Celebrating Kids
Its the time of year again where Suburbans across Abilene are decked out to the max with shoe polish and streamers, celebrating one of the most holy of all athletic events - Little League All Stars. Talk, everywhere I turn, seems to be focused on who made the team, whose coaching the teams, and who played who last night. The community-wide enthusiasm will only be exceeded thsi Fall, when High School football returns.
I think it is great that parents are so enthusiastic about their kids, and I wouldn't want to take this attention away from any of the players. But, I also wonder whether families are also finding ways to celebrate the gifts of children who aren't so great at hitting baseballs. Kids who, instead, may be great at:
- Flawlessly executing a baroque sonatta on a grand piano
- Factoring and solving quadratic equations in the blink of an eye
- Masterfully maneuvering through a chess end game, or
- Authoring a thoughtful poem/creating a beautiful sketch.
So what do you think? How can these kids' gifts also be celbrated with equal enthusiasm?
Also, are there ways to make sure that the kids who practiced and played hard all spring, but didn't get to be called "stars" in June and July, are also celebrated?
Related Tags: little league, all-stars, baseball, children
I think it is great that parents are so enthusiastic about their kids, and I wouldn't want to take this attention away from any of the players. But, I also wonder whether families are also finding ways to celebrate the gifts of children who aren't so great at hitting baseballs. Kids who, instead, may be great at:- Flawlessly executing a baroque sonatta on a grand piano
- Factoring and solving quadratic equations in the blink of an eye
- Masterfully maneuvering through a chess end game, or
- Authoring a thoughtful poem/creating a beautiful sketch.
So what do you think? How can these kids' gifts also be celbrated with equal enthusiasm?
Also, are there ways to make sure that the kids who practiced and played hard all spring, but didn't get to be called "stars" in June and July, are also celebrated?
Related Tags: little league, all-stars, baseball, children
posted by Matt at Saturday, July 01, 2006
1 Comments:
Laura-
Thanks for the comment. I think a lot of kids feel like you did - second class citizens - when they see their athletically-enabled peers celebrated in ways that they are not. It reenforces what is already a horrible clique-centered culture in middle schools and high schools, where jocks rule the roost.
Get rid of the imbalanced emphasis on sports over everything else in high schools and colleges, and you might just change our entire youth culture. (But thats another post).
HOWEVER...I don't want to resolve the issue by TAKING AWAY things from kids who are getting this kind of attention. I LOVE to see people enthused about their kids like this. I just wish I could also see shoe-polished, decked-out suburbans celebrating upcoming literary tournaments and the like...
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