Blue Susan Makes: Confessions of a Soccer Mom: 4 tips to Survive the Season

Since I love to read about how other people manage all they do with a bunch of kids, today I'm writing about just that. Well, as far as Soccer is concerned at least. I confess, I was a bit leery of putting all 4 kids in Soccer this season. I was afraid of getting stretched in too many directions and we don't have family around to help. Watching 4 soccer games each Saturday didn't sound like what I wanted to do with my time. But I am here to say the way it has worked out has been totally doable. My younger three play in the Rec league and my oldest plays Competitive. Thankfully her team does not usually travel too far. Because games somewhat overlap, most of the time my husband and I each end up watching 2 or 3 games a Saturday. Most Saturdays we are home by 2 and sometimes wear are done by 11 am.

Here are a few things we've done to help the season run more smoothly.

1. Step up and coach!

This season I am coaching my littlest son's team and my husband coaches my oldest boy's team. When you are the coach you get to pick the practice schedules. When everyone's practices are on the same nights it makes our lives a whole lot easier. We just contacted my middle son's coach and made our practices around the same times. I have no soccer experience, which is totally fine for the younger age groups. The league gives us suggested practice plans and there are a lot of online resources as well. I love it because a get to play with my son and get a little exercise too. You can do it too!

2. Make Friends!

Make friends with the parents of other kids on your team. Most of the time I just like to keep to myself but getting to know other families with multiple kids in soccer has saved my life. When games overlap or I have to be two places at one time I know them well enough to trust them with my kids and help me out. Chances are they'll need my help another week and it all works out.

3. Carpool!

Any mom of more than 2 kids knows that carpools can be a life saver. My daughter has practice from 6:30-8:00 two times a week at a different field than the rest of us. We take her and a friend to the practices and the friend's mom pick up. It is great because we are in the middle of getting the rest to bed at pick up time.

4. Ice Cream!

I have another confession to make, we bribe our kids with Ice Cream. If anyone scores a goal in a game they earn Ice Cream for the family that day. We started this little tradition to add a little motivation to my timid kids and make the games a little more exciting. Of course this mainly just works for the younger ones. The older ones don't always have an opportunity to score goals depending on the position they play. Sometimes hard work and excellent playing earns ice cream too. With 4 kids playing we celebrate with ice cream every week. One crazy day my youngest scored 7. He was so excited and proud to earn his family ice cream.

That's all for today! I am not going to lie and say it isn't all a little crazy. We do get the fields late sometimes and lose the occasional shin guard along the way. I even forgot about make up pictures for my son this week and he had to squeeze into the littlest's uniform for the picture, which was less conspicuous than the tie dye shirt he was wearing. But we are doing it. My kids love it and because they do, I do to.

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