Just curious how much you went to your kids sporting events/your parents went to yours.
I went to pretty much all of my kids sporting events up until high school. Once they started to swim more competitively/AAU basketball/club soccer and their games were an hour or so away (and they could drive) and the other parents stopped going to games, I moved to more of an invite only parent for the road games/important games.
I still went to all the high school games.
College events I would go to road games/meets closer to home or important home games/when they wanted or asked me to come.
My mom came to ALL my events. She volunteered at swim meets as a timer and I think she made more friends than I did.
My kids are small and still require a parent presence. My son doesn’t have “games or events”, but I’m at most of his swimming lessons/gymnastic classes/skating lessons and we do orienteering together. He really likes it when both my husband and I are there and we do our best (occasionally work interferes). I’m sure it will be different when they are both big enough to have activities as their ages/interests are very different. That being said - we do a lot of stuff “as a family”, so the kids kind of expect that we all go to all the things.
Just curious how much you went to your kids sporting events/your parents went to yours.
I went to pretty much all of my kids sporting events up until high school. Once they started to swim more competitively/AAU basketball/club soccer and their games were an hour or so away (and they could drive) and the other parents stopped going to games, I moved to more of an invite only parent for the road games/important games.
I still went to all the high school games.
College events I would go to road games/meets closer to home or important home games/when they wanted or asked me to come.
With 2 kids of 10 and 13 years old both playing on travel sports teams, there are inevitable overlapping conflicts. Other than that, I’m there.
I went to them all until last week when I got in that little league parent brawl in Lakewood Colorado /s
I go to all my son’s motocross races because I’m the mechanic, which causes me to miss some of my daughters swim meets. My wife has been to everyone of her meets since she was little and probably flew to half her college meets this past winter. I quit going to most of his high school lacrosse games because he went from starting, playing almost all the game, higher scorer for first three games to playing about a 1/4 of the game by the end of the season. I hate team sports.
My parents would come in high school to a few a year. I swam at my State U and played water polo. It was 2 hours from my parents and maybe they came to 1 or 2 meets a year? This was 25 years ago and it was not very normal to see parents at college swim meets. Parents weekend or another special occasion there would be some- but there were plenty of meets we were just slugging it out with the other team and our coaches. Friends might drop by for home meets. This parental involvement aspect has changed so much since I was a kid.
I do. I coach her hockey team so I’m there all the time, but I’m not “Dad” at that point where I have 14 other players to think about as well. Other sports that she has played (soccer, softball, basketball, lacrosse, cross-country and track) I’ve gone to as many as possible to quietly watch and enjoy. If I’ve missed one it’s because I’ve been out of town for work.
My folks didn’t go to many of my games when I was a kid (aside from hockey where my dad was my coach). I don’t remember too many parents going to games back then, not like now.
I don’t remember not playing a game without at least one parent there although it probably happened for baseball or basketball, but never football for me or my brother. It was a function of driving to the game and then not worth the time to go do something before it was over before i could drive. By the time HS rolled around all the parents were friends so would all socialize at the games (amd allegedly watch us).
If you can afford it and your kid plays I’d go to the college games especially if it is a good atmosphere sport like football, baseball, hoops, hockey.
My mom came to ALL my events. She volunteered at swim meets as a timer and I think she made more friends than I did.
My kids are small and still require a parent presence. My son doesn’t have “games or events”, but I’m at most of his swimming lessons/gymnastic classes/skating lessons and we do orienteering together. He really likes it when both my husband and I are there and we do our best (occasionally work interferes). I’m sure it will be different when they are both big enough to have activities as their ages/interests are very different. That being said - we do a lot of stuff “as a family”, so the kids kind of expect that we all go to all the things.
Orienteering is such a great family activity, I love seeing the kidlets with maps in hand telling their parents where to go
In HS, I did cc running, swimming, baseball, and track. I think my dad went to a grand total of 3 events (2x baseball and 1x swimming). In college, I swam. College was ~30 min from home. Mom made it to maybe 3 meets. Dad, zero.
I go to most of my sons swim meets. I’m usually a stroke/turn judge. We skipped the big away meet deliberately to give him space and get him used to being without parents around.
My daughter was in dance so I went to parent watch week in December and the recital in May. My son ran XC and I was at every event unless there was a reason I had to be out of town.
I didn’t go to practices and don’t understand why coaches allow parents to be in the gym or at the field during practices. Also, those parents who do go to the practices are generally nuts!
I was a swimmer and my parents stopping going to meets as soon as they could. Sure they hung around and did some timing when I was younger, but once we were old enough and all the parents would trade off who had to go to the meets and carpool the swimmers. Unless they are dual meets, swim meets are the worst to spectate at. Much better if they lumped all the age group events together instead of spreading them out over a full day or two. I don’t think they came to any of my high school meets or water polo games or any crew races in college. Doesn’t bother me, those were my things that I did for me. I didn’t go to any of my Mom’s aerobics classes either.
My oldest kid doesn’t want to or isn’t good enough to compete in anything. The youngest does soccer, so one of us goes to her “games”.
First year of sports for my daughter. Yes I went to every soccer game and practice. I almost skipped one game for a bike race but ended up dropping out of that race because of potential bad weather.
I will say, watching her play, it is kind of hard not to be a sideline coach, especially with the attention span of a 5 year old, half my cheers were “Pay attention” “Stop doing cartwheels”
As for my parents, my father tried really hard to go to every event but as I got older would drop my off at practice, and then go to the golf range or something. The poor sucker even tried to go to track meets, now that I look at it, they were awfully boring with the exception of the sub 5 minutes I ran the mile (front door brag).
I’ll also add my parents were super excited during the Catholic XC Invitational at Notre Dame. Two of us ran for our schools at the meet and my 3rd brother was enrolled at ND. So it was a blast of a weekend for them to see all of their college kids in one place.
I think my parents stopped coming to my games when I was 13. I don’t fully understand the parents who make attending their kids sporting events a second full time job.
At least one parent at most of my summer swim meets and soccer games from age 5 up until high school. Played soccer, swam and ran track in high school; usually there was at least one parent at home events, away events they were there maybe half the time. That level of engagement was fine. It was great to have them there when I was younger. It was nice to have them there as much as they were in high school too, but they could have backed off some and I wouldn’t have minded.
When our daughter swam we attended every meet, I even became a stroke and turn judge to get more involved. My wife and I generally both go to my son’s Taekwando tournaments (2018/2019 District Champ, just a little back door brag). Funny thing about our kids’ chosen sports, with swimming parents can “coach” all they want from the deck, but the kids can’t hear shit when swimming and with Taekwando there is ZERO coaching allowed and the kids can hear every word of encouragement we yell.
And yes, I’ve wanted to yell “SWEEP THE LEG!” on more than one occasion.
