Same for me. I’m nit sure if it requires playing at a competitive level or not, but playing on a team trying to accomplish a goal, battling adversity, sacraficing for each other, etc are really impactful experiences that I attribute most of my personal success to.

Team sports has too much 'coach as dictator' for non-competitive kids to develop. They are left to pasture, literally. Only the star athletes receive attention, then they bully the rest.

Love hockey. It's expensive but the most fun thing my kids have done. Great life lessons on teamwork and working together to achieve something.

Sports yes. Or anything where a group or team works to accomplish a goal.

I left the church just as every other thoughtful kid was supposed to but I miss it and worry frequently that American culture is slowly losing something which was foundational to its wellbeing.

By the time I was 12, church was something I was forced to do. I already doubted the whole premise, but couldn't actually say anything about it. And to top it all off, the churches my parents chose didn't really have kids my age. In sunday school, they usually had to decide which "special" class I was going to be in: THe one with older kids or the one with younger ones. It isn't like American children get any sort of voice in whether or not they go to church or which church/religion they adhere to.

I didn't have access to the other things, or at least I didn't know of these places in the small town I lived in.

True, historically taught Martial Arts are fantastic for a well rounded development, whereas the toxic male fantasy taught at many schools is the opposite. It pays in spades to investigate a martial arts school's instructor personalities, as many are male failures attempting some type of redemption through domineering others' children.