Homeschool Sports, Benefit or Detriment?

In an effort to find more ways to be involved with the co-op and to ensure an evolution of socialization for our kids, we signed them up for some homeschool sports activities. They had softball, soccer, and bowling. There was actually a homeschool softball league and the teams played other homeschooled teams from other areas nearby. They did have home and away games.

Prior to that, and during practices, you could really see the difference between our kids and the others who's parents either didn't see the benefit to athletics early, or just had kids that weren't very athletic. There were times when the coaches asked Josh and Seth, not to play so hard, "don't run so fast around the bases". Look, I never was and never will be the "let's not keep score so everyone wins", and "everyone gets a trophy" kind of guy, and both my kids were very competitive, so some of this "nonsense" just didn't fly with us. But they understood the nuances of homeschool sports even at a young age, and did what they had to do to still be competitive and have some fun.

When Josh was 5 we started him in something called Karate-nastics. It was a "karate" class with a gymnastic component run from a "Little Gym" in the area. He loved it. The Sensei's that ran the martial arts portion decided at some point to go out on their own and just focus on the martial arts. We kind of lost track of them for a couple months and then found out they were in an office park right behind the shopping center where Karate-nastics was. We enrolled Josh at six and never looked back. They weren't your typical karate school. They did focus the kids on respect, and to not actually use your skills to fight if it could be avoided. Belt tests weren't held every month like most schools. It wasn't about the belt rank, it was about the journey and learning to use your skills when appropriate. It was practical self defense with both a kick boxing and grappling element. Kids didn't really start sparring until they were on their third belt rank which would be typically a year into the program.

You would see most kids go out there the first time sparring and kind of "punch" Sensei on the shoulder or the belly, but they encouraged the kids to punch them in the head, real life situations. Hey, it was only sparring. Kids used to cry because they felt bad, or didn't really want to punch anyone. Not Josh. He was so excited the first time he went out there. He told me later he was so happy to be able to punch someone and not get in trouble! He was very aggressive and wild, but he loved it.

Seth started there when he was about 3 months shy of his 6th birthday. He'd already been practicing kata's with Josh and was pretty well coordinated. And although he was usually smaller than the other kids even as he grew through the ranks, he was always one of the toughest. I think one of the hardest things I've had to do when they were teenagers, was watch them spar against each other. I mean it's kind of a siblings dream. They both got their shots in and learned to respect each other's skill set. Remember, they're only 21 months apart and had been doing things together since a very young age. It was an interesting display, but tough to watch as a parent. They now teach at that school and pretty much run the operation. There are four of them there altogether to do sales and teach classes, but our kids have been there the longest. More about Martial Arts and how it shaped them another time.

One of the bowling alleys had a homeschool league. I think we paid $16 per kid to join and they got their own bowling ball. Then is was like $4 to bowl three games per week. This was usually during the week when they weren't particularly busy so it wasn't really about the money.

The kids also played homeschool soccer and kind of liked it, but my wife's Uncle was the coach and I don't think the boys liked the way he did things as a coach. Again, they were among the few athletic kids out there and didn't always like playing with those that were "picking their toes" when the ball was kicked to them. The parents would try, but some of the kids were just not interested in either the soccer or softball leagues. Those experiences were short lived and the kids focused more on bowling than anything.

So, as far as the title of this entry goes, was homeschool sports a benefit or detriment? From a social and physical outlet aspect, it was definitely a benefit to all the kids that participated. They learned something that they may not have otherwise learned and maybe caused a few of them to enjoy athletics more. For my kids it was hit and miss. They liked it, but would rather have been in a more competitive setting. Playing softball against other teams gave them that competitive outlet but there weren't many teams to play and the season was short. Ultimately, they did play some rec baseball locally, really got into bowling, and are still learning, studying, and teaching Martial Arts today. Definitely a benefit with little detriment.