports.

My brother's son is playing on a basketball team, and my brother said he's seen parents misbehaving, too. Apparently, one mom and dad yell out a running dialog of what their son is doing wrong. And they do this yelling from the bleachers. If they yell at him that way in public, it makes you wonder how they treat him in private. Plus, I wonder if it embarrasses that kid when they do that. And does it make him want to quit playing.

My brother was also telling me that during one game, the coach got the roster mixed up. Each kid is supposed to play an allotted amount of time in each game, but because the coach accidentally turned in the wrong roster, one kid only played for about 3 minutes.

The offended parents confronted the coach after the game. The coach apologized and tried to explain what happened, but the parents refused to let it go. So they never brought their son back. My brother said exactly what I was thinking. "So they're saying to their son that when things don't go his way, he should just quit."

I remember being in the stands when my brother wrestled in high school. I would get all stressed out because as hard as I fidgeted and pushed down on the bleachers, it didn't help him win any quicker. And if I felt that way with him, I can't imagine how nerve-wracking it will be watching Biscuit at bat.

One thing that Jeff and I will absolutely do. We will not be those obnoxious people. And we will try to teach Biscuit to strike a balance between what it means to win and lose.

Now if someone will send us a pamphlet on how to do that, we'll get right on it.