I sit in the unseasonably cold afternoon air on the sidelines of my son’s lacrosse game, cheering as he wins possession of the ball during a face-off. My younger son comes running up to ask me for the snack bag to share snacks with his new friend, the younger brother of one of my older son’s teammates.
“This isn’t our chair,” he says. I explained that another mom ran back to her car to get an extra chair for me. As a newbie to lacrosse, I am still learning that sometimes there will be bleachers, sometimes we stand on the sidelines, and sometimes we bring our own chairs. Next to me, a mom is sharing her blanket with another mom as they warm up together.
Kindness all around.
I think back to a few weeks prior when a seasoned lacrosse mom went out of her way to introduce herself to me because she realized that we were in our first year and just getting familiar with everyone. And I remember watching some of the dads together at one of the very first games, laughing about how the rules differ sometimes, and reassuring my husband not to worry because they still don’t always have it figured out.
We want our kids to be treated well. We want them to eagerly try new experiences and meet all kinds of different kids. We want them to have good sportsmanship and feel safe for being exactly who they are.
We preach kindness, inclusion, and respect.
And we can preach all we want, but it starts with us.
It starts with the kindness we show each other as parents. It starts with the respect we show the coaches, the referees, and the opposing team’s parents and coaches.
Our children are watching us and learning from us more than we will ever know.
They are like little sponges, soaking in how we interact with the world and all the people in it. Not missing a beat in observing how we speak to each other, how we speak to strangers, and how we speak to them.
All the lectures in the world cannot compete with their real-life examples. We have to practice what we preach.
There will always be unkindness in the world. There will always be bullies who are most likely acting out of their own insecurities. Hurt people hurt people, and sadly, there will always be those who are hurt. We are not perfect, and neither are our kids. But we can strive for kindness, apologize when we mess up, and call it out if we see our kids starting to slip.
