Meeting Your Kids Where They Are: Sports Edition

I often think about how to really connect with my kids. One popular piece of parenting advice is to meet them where they are — to step into their world instead of expecting them to step into ours.

It sounds simple enough: do the things they like to do. But as any parent knows, “the things they like to do” can range from the sweet to the downright absurd. You don’t have to do everything they love — I, for one, draw the line at making mud pies. But when something genuinely captures their interest, joining in instead of sitting on the sidelines can make all the difference.

Does your kid love soccer? Kick the ball around in the front yard. Piano lessons? Maybe learn to read a few notes yourself, or at least pretend you know how to tune the thing. Sometimes the mere act of joining in — even awkwardly — means the world to them.

When my kids were little, their favorite thing was for me to get down on the floor and play superhero dolls. We had elaborate plots featuring the PJ Masks. I found the games incredibly tedious. There’s only so much fake villain-voicing and pretend laser-blasting a person can do before needing a nap. But they loved it. They glowed when I was down on the carpet, playing at their level.

Fast-forward a few years, and my kids’ interests have evolved from toy superheroes to actual, physical adventures. My husband has always loved downhill skiing. When I met him, I told him very firmly that I would never, ever ski. I’d tried it a few times before — each time ending in terror, or alternatively (as my best friend likes to point out) “incredible control”—ie thigh straining incredibly slow turns. Skiing, I decided, was not for me.

But then the kids came along, and guess what they wanted to do? Ski. So when they started heading up to the hill every weekend, I had a choice: stay home alone or clip into a pair of skis and join them.

At first, I stayed on the bunny hill with my two-year-old. As he grew more confident — moving from greens to blues to blacks — I pushed myself to keep up. And somewhere between the crashes and the chairlifts, I realized something: skiing wasn’t just a sport anymore. It was connection.

On the chairlift, it was just the two of us — no distractions, no phones, no siblings. That’s when the real conversations happened. At home, when I ask, “How was your day?” I usually get the standard “Fine” or “Nothing.” But on the chairlift, I’d hear about the classroom drama, the kid who cheated at kickball, the struggle with long division, and even the mysterious lunchroom politics involving the lunch ladies.

Those chairlift rides have become sacred — our little pockets of time suspended above the chaos. So every year, I keep skiing.

Then came the next adventure: rock climbing. My oldest joined the climbing team, and soon my youngest followed (although he prefers American Ninja Warrior). Every Tuesday and Thursday night, my husband took them to the climbing gym while I stayed home — until I realized I was missing out again.

So I joined them. At first, I stayed upstairs on the treadmill, pretending to be productive. But curiosity got the better of me, and before long I was bouldering on the low walls, where the ground felt reassuringly close. Eventually, I graduated to a harness and ropes, and to my surprise — I loved it.

Climbing was fun, challenging, and strangely peaceful. It became something I did not just with my kids, but for myself. It was the first time in a while I’d felt that blend of focus, strength, and pure play.

But somewhere along the way, I noticed something else: the things I used to do — spin classes, cycling, dinners with friends — quietly slipped off my calendar. Maybe it’s just evolution. Or maybe I traded some of “my” things for “our” things. Either way, my favorite moments are the ones I share with my husband and kids, so I can’t say I regret it.

Still, there are costs to meeting your kids where they are. And I don’t just mean metaphorical ones.

They say kids are expensive, but they never include the line items for parental injury recovery. I never would’ve become a skier if I hadn’t had kids — and I also never would’ve broken both my thumbs last year on the ski hill. I never would’ve become a rock climber either — and therefore, never would’ve managed to break both my legs this year.

Yes, you heard that right. While feeling victorious on the bouldering wall after conquering a climb I’d been working on for weeks, I decided to try a more advanced route. It involved a move called a “dyno,” short for “dynamic move,” where you launch your entire body toward the next hold. It looks impressive when people pull it off. When I tried it, I missed — and landed badly enough to break both legs.

Left knee: ACL, MCL, and meniscus. Right ankle: complete ligament tear.

I spent months in a wheelchair, a walker, then leg braces. Six months later, I still haven’t been cleared to climb or ski. So yes — the “hidden costs” of parenting are real.

But here’s the thing: I miss the rock wall. I miss the feeling of piecing together a climb like a puzzle and the satisfying ache in my arms afterward. I miss watching my kids climb beside me and the quiet pride in sharing their world, even if it occasionally breaks me.

So when spring comes, and I finally get the green light from my doctor, I’ll be back on that wall — harnessed in this time, with a little more caution and maybe a little more padding.

Because meeting your kids where they are isn’t always easy. It’s messy, inconvenient, sometimes painful — but it’s also magic. And if the price of that connection is a few broken bones along the way, well… at least the stories are worth it.