Where is the manual for this parenting thing?

Today was our first soccer practice.

It’s not really practice, it’s more like a camp for little soccer newbies. It’s run by some of the local college players and is only one evening per week for four weeks.

We bought all the gear. We went over the basics in the backyard. We packed our Gatorade and signed in at the table and found the group we were to go with.

And by the second station, she was in tears.

It could have been that it was a busy day. Preschool Easter egg hunts and late bedtimes the night before because of swimming and afternoon snacks of Easter candy probably didn’t help. It also could have been her recent trend of not wanting to do things that she doesn’t know how to do. Which is what concerned me.

I don’t know how we got in this habit of her only wanting to do things she knows she can succeed at. Ironically, it goes against everything that I preached in my time in education about redefining our relationship with the idea of “failure” and all the experiences and learning you miss out on if you’re driven by a fear of failure.

She loves praise, like a typical firstborn. She likes succeeding and being good at things. But for the life of me, I don’t know how she got so “bad” at being “bad” at things.

The real kicker is, she is good at soccer. Being among the older kids in the camp, she could have easily excelled. But the running of the camp was a little chaotic and so the directions at each station were often less than clear.

And when you don’t know the rules, you don’t know how to win. And if you’re afraid of not winning, it makes you not want to try.

Sigh.

I’m a fairly tough-love parent compared to other parents I know. But I also do my best to be encouraging and patient and compassionate. So what do you do here? Send her back in even though she is uncomfortable because you know it’s in her best interest to learn how to be in situations where she don’t know how to succeed? Or let her pull herself out because she doesn’t like it? I want her to give something a fair chance, but I also want her to listen to her feelings. A complicated balance for a four year old.

I didn’t force her back in, but I didn’t welcome her to the sidelines either. I asked why she was crying and what she was afraid of and pointed out that the other kids didn’t know what was going on either. They were all just running around like crazy and why didn’t she go have fun?

And then came the, “I don’t like soccer.” Which would be fine had she actually TRIED soccer. But she hadn’t. She had been skeptical and complained from the beginning. Not because she didn’t like soccer but because she didn’t like not knowing how to win at something before she ever even tried.

It’s so hard to know where the line is between being a controlling parent and being an open-ended parent is. On one hand, I want to teach her that she has choices and that I will respect those choices. But on the other hand, if she doesn’t learn how to honestly try something, how will she find the things she loves? It’s not ok for her to be driven by fear.  For her to only choose things that don’t scare her. Because that’s the opposite of authenticity. She is choosing based on what she thinks others will think.

And yet another layer to the complication is this: the class DID suck. It was horribly run and chaotic. They didn’t teach them any skills, they just turned them loose with soccer balls and told them to go after each other. They rotated quickly through stations, but several of the stations did the same thing. So just as the kids were getting the hang of the rules and the boundaries, they had to stop and move. For a little girl who was expecting to go learn something, I could see how it would be confusing and disappointing.

I could let her quit, because she doesn’t like it and I understand why. Because it seems like a waste of time the way it is run. Or I could make her stick it out. Because In life, she is going to encounter situations where circumstances are less than ideal and she may need to learn to make the best of it. Teach her resiliency or teach her to listen to her self. How do you choose?

Honestly, I was hoping that while I was writing this it would suddenly become clear. It hasn’t.

I told her I didn’t want her to quit, because I felt like that wasn’t an actual representation of the way soccer is. And I wanted her to try actual soccer before she decided whether or not she liked it. But I also told her that I didn’t think that this class was the best way to learn about soccer. So I would call the ymca tomorrow and see if I could get her on a team instead.

I guess maybe when I don’t know what the right thing to teach her is, the only thing I can do is lead by example. To listen to my inner voice of discipline and also listen to how I feel about the situation, and then do the best I can to honor both.