My Team Mate – Not My Friend | Softball is For Girls

Team Work makes the dream work, right? In reality, not all team mates are friends, and you know what….THAT IS OK!

In today’s world we need to stop holding our daughters to the standard that they have to like and be liked by everyone. And this is also true on softball teams, or any kind of teams for that matter. And sometimes to be honest, it works out better if players are not ‘besties’ off the field as it can reduce the drama on the field.

As kids get older, and team dynamics change, girls will be placed together on teams, or tryout teams from all sorts of geographical areas. No longer is the team comprised of classmates that know each other really well and have been playing together since they were 6.

These new people hold new lessons and new experiences for our daughters. They start developing their own emotional IQ when it comes to peers, and who they want to let into their inner circle. This type of intuition should be encouraged, and parents should stop constantly trying to force girls to become ‘friends’ and creating drama around friend groups within a team.

It is natural and normal to not be liked, and to not like everyone. It is natural to be closer with some people than you are to others. It is okay to have different relationships with different people even if you share something like a team.

Most adults don’t like all of their workmates? Most adults don’t like every other parent they meet just because they are on the same team. This doesn’t mean that they are rude to one another or intolerant, but that they understand their relationship and respect their own feelings when it comes to who is actually a friend.

One of the problems with today in general is that kids think everyone is their friend. They think they have to be best buds with everyone and feel left out and butt-hurt if they aren’t included. They share their lives with tons of people on social media, and assume that they have lots of friends. We need to teach our daughters what a friend really is, and that there are different types of friendships. They will be on both sides of that coin throughout their life.

It is perfectly, 100% okay for girls to be teammates, and not necessarily BFF’s.

What IS important is that they are GOOD team-mates! What IS important is that they have respect for one another on and off the field, and that they respect not just their own feelings – but that of the other girls on the team and learn to work together for the greater good of the team.

THAT BEING SAID. If there is any sort of team activity, then everyone needs to be invited and everyone needs to be involved. That’s part of being a good teammate, too. Anything team related, should involve everyone.

Parents…please stop forcing friendships on your girls. If it it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t – that is ok, too. Teach the how to be great teammates, and not be so focused on what happens outside of the team.

In a perfect world, you will have a team with 12 girls who are all best friends, and play together perfectly on and off the field, without any drama or issues. Our world is not perfect, and the earlier our girls learn that the better off they will be. Be a great teammate…if the bestest friendship doesn’t come out of it – that is ok.