We never really planned out how we would raise our kids. We had certain values we wanted to instill in them, different activities we wanted them to try, and certain words we didn’t want them to say…but we didn’t really subscribe to a particular parenting style.

Now that we are in the thick of it, we recognize that definitely do have our own unique style.

As soon as we learned that we were pregnant with our first, we gave ourselves the nickname “Team Ortega”. It was mostly because we had spent the majority of our young adult lives coaching athletics; we see ourselves as a team. Mommy and Daddy are definitely the coaches.

Renzo coached competitive basketball for over 10 years and was blessed enough to follow a special group of young men from elementary school through multiple high school state championships and qualified for few national championship tournaments to boot. Monica coached competitive softball and volleyball. As a softball coach, she coached state and regional championship teams, and in volleyball, she had the pleasure of building a solid high school program that made some noise at the state level.

Our parenting style is something very different than you might read in any parenting books because it looks very similar to coaching, a little like mentoring, and a lot like unconditional love from parents that are preparing the littles one for future success.

Rules Vs Expectations

When I coached basketball, I remember bringing my team of young men all over the state, and even a couple of times around the country for National Tournaments. We encountered teams that were willing to do anything to win. And I mean anything. They bent the rules, yelled at the refs, swore at our players, and did not play the game the right way.

I remember my boys getting flustered and visibly aggravated, yet I would drill into them that regardless of what the other team was doing, we would not compete on those terms. I expected them to play the game the way we knew how, and I expected them to be disciplined enough to do it the right way.

This might sound like a lot to ask for young men to do - it was.

It might sound even harder when I tell you that the young men were only 13 years old - it was. But they did it, and they succeeded both in virtue and in wins.

As parents we’ve worked on framing every “rule” in our home in terms of “expectations” for Team Ortega.

We don’t tell our kids “don’t swear”, we remind them that in our family, we are expected to use proper language.

We don’t tell them “don’t lie”, we remind them that in our family, we are expected to tell the truth and be honest.

What comes from that framework is an intrinsic sense of duty. Rather than having extrinsic rules constantly being imposed onto them, we are trying to build an internal conscience. The goal is that when they find themselves in a moral dilemma, that their mentality shifts from saying “You’re breaking a rule” to “this is how I am expected to act.” We believe this kind of framing can sow the seeds of virtue as they get older and helps them to be adaptable regardless of what the situation may be. Virtue is always right and good.

This has also helped us when our kids are exposed to behaviors that we may not want them picking up. Other families can do what they do; Team Ortega does what we are expected to do.

Monica’s pre-game chant reinforced this idea:

Monica: “Who’s game are we playing?” Team: “Our game!” M: “Who’s game?!” T: “Our game!!”

High Expectations + Mercy

Setting and meeting high expectations require a lot of practice, a lot of mercy, and a lot of grace.

As a coach, I could spend hours working on the same skill or play with my team. They would hate it. I would pick up on the most subtle mistake and have them run through the same thing again and again in order for it to sink into their DNA.

The reality is, they never got it perfectly - never in a practice, nor a game. But they knew where the bar was, and they aimed for that bar regardless of how many times they fell short.

When they fell short, and they always did, I would always let them know how proud of them I was for taking on the impossible task. Their striving for it was the win.

We see parenting our kids the same way.

Every single day is a practice. We run through the same things over and over and over again: how to treat our sibling, how to set and clear the table, how to put away laundry, how to hold the door open for others, how to clean up spills, and how to clean marker off the walls after you colored all over for the tenth time.

Parenting is a never-ending practice, and the goal is not to have the perfect day. That will never happen.

The goal is to make sure they know where the bar is, where the expectations are. And to strive for excellence. Because they will not ever be perfect. They will fail, they will sin, and they will fall short of the high expectations.

But they will know they tried their best and they will know how to adjust. The goal is that one day they can leave our home knowing where the bar is, and that it’s a good thing to strive for excellence. Not because perfection is achievable, but because the striving is admirable. They will hopefully spend their days aiming for that bar and letting grace make up the difference.

First Educators, First Coaches

“Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children” (CCC 2223). We take the education and formation of our kids very seriously, however, we’ve decided that before teaching our kids anything in the academic or catechetical sphere, and after introducing them to the love of God, we want to teach, and coach, them on how to be a person. We sometimes refer to this as “human formation”.

You see, God created us to be holy and wholly human. With holiness and wholeness as our high expectation, we must coach our children to integrate all that our faith is into the realness of life.

Our perspective is that our role as parents is to coach our children in living in the truth of their belovedness and to be able to live that truth out in the world, not just within our home.

Therefore, we practice social interactions: how to be kind, how to advocated for oneself, how to include others, how to avoid those who are not treating you well, and how to be polite. Seriously, we quite literally practice these kinds of interactions as if they were a play. And then we throw in “curve balls” and practice adapting.

We “watch tape”. We go over parts of our day and dissect how they went and how we can improve, discuss scenarios that happen in books or on TV, or use our interactions as parents as example by giving the kids insight into how we handled certain events.

As CS Lewis states in Abolition of Man, “Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought.” We are their first educator and their first coaches. And our aim is to form our team in the best way we know how.

“Coaching” is our style…catch us in 20 years and we’ll let you know how it turned out!

Become what you are - Renzo & Monica