Basketball Begins

Oct 30, 2010

Basketball Begins

Today was the first day of basketball for both of my children. Neither of them has ever played before so their dribbling skills are a little rusty, but there they were at 9:00am ready to go with the rest of the group. It was a fantastic hour of play.

The morning before practice could have gone a little better. My son has been having a lot of trouble off and on for the last few weeks and I think I've finally figured out what it is. It's new stuff. Today he was so excited to go to basketball but I knew before the meltdowns began that something was wrong. We coasted through the morning until it was time to get dressed. Enter meltdown city. What was the catastrophic event? What to wear, sweatpants or shorts. Yes, that was the big question of the day. The underlying problem was that if the wrong pants were chosen, someone would make fun of him.

It's so hard to explain to a 6 yr old that pants vs. shorts just doesn't matter when they view it as the most important event in the world. Finally, I tossed my child to the floor, put pants and socks on him and carried him to the minivan screaming.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? At age 2 my son started crying because he didn't want to go to McDonalds for lunch. When I said we wouldn't go, he started crying because I wouldn't take him. At age 6, we sometimes repeat this loop.

I have been cautioned and reminded by our therapist to not confuse son's chronological age with his emotional age but I so rarely see such a good example. I guess this week, my son will sometimes be emotionally 2 years old. While this isn't ideal, it's ok. I remember when he was emotionally 1 year old and this is better.

What happened after we entered the minivan screaming, you might ask? The same thing that happened when he was 2. When the decision was taken out of his hands, he adjusted and had a great day. It's strange how all kids sometimes need parents to just step and take over. While my children don't always like me making the decisions for them, they gain a massive sense of security that I can and will make the decisions if necessary.

The rest of the day was... fantastic.