“To play or not to play? That is the question.” With all due respect to William Shakespeare, the question isn’t whether we will be, it’s whether we will play. Today’s workplace is much tougher. Companies cutting back their workforces resulting in more tasks being placed on those who remain. Home time isn’t much better.
Maintaining a proper home life seems to take more effort these days and doesn’t provide much rest for the weary. Plenty of activities, chores, and diversions compete with each other for your time and money. Your kids go one way, dad goes another, and mom heads off a third (after chores are done, of course). The family is being pulled apart at the seams. What we need is something that will pull the family together.
I had a nice visit with a young father yesterday as he was picking his children up from golf camp. I explained that over their four days here, they learned to properly hold a club, address the ball, and take four different swings (roll, chip, pitch, and launch) and that he and his wife would need to reinforce what we had taught his children in the coming months so that they didn’t lose what they had learned. He explained that he didn’t play.
Whether you’re a traveling salesman, mechanic, or stay-at-home dad, it’s important to play with your children. I shared with him how golf and other games provide ample opportunities to teach valuable life lessons about perseverance, honest, integrity, caring, and so forth. I explained playing enhances a child’s creativity that they will need to solve the problems of tomorrow.
Since, he hadn’t taken lessons before I recommended that he come in with his family and take a family class together to help reinforce the instruction and play together. I hope they do. Golf provides many benefits that will last your children the rest of their lives and their children’s lives (a.k.a. your grandchildren). Want to play with your grandchildren? Perhaps today is a good day to start teaching their parents how to play.
