I’ve had the same caseworker for nearly 20 years, although in the last few adoptions she assigned our family to a different caseworker, she owns the adoption agency, and has kept tabs on us for a very long time. She’s become a friend, someone whose opinion I trust more than just about anyone else’s on earth, and now that she is an adoptive mother of challenging children, she really understands.

I was telling her today about how we have four soccer teams and two different church league softball teams underway, I am spending all my time bopping between games, fields, and practices. Literally, this is consuming all my time.

She indicated that she was impressed that I’d do all this for so many children, but why wouldn’t I want to do so? I believe in art therapy and pet therapy but most especially sports as therapy. Besides the simple fact of expending their energy in such a positive fashion, I am more than a little impressed at what all they’ve learned and how they feel about themselves as a result of playing so hard.

Socialization, self-esteem, teamwork and winning are only a few of the lessons learned in sports. This article explains it all.

I’m finding myself encouraging a couple of my kids to be more aggressive. I must have lost my mind, suggesting that such violent kids amp it up at all. Today two teams lost and two teams won.

Through wins and losses, my other kids still cheer the others on, although today I got aggravated overhearing my teens call each other politically incorrect names out in public, it irks me enough at home, but to loudly drag our issues to the bleachers does not amuse me.

I’ve made certain that my kids know that the coach is the boss, just as I over-support their teachers, I feel the same way about coaches., Even though I’m vastly over-opinionated I really do try and quell it at games, knowing the coaches are light years ahead of me in their knowledge of the game and its strategies.

Today we flew out of the house, facing four games before noon, usually we end up swapping equipment between games, but we were tightly scheduled today on several different fields and had our own free-for-all as 14 kids vied for cleats, shin guards, socks and team jerseys.

All of my children behaved appropriately, there were no rude comments delivered to the other team, yes sirs and yes m’ams were prevalent. None of my children pushed, kicked or tripped anyone, several made goals, no one stole anyone’s snacks, for us this was a very good day. Positive endeavors and positive attitudes, I could get used to this, but I’ll never let my guard down.