My husband is a bit of a sports nut. OK, he’s actually sports obsessed. He’ll watch just about any sport at any time. The thing that can make this fun is that my husband and I do not cheer for any of the same teams. He grew up in Texas and is loyal to his Texas teams. I stick with my Wisconsin teams.

This has also become interesting with our kids. Much to my chagrin, my kids usually side with their dad. Hannah cheers for the Green Bay Packers, but other than that whatever team Daddy roots for is the one she goes for. The same is true with Sammy, with the exception of football. Most of the time he cheers for the Dallas Cowboys who is dad’s team, but somehow he became a St. Louis Rams fan.

Even though I’m not a huge sports fan, this has become a family event. On Sundays my husband is usually sitting in front of the TV and watching whatever the sports event is, possibly even switching between different channels. I am usually on the couch writing, reading, or knitting. This becomes the time for the kids to join us on the couch.

We have good hearted banter back and forth cheering for our different teams. It is only in NASCAR races that our teams are always against each other. I am a Matt Kenseth fan and then we have the Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. fans. My husband has even taught Hannah to say “Go Tony Go!”

The plus side of these rivalries is that our kids can see that families can disagree, but still love each other.

For the most part, these can be fun family times, and allow us to spend time together and having fun. It also allows the kids the TV time that they want but we don’t allow very much of it. Sometimes there are commercials that we don’t really care for, but it allows us to talk about different questions and situations. If players get in a fight, and let’s face it there are fights in sport, we can talk about better ways to handle these situations.

The kids like to be able to “fight” with mom and cheer against her and “get away with it” but it’s all done in fun. We teach sportsmanship, winning gracefully and being a good loser.

If you have sports rivalries in your family, use it as an opportunity to have some fun and teach your kids some fun lessons.

Photo credit - Note the photo is of the Green Bay Packer game. :)