It was about a month ago when my daughter Camryn came to curling practice with me. She really loves coming to the rink with me or with my husband to watch.
The next day when she got dressed for school, she insisted on wearing her Camryn-sized replica Team Jones curling jersey (with my name on it) to school.
She was so proud and so excited.
I, on the other hand, was actually a little embarrassed! I wasn’t embarrassed for her, but for myself. I didn’t want anyone at the school to think that I made her wear the jersey or even gave her the idea! But I also knew how proud she was to wear it and there was no way I was going to deny her that.
When I picked her up that day, I asked her if anyone said anything about her attire for the day. She told me a few of her friends said they really liked it and that that made her feel special.
I feel happy to think that she is so proud of her jersey, and therefore likely my curling and me. But do I want her to curl? I get asked this question fairly often and my answer is always the same – only if she wants to play.
As an elite athlete and now a parent, my belief is that the more sports and such that kids are exposed to at a younger age, the more chance there is for success in a single sport later in life. I also think it can just lead to success in general as sport can teach you so much about yourself, teamwork and many other things.
I am an example of this mulit-sport exposure as I did gymnastics, played soccer, got all my figure skating badges and I even twirled the baton! Much of that was before I started curling and some of it was while I was curling in my teens. Plus in school I played volleyball, basketball and then ultimately curling started to take over more of my time.
Wayne Gretsky is also an example of this. He was quoted in a National Post article saying that he played a number of different sports and always looked forward to the break from hockey.
“I was absolutely ecstatic to see the end of the hockey season,” Gretzky told the National Post in 2000. “One of the worst things to happen to the game, in my opinion, has been year-round hockey and, in particular, summer hockey. All it does for kids, as far as I can tell, is keep them out of sports they should be doing in the warmer weather.”
Right now, I just want my kid to be active, build her balance and physical strength, learn focus and concentration and have fun trying different things.
And as much as I want to enroll her in numerous activities, I refuse to run her down by having her do five different things every week, or even worse, five days of the same thing! (This is a whole other topic I will tackle one day soon!)
So in the end, I will sign her up for different activities throughout her young school years, but the answer to the question I get asked so often is – Camryn will curl if she wants to curl. If Camryn decides she wants nothing to do with it, or any sport for that matter, then that is okay with me.