Red Rover Ruined Me: Lessons on Raising a Resilient Child
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
I sat down to write this week and went digging through old memories for a story worth telling.
If you're a child of the '70s or '80s, you already know where this is going.
I was always — ALWAYS — the last one picked to "come over."
There I'd stand in my overly high waisted pants with the elastic waist and tennis shoes , trying to look completely unbothered while internally negotiating with God.
Please… just don't let me be last again.
Spoiler alert.
I was. Every. Single. Time.
Now — was I the fastest kid? Absolutely not.
Did I have the coordination of a rolly polly puppy? Perhaps.
But still. It stung.
Looking back, I sometimes wonder if that's where my lifelong desire to be chosen began.
Chosen by friends.
Chosen by boys.
Chosen for jobs.
Chosen by clients.
Chosen.
Funny how a playground game that lasted five minutes can leave a mark that quietly follows you for forty years.
Today, I watched my seven-year-old daughter have her own version of Red Rover. For the last several days she's cried because she doesn't want to go back to camp. Last summer she got hit square in the face with a dodgeball, and the other kids laughed.
That's it.
That's the memory she carried home.
Not the swimming.
Not the crafts.
Not the fun.
Just the laughter.
So I've spent the week doing what moms do.
"Sweetheart, you'll make new friends."
"It was one bad moment."
"It probably won't happen again."
"You're brave."
And I believed every word I said.
Until I drove away.
Because suddenly I realized I wasn't just talking to my daughter anymore.
I was talking to little Brandy, standing on the Red Rover line.
It made me wonder if parenting isn't just about raising a resilient child.
Maybe it's also about healing ourselves.
I want my daughter to be resilient. I want her to know that one embarrassing moment doesn't define her. I want her to walk into camp tomorrow with her shoulders back and her chin up.
But I also don't want to dismiss something that felt enormous to her.
Because resilience isn't pretending something didn't hurt.
Resilience is acknowledging that it did — and finding the courage to go back anyway.
Maybe confidence isn't teaching our kids that they'll never be rejected.
Maybe it's teaching them that they will.
Someone will laugh.
They'll be picked last.
They'll lose.
They'll get their hearts broken.
They won't make the team.
The offer won't come.
Someone else will get chosen.
Every adult you admire has a Red Rover story.
It just isn't called Red Rover anymore.
Life has a funny way of changing the game but keeping the lesson.
Maybe our job as parents isn't to make sure our children never get hit by the dodgeball or picked last on the playground.
Maybe it's to make sure they know that when it happens — and it will — they are still worthy.
Still lovable.
Still enough.
Because the truth is, I survived Red Rover.
My daughter will survive dodgeball.
And if we're lucky, maybe she'll spend a lot less of her adult life wondering whether she was ever enough.
Sincerely, Me
Comments