Taking away sports as a punishment or consequence is a really tough one for me because when you pull your kid out of a game or off of a team, you are letting the team down. When you make a commitment to something, you should follow through with it and this is one of the most important lessons you can teach your child.
But, sometimes your kid does something that deserves a harsh consequence and you’ve already taken everything else away from him. Also, what if he’s getting poor grades? As a last resort, you could take away baseball, but in some ways it could make things worse.
Some kids need the structure of the team and the activity of practices and games to keep them occupied. Kids that are not occupied can often get into trouble or become lethargic. Physical activity is crucial to the development of young people, both physically and mentally. We don’t want our kids sitting in their rooms playing video games all day.
In our family, academics is the top priority. If the grades fall, they will have some perks taken away from them. With my older son, taking video games or friend time away works great and snaps him right back into shape. But my younger one is stubborn. I can take almost anything away from him but if he loses playing baseball, that hits him where it hurts.
Luckily, I have only had to do it once. It worked like a charm and he realized that his games are important enough to him not to break the rules anymore. I have known parents who had to take entire seasons away from their kids for poor grades, and their kids were able to battle back because they wanted it.
If losing sports is something you are considering for your child’s punishment, you could start out by taking away one game. Most coaches understand that sometimes this needs to be done because usually they are parents too, and have had the same issues.
Sometimes, the coach will even work with parents and sit a kid out of a game to help teach them to stick to their responsibilities. Even if the coach has a problem with it, it’s your kid and you have to do what you think is best for their lives. There will be many more games, but you may never get a more perfect opportunity to teach them an extremely valuable lesson.
If you enjoyed this article, you may like my blog page: Missing Games for Other Events
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