Every-Day Olympians: Surrender & Sacrifice, Part 2

Feb 19, 2014 by Jim and Jerolyn Bogear

On Tuesday, we told you about Olympian Nick Geopper and his family. We focused on some of the sacrifices they have all had to make for Nick to get to the Olympics. Today, we’ll apply some of those principles to raising our Every-Day Olympians.

How does this fit for us as every-day parents? What lessons do we learn? Let’s look at a couple of takeaways that I am sure many of you have already thought of for application…

First, we have to surrender our own ego. Make sure our priorities are right. Now, this may be more directed to dads from a dad, but often we as men want our family to pay the price for us to live out our dreams even in the form of hobbies, trying to “stay young, “ and keep living our lives while the family suffers. This is what we are talking about when it comes to surrendering our ego. Making the right choices based on proper priorities.

As parents the old joke was we had these kids to do our work for us. Surrendering our attitude that it isn’t just about us creates for us as parents a right approach. Absolutely it is NOT just about the child, but neither is it just about us. It is about US and helping the family win.

Please note the importance of the following…when it comes to discipline, responsibility, and direction, we often told our children, “as the parents we have to win. If you win, the family loses. When we win, the family wins. God designed it that way. This is a must.” We are NOT saying the children rule the house. This is clearly not best or even healthy for them or the family. We are not talking about that here. But to have them surrender aspirations and dreams so they can be around to take care of our needs/wants is not right either. Our priority as parents is to teach, model, and train our children to live right and best. How are you doing in prioritizing the importance of creating an environment of growth, encouragement, and opportunity for your children to achieve these dreams and goals? How are we surrendering our egos and committing to the right priorities?

Second, sacrifice resources and time. Nick’s parents sacrificed much. You may never choose to allow your children to go away to develop a talent. We didn’t, but we were trying to raise Every-Day Olympians. We are convinced that for us it would have been best to keep them around and invest in them face-to-face until they left home for college — which is exactly what we did. But, it still takes sacrifice on our part of both resources and time. Raising children costs dollars. It is not cheap, but it is some of the best dollars and days we ever spent. No question about it and no regrets.

We love the part where Nick’s mom said we were very encouraging and provided opportunities. Nick had responsibilities around home and was very much part of the family. He did not get anything handed to him. His passion and drive kept his dream alive, but his parents encouraged it and sacrificed much to make it happen.

Question: Are we more interested in seeing our kids succeed and develop into Every-Day Olympians or hold them back so they help us?

We all have a part to play in the family. We believe that our children very early are a part of the team and with that comes responsibility and commitment to doing even the boring simple chores. But as parents, it is our calling to help them as best we can to win.

What sacrifices are you willing to make with your resources and time to invest in raising your children to release them to make a positive impact on society? What are you willing to sacrifice to help them live a life of significance?

Isn’t that really what is an Every-Day Olympian: Nothing-special maybe to the world, but making a difference and living out the way God designed them.

• What evaluation do you need to do to make sure as parents you are creating that environment of discipline, encouragement, and opportunities for your child(ren)?
• What changes do you need to make to be more effective in living out these virtues and values to help model for and shape your child(ren)?

BTW, Nick won a Bronze medal at the Sochi 2014 Olympics just a few days ago!

~Jim