As Parents, We Are Always in a New Season

We have moved out of winter sports and are in spring sports season now, and as parents it can feel like it happened overnight. The routines shift, the schedules change, and you find yourself adjusting again after just getting used to how things were.

A friend of mine said something a couple of weeks ago that has stayed with me. He has raised four great kids and is an awesome dad, and he said, “As parents, we are always in a new season.” One season ends and another begins, and just when everything starts to feel familiar, it changes again. You’re starting to get it, and now you’re adjusting all over again.

Just when you feel like you are starting to understand how your child thinks, how they respond, and what helps them, something shifts. The way a six-year-old learns does not look the same a few years later, and the way a ten-year-old responds starts to change again as they grow.

My 14-year-old now wears size 12 shoes, which are too big for me, and he is my height. That didn’t happen gradually in my mind. It feels like it happened all at once.

The other day my 12-year-old asked me if I still needed to get new basketball shoes for summer training. I told him I probably would, and he said, “I don’t want to be weird, but do you want to use my shoes, the Giannis’?” Those shoes fit me perfectly. I am now getting hand-me-downs from my 12-year-old, and at the same time I am looking at a 14-year-old who now stands eye to eye with me.

Even within the same house, things are changing in different ways, and you are adjusting to different personalities, different strengths, and different needs. No matter how many kids you have, or how much experience you bring, you do not get to a place where everything is figured out. The seasons keep changing, and the child in front of you keeps changing with them. If we are not paying attention, we can find ourselves responding to a season that has already passed, like heading to the gym to pick your child up from basketball practice when they are actually at the baseball field.

There is a line from Eric Hoffer that has stuck with me over the years: “In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”

If we keep paying attention and are willing to adjust as our kids grow, we stay connected to who they are right now.

Spring sports season is here, and with it has come a new set of routines, new conversations, and new opportunities to meet our kids where they are.

As parents, we are always in a new season.