Want a Closer Relationship with Your Kids? - The Guide to Staying Connected with Your Children Through Baseball

"As soon as my son turned 14, he turned me off like a light switch," one neighbor told me. "It seems like last week we were playing baseball or basketball in the back yard, and then suddenly he powered me down like the computer he uses 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."

"My daughter grew up in 24 hours," a friend of mine complained. "One day we were watching Sponge Bob, the next day she was shopping for ludicrous-looking, way too suggestive clothing in an overcrowded mall with too many boys roaming around."

It is the universal lament of parents, and it's worth noting here in the spring and summer months, as Mother's Day and Father's Day comes and goes, baseball season revs up, and the heat of day beckons us outdoors on a regular basis, that it is a time-honored lament as well. This is not a generational issue. Children have been growing up too fast for as long as we have walked upright.

So how do parents maintain that connection with their kids as they yearn to slip away? I found an elixir for the all too common "nothing in common" excuse.

The Guide To Staying Connected With Your Children

Arguably, there are many ways to find linkages that will strengthen the ever-fragile relationship with your teenage children. There is one that doesn't require therapy or eavesdropping on their cell phone conversations to better understand what they like and dislike. Take them to ball games...basketball, baseball, football, or hockey...the bigger the game, the better.

My son and I have attended many games over the last 10 years. Last October, for instance, we attended Game 7 of the New York Mets-St. Louis Cardinals Championship Series. That night, the air buzzed with a familiar beehive sound that gets under your skin and then beads up in the form of goose bumps. The tension was palpable. The excitement was sincere. We sat amongst fire-breathing, screaming humanity all night long. Game 7. Playoff time. We had never attended a game seven in baseball...heavens, not a game seven for the Mets

We had experienced similar atmospheres at ear-splitting New York Knick playoff games at Madison Square Garden during the '90's when my son, then just approaching his teenage years, knew little of the seemingly limitless passion of fans, particularly New York-bred fans. He learned quickly that the explosive and relentless release of energy in enclosed areas amongst like-minded people brought together in a temporary forum of brotherhood is an exhilarating experience unlike many others. My daughter, now age 12, has also been exposed to this continuous electrical current of energy at a sporting event, witnessing a Derek Lowe no-hitter at Fenway Park a few years back.

But this was a different setting. This was a baseball Game Seven.

If you're a father, you know the feeling. If you've ever agonized with your son or daughter over a botched sacrifice bunt, booted ground ball, or runner left on third base with less than two outs, you know the feeling. If you've ever celebrated with him a walk-off home run, or run-producing hit that ties a game in the ninth inning, you know the feeling.

This particular game ended badly. Two runs in the ninth by the Cardinals. Enough frustration to burst a gaggle of blood vessels. A brutal baseball loss. But there was something greater at work that evening. It became clear early on as the decibels rose, the stands shook, and it felt momentarily as if we had been lifted into the air, suspended in the moment. A look was passed between him and me, one that registers with a father. An indelible memory was being forged, I knew, one that would provide heady competition for any other moment in our lifetime.

Five Quick Steps To Re-Connect the Parent-Child Relationship

- Identify the big game. Ideally it's a playoff game, but it doesn't have to be. My father and I attended a Mets regular season baseball game in 1969 when Tom Seaver pitched a near perfect game...and I remember it as if it happened yesterday.

- Resolve to be unconcerned about ticket prices. This idea is going to cost you. If you have to purchase the tickets through unconventional, and premium, avenues...do it.

- Use the event to open the lines of communications prior to the day of the event, and to and from the game in whatever transport you choose. They can't get away from you there, and it's easier for them to talk when confined then not to.

- Get their friends involved as well. Your children select friends based on common interests so there's a good chance the guest will be energized by the event as well...and it will give you a chance to find out how the friend(s) are influencing your child.

- Soak in every second of the game...the sound, the smell, the way the sky appears if you're outside, everything. Encourage your children to do so as well. The mind's picture is always more revealing than a digital photo.

Why does this strategy work? For me, I don't know and don't much care. In my case, perhaps this latest experience resonates because it was a baseball game, the great American linkage between generations. But in general, I believe it is because of the pressure-free exhilaration...no matter the result, life would proceed relatively unchanged to the next moment.

I do know I will remember every minute of that night and every night I attended a game with my children...the noise, the panorama of frenzied people, and, most importantly, the look on my children's face. These are moments we still speak of today...and isn't that the point?