As I wrote earlier, this summer, Ben made the switch from baseball to soccer. He plays on the recreational league for the Menasha Area Soccer Club. While Ben, in my not-so-objective opinion, is a strong player and athlete in general, his team has struggled mightily this season. In the team's best game, they tied. On a good day, they may lose 7-1. On a bad day? They lose 15-0 and the opposing team undeniably begins to take mercy on our poor kids. The cheering dies down for the other team's many goals, and the parents and coaches start to laud every little good thing our team does.
It's been a tough season. It's difficult for the kids, who seem to grow ever more beaten down with every goal scored on them. And it's challenging for the parents, who if they're like me, don't need to see wins. We just want to see our kids having fun and making progress, but a lot of times, they just look dejected.
This is the place from which we were operating when I received an email that tryouts for competitive league were upcoming. "Do you want to do this, Ben?" I asked the day before the tryouts.
"Yeah, I'll do it," he said, sounding enthusiastic, hopeful.
Friday, the day of the tryouts, rolled around, and Ben began to hedge. Suddenly, he wasn't so sure he wanted to go through with it.
Ben has been burned before. Last year, he tried out for the tournament team for baseball. He didn't make it, but the coaches didn't even inform us of that. They just carried on without so much as a word. Then there was basketball. Ben was a newcomer when he joined last fall. He did his best, but it turned out that it just wasn't for him. It was a long season, and the experience was making him miserable. We ended up deciding, with Ben, to have him quit the team mid-season.
So Ben's already-shaky confidence has been wounded. Despite that, I don't want to see Ben making decisions just because he might fail. I see my oldest as someone who thrives on competition and activity. I saw a boy who wanted to do something but was letting fear stand in his way.
Mark and I set in trying to persuade him to change his mind. "Ben," I said, "if you think you'd like to play soccer later in life, like in high school, I think this is an opportunity you shouldn't pass up."
Ben is absolutely brilliant at twisting my words. This feature must come standard with kids his age. "Mom said that I'll never play soccer in high school if I don't do this!" he wailed a little later in our conversation.
Our boy clearly was in a lot of angst, and it anguishes me when he looks all tortured. And yet, Mark and I really believed this experience of trying out - even if he didn't make it - would be valuable for him.
The boys were scheduled to stay at my parents' Friday night so we could go out for Mark's birthday. Ben finally came around and agreed to go to the tryout, and we made a stop to watch and offer support after dinner.
Ben did great. His skill level definitely matched that of the other boys there. Mark chatted with the coach afterward, and it quickly became clear that Ben had made the team, that the only formality was figuring out the correct team on which to place him. The enormous grin that spread across Ben's face upon hearing the news erased every bit of "pain and torture" we'd inflicted on him earlier.
Ben may not be able to understand until he's an adult that all of these life experiences - the successes and, maybe even more importantly, the failures - help create us. That's why I'm going to keep trying to nudge him toward these trials, even though some turn out to be painful.
This is hard, deciding the right way to steer Ben. No pressure, though, right? We're only helping him become the person he's meant to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment