“Yes, Daddy, I heard you when you said that earlier.”
I was talking with another parent recently about one of the more exhausting parts of raising kids: repeating the same things over and over while doing your best to stay calm.
Put your shoes away. Hang up your backpack. Brush your teeth. Stop bothering your brother. How many times do I have to say it?
It feels like I’ve been explaining the same basic rules for years. Some days, I wonder whether anything I say is getting through.
The person I was talking to compared it to baseball players practicing fundamentals. With our love of baseball, that got my attention. No matter how talented players become, they still take ground balls. Work on their swings. Practice catching, throwing and running the bases, he noted. Professional players don’t reach the majors and decide they’re finished with the basics. In many ways, their ability to consistently execute those basics is what got them there. That analogy made me start to see things differently.
When the boys forget something I’ve told them 500 times, it feels like they weren’t listening or I failed to make the rule clear. But maybe they’re simply still practicing.
They’re learning how to manage emotions, take care of their things, complete responsibilities and live with other people. They’re learning when to speak, when to listen, how to apologize and what to do when they’re frustrated. And that’s not always pretty. Those may sound like basic skills, but plenty of adults are still working on them too.
They aren’t the only ones who practice. I’m practicing patience every time I repeat an instruction for the 8th time without raising my voice or changing my tone. I’m trying to control emotions when one son insists the other started it, while the other provides an entirely different version. I’m doing my best to keep perspective when a problem feels huge in the moment but will probably be forgotten by bedtime. I didn’t realize parenting requires me to practice too.
The hard part is practice rarely looks or feels like progress while it’s happening. A coach hitting 100 ground balls doesn’t expect every one to be fielded perfectly. The repetition is the point. It builds habits slowly, often so slowly that nobody notices until the player reacts correctly without thinking. Maybe raising kids works the same way.
I may have to remind them to hang up their backpacks hundreds of times before they finally do it on their own. Or keep teaching them how to handle disappointment, treat each other with kindness and take responsibility for their choices. There will be errors. There will be missed signs. And moments when all of us lose focus. But the goal isn’t perfection. It’s to keep practicing.
Baseball players don’t outgrow the fundamentals. Neither do parents. Or children. No matter how old or accomplished we become, life keeps asking us to go back to the basics: listen, be patient, take responsibility, treat people well and try again tomorrow.
So when I find myself repeating the same instruction for what feels like the thousandth time, I’m trying to remember that we’re not necessarily failing. We are taking another ground ball. And maybe one day, when
I am not looking, they will make the play on their own.
