I hope this lesson will be of use to youth ministries, family counselors, family devotionals and family home evenings. The topic is a parent’s example.

Joke: Little League Parents

At one point during a game, the coach said to one of his young players, “Do you understand what cooperation is? What a team is?” The little boy nodded in the affirmative.

“Do you understand that what matters is that we play together as a team?”

The little boy nodded yes.

“So,” the coach continued, “when a strike is called, or you’re out at first, you don’t argue or curse or attack the umpire. Do you understand all that?”

Again the little boy nodded.

“Good,” said the coach. “Now go over there and explain it to your parents.”

We all want our kids to succeed so it is easily to get very involved in their sports, school and extra activates. The thing we need to watch is the temptation to live our lives vicariously through our kids. Too often parents behavior can embarrass them in front of their peers because of our actions.

Reviews your life and see what areas you find that you take over your child’s life. We might want to question why we do things and that includes what we have our kids do. We might force a child into sports when they might have a different passion.

As a couple maybe you can provide a hand signal when one partner feels the other partner is getting extreme at an event. Determine what is the child’s passion and what is the adult’s. if you want to teach your child to be calm in a stressful situation than one of the best ways is by example.

If you know of another joke or a way that you have found useful in teaching by example, please feel free to share it.