tiny progress

Today I am thankful for a tiny progress our Anika made.  She has come such a long way from 2-3 weeks ago when she first started to play soccer.  It all started with such excitement, Ani and Emily (her cousin) were going to start soccer together and they were even on the same team together.  Anika was so excited to start, with her girly soccer ball and the whole outfit :), she was going to play soccer like Kade.

Well, little did I know their first practice was going to be a traumatic experience for both girls.  The way the soccer teams start up at age 5-6 is that they play a lot of games using the soccer balls, one of them is "sharks and the minnows".  It was one of the first things the coach made all the kids do except he called it the "Monsters" game.  I realized right away I should have prepped Anika a little because she had no clue what to do and pretty soon got scared and started to cry.  I hugged her and sent her off with some simple commands for the game.  Well, pretty soon Emily got chased by a "monster" and the little boy was running towards Emily's ball a bit too fast and they collided, causing her to fall down.  More tears, this time from Emily.  They took turns crying a bit more after that, all for different things so I was glad when that practice was done.  I actually kind of laughed it off because some kids do that at first, especially if their moms are right there at the side lines.  And so I was all ready to tackle this for next time.  We practiced all the games in our yard and both Emily and Ani were doing so well with it, finally kind of getting what they were supposed to do.

But then the next practice came and Jessica told me Emily doesn't want to play soccer anymore and that she was done.  All I could think was "oh no, now Anika will want to quit for sure".  Ani is just so attached to Emily and whatever she does Ani wants to do and half of her excitement for being in soccer was that she was going to do it with Emily.  I could tell Anika had to really process it when I told her Emily won't be there anymore and there were more tears of course.  I never gave her the option of quitting though.  I told her that we signed up for soccer and now we have to finish it, no matter how hard it is and I was going to be there for her.  Next year will be another story and I won't push her if she says she doesn't like it but right now, we are going to persevere. :)

And now, 3 practices later I am so glad I didn't give up on Anika.  I kept encouraging her, practicing with her at home and praising her for little things.  Today was the first practice she didn't cry one bit.  I think she's finally getting more comfortable with the routine of it, what is expected of her and what the little games are.  A little reward also probably helped because she wanted a piece of gum on the way to the practice and I said "how about if you don't cry tonight you can have one on the way home?"  I know, sneaky. :)  But I was so proud of her tonight.  Not because she is doing such a great job with soccer and not because she is getting better at the little drills but because she worked so hard to overcome her fear, to get out there and try her best even though she feels like she can't do it at all.  It is just so different to watch her from when I was there watching Kade 3 years ago.  He is athletic and very coordinated and it took him no time to figure the basics of soccer out.  Anika is nothing like him and has a hard enough time running without having to kick the ball in front of her :) but she tries so hard and she doesn't give up and I love that about her.

Ani and Emily together at the first tragic practice :)

I get it that some of us are not into sports and are not born athletic so I am not going to push Ani into doing it but I will still ask every year in case she will one day say she'll play soccer again.  And maybe she'll surprise me and will love it some day.  But for now, I am happy she went thru the practice without a tear and that even though it's a bit early in life, she got a little lesson on how not to quit something just because it's hard or just because her best friend quits.  And I do know everyone's personality is different and with some children, there's no use in trying to make them do it if they make up their mind to quit but I know that's not Anika.  Her team will start playing games against other little teams once a week now so we'll see how that goes but somehow that part is not that scary to her, it's more the drills she's worried about.