Post-Meltdown Practice

Two bright things, a frustration, and a lot of funny pictures from soccer practice tonight. The kids started off by running and dribbling around the entire school. Like most practices, Shane showed strong at some points and then required some heavy coaching and coaxing at others.

Bright spot #1: Shane may be a budding defender!

And, boy, does he know how to celebrate!

Best video of the night. I'll have to start humility training another time.

Shane's turn on offense shows a different tale. The first 13 seconds illustrate my point. The rest lingers on.....and on....and on....which shows Shane's ability to not let things go.

Freeze frame at 9 seconds.

It reminds me of the cover for Platoon.

At the first hint of frustration, failure, or a mistake Shane hits the dirt.

Again...

...and again....

...and again.

Thankfully, he got up each time tonight. Most of the times took some form of coach or my intervention, but the important thing was he got back out there. My number two goal for playing soccer in general is for Shane to learn how to cope with frustration and failure. It doesn't matter how many times you fall as long as you get back up again.

The number one goal is to be a team player. That includes listening to coaches and making friends. There was a team playground party after practice.

When we got home, Shane wanted to play Angry Birds on my phone. I told him there were three things we needed to talk about from practice first: One thing to work on, and two things that were great. Then I made him sit with Carrie and I and we watched the videos above. 

Frustration video: "Everyone gets frustrated. Get back up faster."

Defender video: "Great job! Look, you didn't get it the first time, but you didn't flop down. You kept trying, and trying, and look!" Big smile.

Playground picture: "And I liked that you were being kind and playing with all your teammates. It was a good practice."

Then Shane got Angry Birds. I don't want to give Shane my phone after every practice, but it felt appropriate this time. There were a lot of flops, but I wanted to emphasize and reward the positives (which is also why I showed the defense video in front of Carrie - It was the most exerting and skilled soccer effort Shane has done to date).

Frankly, it would be better if soccer was the reward itself. I hope that it will morph into that. Practicing anything takes time and effort. I've found the rewards are well worth it, and I hope Shane will agree one day.