I don’t think he said it himself, but I believe I read it in a C.S. Lewis book somewhere: “We need to be reminded more than instructed.”

It’s one of my favorite quotes and thus, one I return to often. For it highlights the fact that more often than not, we don’t need to learn anything new. We just need to do a better job living and applying what we already know. Or deep down what all of us know. Sure, there are times where instruction is needed, but I tend to think that our pursuit of learning new things can sometimes be a cover-up for our failure to do well what we already know. If we are wise, much of learning will be a re-learning or a reminding of good, wise, timeless truths.

Naturally that quote applies to this first point. For I understand full well that I am stating the obvious. I am not instructing so much as reminding you all what you already know. Or at least what you should know as parents. Love your children. Delight in them more than you delight in anything it is you want to give them – except the knowledge of God. He alone is the only real exception. In every other context, whatever it is we want to pass on to our children or to give our children, it is essential that we love and delight in our children more than we love and delight in the things we want to give them. Our love and delight in them must be real and lasting and genuine. Or all else is for naught.

This really is a basic of good leadership, no matter the context. Those you seek to influence have to believe that you want genuine good for them. They have to believe that to you, their good is an end in and of itself. And the simple fact is, they will see right through you if it is not. This is something you simply cannot fake. Your love and care for them has to be real. Indeed, I dare say that you will influence them only to the degree that it is real. If you want to measure how well you can influence others, first take note of how much you really care for them. Your influence simply cannot rise above your love.

In my own line of work, I have sadly seen numerous Coaches lose their influence (and sometimes their jobs) by focusing too much on winning and keeping their jobs. Yes, they may have told their players that winning helps everyone involved. And that is true. But whether the players themselves could express it in words or not, every single one tended to rebel against the notion because they realized that the Coach was ultimately concerned for himself. Even if things were good on the outside, players could just sense it. In Coaching, the only way to get everyone to buy into what you are trying to give them is to care more about them than what it is you are trying to accomplish. Indeed, if their own good is not central in your focus, you probably won’t get much else. And if you do, it will come at a steep price.

How much more is this true for parents and children! How many parent-child relationships are severely injured by parents taking too much delight in what they want for their children and too little delight in the children themselves? How often have parents with good desires for their children ruined their chances for helping their children obtain those good things by focusing too much energy on the good things themselves, and too little energy on the children themselves?

It happens all the time. And whether you want to admit it or not, it happens to some degree in your own life.

Of course, this doesn’t meant that you don’t love your children. Not at all. It just means that you are human and that you struggle with wanting good things too much. In this context, it means that you inevitably face a struggle to keep the right things in their proper perspective. As a parent, you want something for your children so much that you start to subtly or not so subtly push them in a certain direction. Maybe you make certain comments or put more pressure on them to do well in school. Or you treat them differently if they have a bad game or get a bad grade or perform poorly in their recital. It really can be anything. And almost always, it is something good you have in mind for your children that you just start caring about too much. In turn, you lose site of them and of simply delighting in them. And to the degree that you lose your delight, to that degree you lose your influence.

The simple reality is that if you want your children to love what you love, they had better know that you will love them just the same even if they don’t love what you love. If they sense even in the least bit that they will lose your favor, they will have to rebel just a little bit – for their own sanity at least. Sure, they might fake interest for the time being. Or they may genuinely share your passion. But the relationship with you and the thing you love will inevitably become strained. Neither will be all that it could or should.

So when it comes to passing on the game of basketball to my children, my first rule is that I must check my own heart for them first. My kids need to know that I love and delight in them no matter what, simply because they are mine. Whether they accomplish this or that or become this or that, they need to know that I delight in them because they are my children. My love and delight in them has to be lasting and real. If I want to be a good parent and leader, there is just no escaping this first fact.

I promised an outline. So here we go. No doubt I might switch a few things around, but more or less, I have 20 things I would like to say. I know it won’t cover every detail, but I am confident that as we move through this outline, we should all be better equipped to serve our kids as we seek to pass on the joy of sports. I’ll begin with our first point tomorrow.

1 – Love your kids much more than the game. And make sure they know it.

2 – Love the game for itself, not for what you can get from it.

3 – Surround them with the game.

4 – Play first, teach second (or maybe teach 10th).

5 – Show more than tell. Then show some more.

6 – Make learning fun.

7 – Emphasize the importance of practice.

8 – Make sure they have good coaching.

9 – Push without being pushy.

10 – Always be available to help.

11 – Fuel their dreams and keep a distance with your own.

12 – Keep the game in perspective.

13 – Teach the mental game.

14 – Watch out for the work beneath the work.

15 – Teach them how to win and lose.

16 – Always stay positive.

17 – Fuel Confidence.

18 – Make sure it stays fun.

19 – Use competition to teach life and character lessons.

20 – In all things, give them the big picture.

If you are presently out of physical shape, you probably aren’t going to get back into shape without some sort of plan. And not just any plan, but a reasonable, semi-interesting one. I figure the same holds true for the blogger. And as I am so obviously a blogger that is currently out of good blogging condition, I have come up with what I think is a reasonable and very interesting plan.

My plan is a series of posts that I have chosen to title, Passing on the Game. I am not completely sold on the title, but when you are out of shape and need to get back to working out, you don’t get too worried about titles. Making the first few posts come first.

Anyhow, the focus of this series is one that I have wanted to write about for some time now. Essentially, I am planning on writing about 20 posts that focus on what it takes to healthily pass on the understanding and joy of sports to your children. I figure it is a topic that needs to be addressed for multiple reasons.

First, because healthy is usually not the first word that comes to mind when you look at American sports in general, and much of children’s sports in particular. A careful look through the sports pages each week will probably support that point. Or I suppose a more discerning look at your son’s next practice or game may do the trick.

Second, it seems to me that passing on anything worthwhile to your children is inevitably fraught with difficulty, particularly if you really want to do it in a healthy, life-giving way. I don’t care if you love Math and want to pass on the love of Math…or the love of God for that matter. It’s just not easy to thoroughly enjoy something and pass it on in a healthy way. After all, our tendency here and now is to desire good things too much. And can anyone disagree that this is often obviously the case when we want to pass on good things to our kids? We want them to enjoy what we enjoy so much that we might ram it down their throats and in turn, make it all the more difficult for them to enjoy it. This seems to be true especially with sports.

Third, this needs to be addressed by me right here and now because this is something I desperately want to do well. Very well. And this is true for me not simply because I want my children to enjoy sports (and yes, certain sports more than others I confess!), but because I myself received this gift from my fathers. Weird as it may sound, from my vantage point, the joy of sports (basketball in particular) is a generational gift that has been given and in some sense, entrusted to me. Not perfectly of course. Or in some sort of formal, serious way. But it has been passed on nonetheless. And I want to keep things going. Even more, I want to take all that is good and improve upon it for the next generation.

Fourth and probably most important, (this I am adding as an update to this post), I think we will find out that the principles or practices I set forth in my upcoming posts apply to much more than sports. No matter what it is you love and want to pass on, the principles are probably the same. And certain practices probably have their parallels. So although I will be addressing sports in particular, it is my belief that you will find much to apply to whatever it is you want your children to love.

So with those things in mind, I am going to write. I am going to follow (and yes, probably alter) the plan and hopefully learn a great deal as we focus on how we can best pass on the joy of the game. Is it easy? No way, but I am convinced that because of the unique nature of sports, it is well worth the effort. Not only that, but if you are a parent who to any degree enjoys sports, it is your plain old duty to do this well.