Soccer Game Vs. Birthday Party. ETA. SWH

oof! that's a lot of handwringing!

for the most part we always chose the sports over the parties. my kids did team sports, and you show up for the team.

but it wasn't written in stone. if it was a super duper party or something they were DYING to go to, we'd go.

khairete
S.

ETA: Saw your SWH - that's great. That once happened at one of my daughter's parties - little girl had a dance recital practice, that she couldn't miss, but she made it to the tail end of our party (for cake and fun) and it was great. We had saved her a piece of pizza which she appreciated because she was starving from the dance. That worked out great then! I think to go with the flow, and just play it by ear is the best you can do sometimes. I find we moms sometimes overthink (I know I do) because we want our kids to not miss out. The thing is, they don't care half the time - it's us moms, trying to do the 'right' thing all the time. This seemed like a great compromise! Glad you found a way to make it happen. Fun :)

_________________________________________________________

Well .. doubting what you decided because of how other people were to you, let that go.

Are you worrying about how people might judge you? Not sure I'm following. Or is it that's not how they would have handled it?

Personally, we would have probably picked the birthday party - only because, I think your daughter is quite young right? For us, those classes changed yearly (new kids), and we would have viewed it as a chance for kids to bond and have fun. Sports at that age were just for fun. That is how we approached it.

The whole you don't miss a game or let teammates down - came into play a bit later when they were older. That's a valuable lesson, but we covered that at a later age. In grade primary/one it was still let kids be kids.

As for moms telling you a party is coming up - unless it's a close friend, I found that a bit hard. We had that happen once, another invite (from close friend came in), we still hadn't had actual invite from mom #1, and our child wanted to go to close friend's party. We'd only told her about party where we'd received actual invite. We didn't even know if party #1 was still a go.

I think you don't over think, you trust your gut, and just go with it. No one will have the same answer. It's kind of a parenting style, whatever works for your family that week kind of scenario. I think whatever you decide is absolutely fine.

You're just starting to see the many activities that compete for our children's attention and our time/dollars. And you see, from the other mom's emails, the frustrations of trying to put together an event when people don't RSVP.

Her invite to you was pretty casual - verbal mention followed by a written invitation (which you had to ask for but shouldn't had had to!) but with very little lead time. Meantime, you're waiting for the soccer schedule (which also should have been done ahead of time).

Unless it was your daughter's best friend, which it wasn't, I think you made the right decision to go to the first game because this is a new activity to which your daughter haw made a commitment (yes, she's young, but still...). I'm not sure what you mean about "the way the other parents were at the back to school night" - what was going on there?

Life is about choices. Sometimes we have to choose between 2 desirable things. Your daughter will have many, many birthday invitations. It's not necessary that she attend every one, especially when they have parties of 12-15-20 kids! No one attends everything. It's up to you to help your daughter select among her friends to determine which ones are worth giving up soccer and disappointing other kids and the coach (because "I'm going to a party" means "you're not as important.") That can be okay on occasion, but it's a bad idea to tell your daughter she can practice and go to games only when she doesn't have a better offer, or to teach her that you can pay for soccer for no reason. She can't favor the party kids over the team kids. She has obligations. She's never going to like an activity if she doesn't attend - and why imply to her that school friends are better to hang out with than team friends?

I think your only mistake was in not replying to the mom because you hadn't gotten the soccer schedule. I think you have to say, "I'm going to decline because we haven't gotten the soccer schedule and I don't want to hold up your RSVPs and arrangements. E will be sorry to miss this." Practice this phrase because you will be using it many times between now and 9th grade, at which point kids take over their own social lives.

It's one of those "it depends" decisions. My boys all play/played hockey. The season is 8 months long and between two teams for each kid they play 50 games a year. So if we had a conflict for a regular season game, there were plenty of other kids available to play and there was a party for a close friend or relative, they'd skip the game. If it was playoffs, or they were really short players, or they needed a few wins to reach the post-season, they'd play instead. It also depends on the level of team - for a low-level recreational or town team, it's generally fine to miss a game here or there. For a travel team, club team or team that cuts players, you would be expected to be at every game unless something serious came up. High school players are often punished for missing practices or games.

At the end of the day, you just have to remind yourself that there will be years and years of games and years and years of ordinary birthday parties. It's not the end of the world to miss one for the other when conflicts come up. Honor those competitive situations, honor those close friendships or milestone events, and hope that few of them overlap. Over the years, there have only been two times that we've had to miss an important game or tryout and in those situations were a 70th birthday and a funeral. On the other hand, one of my kids had to be late to a Bar Mitzvah because of a playoff game.

In your situation, 3 days' notice for a birthday party is quite short and it's not unreasonable to not be able to attend with that little notice.

There's no right or wrong answer. You could easily say, "It's just a game. There will be other games." You could also say, "We made a commitment to play soccer, and there will be other opportunities to hang out with her friends."

Life is full of choices, and we simply can't do everything. It's unfortunate that the game just happen to be at the same time as the party, but you have no control over that. Also, you told the mom your daughter would PROBABLY be able to go. That's not the same as knowing the time and RSVP-ing yes.

Try not to worry about it. This is just the first of many, many times where choices have to be made. You just can't do everything.

The other parents have no right to be upset with you if you have other plans, that is their own rudeness and I would just ignore it and let it be. As for if you made the right choice, I always tell my boys that when they join a team they are making a commitment to all the other players, but we still miss a game or two each season because sometimes other things do come up. There really is no right or wrong from what you decided, I wouldn't overthink it too much.

My daughter is in soccer. We try to make all the games but there might be about 1 a season that we skip due to something else. You did the right thing. There will often be conflicts, so you have to get used to it! We turn down most other things unless it's really important to my daughter. Maybe have her go to the next bday party if it's a really good friend.

When it's a young child's sport, just for fun and exercise and teamwork development, the "hope" is that your daughter has so much fun playing in the games with her soccer team friends that she "won't even miss" the other stuff she could be doing at that time.

If that turns out not to be true, you might want to think about leaving the team (and maybe the fact that you are having second thoughts this early on means those thoughts should not be brushed aside...maybe this year is not the year to try soccer).

But trying to "do both" and skipping games every time a better offer comes up is not the right way to find that balance...it definitely would not lay the foundation for your daughter to have "as good an experience as possible" with soccer.

Soccer games are common and most people understand you wanting to show up for the first game. Also, my children's age and how close we are to the birthday child matters if we skip a game. I personally would rather be at a hot crowded field than Chuck-e-Cheese. Either choice would have been fine. You could have gone to the party and then second guessed yourself for skipping the soccer game.

If you want to connect with the mom and child, why don't you invite them to do something?

edit: You might be assuming other parents are acting a certain way because you didn't go to to a child's chuck-e-cheese party. I have a feeling that is in your head.

Team sports can be tough and often require a lot of dedication, time, effort, cost.
It's great if you are that into it.
But it will suck up a lot of your spare time to the exclusion of all else.
I think you will find that many team sports take on a cult like feeling as 'supporting the team' is what people expect and want - and somehow people try to guilt you if you're not %200 into it.

We didn't start our son in taekwondo till he was in 4th grade - and by then most of the kids weren't doing birthday parties so much anymore - so there were very few conflicts.

I don't know how old your daughter is or how she feels about attending birthday parties or how devoted she feels about soccer.
She's on the team for this year/season - she should probably support her team.
She joined - that means she's committed to the team schedule - and you should always be aware of what the schedule is.
So basically your answer is going to be "she can come if your party is not in conflict with soccer" - and there will just be so many parties that your daughter will miss.

If after the season she is over it - then she doesn't have to do soccer next year.