sports
It's official, my E is definitely not into organized sports. We tried kiddie soccer when he was 3 1/2. The whole group would run together to go play knights and castles with the cones and balls, but E would saunter off in the other direction and sit on a soccer ball. The coaches tried to get him to keep up with the group and run around with them, but he was always at the end of the pack. The next year, he started preschool, and seemed to figure out the fun of playing with the group. I began to chalk up his past soccer performances as a lack of experience with the group mentality idea, you know, standing in line, waiting your turn, etc. Or maybe he just really wasn't interested in soccer. Now, I'm thinking it's just organized sports, or perhaps sports in general.
Today was his big cross country district meet. This is the event they've been practicing for over the last 5 weeks. It didn't work out for me to help at practices, so I'd never seen him in action. In typical E form, he's been back and forth between liking it and hating it, but still keeps going. Today he really didn't want to go to the meet, and yesterday after his last practice he was quite frustrated over the fact that all the big kids run faster than him. We had a nice talk about how much more time those kids have had to grow and practice, and that next year he'd be bigger, too. He was still a little uninterested even as all the kindergartener boys were lining up at the start, but a friend of his who was there said, "do you want to do this? Are you ready?" and E said, "yes." Then they held hands until the starting horn. Very cute, but the friend is a faster runner and was ahead of him very soon. The run was a half mile, and I was fully expecting E to be the last kid. Surprisingly he was merely towards the back of the pack. That is, until he got a little tired, then he started walking. Once I saw him jog for a bit again, but that was it for running. Not only was he last, but he was last by a long, long way. The girls started quite a while after the boys, and a number of them passed him. I tired urging him on at the end, but that made him stop walking and stand there, turning around looking for me. With some help from a couple other parents who were afraid he'd get lost in the vast throng of running girls approaching, he made it across the finish line, got his little yellow "finished" ribbon, and was given a cookie. We took him out to dinner to celebrate (and because we don't have a functional stove), and he held that ribbon the whole way, wanted to bring it into the restaurant, hung it up back at home, and wrote his name on it. So, he's thrilled over his ribbon, but clearly feels little pressure to push himself physically. Rather comical to watch. The kid is lean, energetic, and can spend all day running around. I can't quite figure out yet whether it's just that he doesn't like running for the sake of running, is afraid to perform poorly so doesn't try very hard, or is just adverse to being told what to do and how to do it. Certainly the latter applies to many other things in his life. Probably the fact that neither of his parents care about sports so he's had almost zero exposure has something to do with it. Whatever it is, it likely doesn't really matter so much. The other kids from his school didn't do great, so us parents were joking that that's because we're an arts school, not an athletic school - apparently one of the other schools has practice 4 days a week (we did 2), and for longer. It'll be interesting to see if he wants to try again next year.
Today was his big cross country district meet. This is the event they've been practicing for over the last 5 weeks. It didn't work out for me to help at practices, so I'd never seen him in action. In typical E form, he's been back and forth between liking it and hating it, but still keeps going. Today he really didn't want to go to the meet, and yesterday after his last practice he was quite frustrated over the fact that all the big kids run faster than him. We had a nice talk about how much more time those kids have had to grow and practice, and that next year he'd be bigger, too. He was still a little uninterested even as all the kindergartener boys were lining up at the start, but a friend of his who was there said, "do you want to do this? Are you ready?" and E said, "yes." Then they held hands until the starting horn. Very cute, but the friend is a faster runner and was ahead of him very soon. The run was a half mile, and I was fully expecting E to be the last kid. Surprisingly he was merely towards the back of the pack. That is, until he got a little tired, then he started walking. Once I saw him jog for a bit again, but that was it for running. Not only was he last, but he was last by a long, long way. The girls started quite a while after the boys, and a number of them passed him. I tired urging him on at the end, but that made him stop walking and stand there, turning around looking for me. With some help from a couple other parents who were afraid he'd get lost in the vast throng of running girls approaching, he made it across the finish line, got his little yellow "finished" ribbon, and was given a cookie. We took him out to dinner to celebrate (and because we don't have a functional stove), and he held that ribbon the whole way, wanted to bring it into the restaurant, hung it up back at home, and wrote his name on it. So, he's thrilled over his ribbon, but clearly feels little pressure to push himself physically. Rather comical to watch. The kid is lean, energetic, and can spend all day running around. I can't quite figure out yet whether it's just that he doesn't like running for the sake of running, is afraid to perform poorly so doesn't try very hard, or is just adverse to being told what to do and how to do it. Certainly the latter applies to many other things in his life. Probably the fact that neither of his parents care about sports so he's had almost zero exposure has something to do with it. Whatever it is, it likely doesn't really matter so much. The other kids from his school didn't do great, so us parents were joking that that's because we're an arts school, not an athletic school - apparently one of the other schools has practice 4 days a week (we did 2), and for longer. It'll be interesting to see if he wants to try again next year.