Monday, April 30, 2012

One Proud Momma

Saturday was little man's second soccer game.  We discovered last week that his team can sort of actually play when they slaughtered the other team 35 to 2 or something like that.  Watching him get so excited to go to practice or a game has been great considering the only thing he ever requests is video games.  His focus and intensity has been awesome.  I didn't get to see this game, but I got several play by plays from all the kids and Adam.

Apparently Adam made a bribery deal with little man in an effort to get him to really try.  I guess it had several tiers with smaller prizes for smaller accomplishments, leading up to a video game after he scored 5 goals.  He thought it would take the whole season.  Not so with our little man.  Once he knew what was at stake, he made sure it happened.  He scored three goals in the first 5 minutes of the game.

After the fourth goal, Adam told him that he needed to start passing to his teammates and help them to score.  So he did.  Every time he got the ball, he would take it right to the goal, then wait for a teammate to show up and pass the ball to them so they could score.  By halftime, the coaches told the team they needed to not score so much and let the other team score too.  Tyson rejected this at first, but quickly changed his mind when he thought about how the other team must be feeling.  So he spent the rest of the game trying not to score and helping the other side.

By the end of the game, he had scored another goal accidentally.  He went running to the sidelines to Adam, and reminded him that he earned the whole video game now.  That made all the parents start laughing out loud.  When they got home he had also earned three big boxes of candy that he very willingly shared with all of us.  I was proud on several levels. One, that he maintained his focus on the end goal.  Two, that he was willing to be a team player, knowing it might keep him from getting his goal in one game.  Three, even once he got his reward, he was so willing to share it with everyone rather than hoard it for himself.

Makes me feel that maybe something we're trying to teach is actually sinking in.

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