team sports competition

Last week began the fall soccer season and ALL after school activities.  It is the end of the weekend, and I am absolutely exhausted from all the shuffling around.  Looking around, listening to others, watching my kids, I have to wonder sometimes if this is all worth it.

First of all, I personally can be competitive when I am playing in a sport or just playing my husband at a Wii game.  There.  I fully admit it.  As a parent, while I would like to see my kids and their team play well, I don’t keep track of scores or who won, etc.  To me, it’s not about me or how I feel about competition.  It’s about the kids.  It could be also that all my kids add to the team sometimes is a lot of cheerful team spirit.  By the way, I think that’s pretty important as well.  I like to see effort, personal improvement, and team comraderie.

Depending on the sport and child, we get different results on different days.  We had soccer start last week.  S’s game got canceled with all the rain last week.  M’s game was still on.  S’s games are going to be on a full field now, with a full size goal.  They went from playing 4 on 4 without a goalie on a small field with a little goal to 6 on 6 with a goalie on a huge field.  This past game was exciting to watch.  There was so much more going on.  S even tried to be the goalie.  Clearly spacing out and not really sure what was expected of her, she watched without moving a muscle, the ball slowly roll into the net.  The next 2 she saved pretty well.  M definitely got in there a lot more.  Every year both girls get a little bit more into it, get ever slightly more aggressive.  By that I mean, they run a little more, and just maybe make some contact.  Yesterday, M scored 3 goals.

I always thought that maybe they, especially S, would do better with a sport that was more on an individual pace.  Tennis, swim, golf.  Their score would be part of a bigger team, but it would be the individual effort.  As much as I love the concept of a team sport, I just thought it fit S better to do the individual.  But after the summer, I began to change my mind.

With swim, S’s coach only cared about the individual improvements of each child.  She didn’t care if the team won or lost.  I loved that about her.  But she also took chances.  She swam people in events they didn’t really know, for the experience.  S went into a medley relay.  People sometimes would wonder about S if she spaced out in an event.  But I thought nothing of it.  It was just her and her place and time.  But in a relay, where you are swimming with 3 other people…they were relying on her.  It made no sense to me.  That morning, she swam her freestyle and backstroke and it was strong.  She went into the relay, and there was huge HUGE confusion right before it.  They threw her in the pool at the last minute and she was off.  She stopped swimming and sank underwater for a couple of seconds.  Then she would stop and turn to see the wall every few strokes.  Clear disqualification.  The middle school kids behind me were yelling all kinds of questions and obscenities.  I could only imagine what parents were thinking.  My friend was one of the timers, and I later found out parents were going OFF about S.  She had to be disqualified.  What did she think she was doing?  Why was she in this event?

I realized when whatever S does, it somehow affects the team.  Sometimes more than other times, but it’s still there.  In soccer, as a team sport, how she plays or doesn’t play, affects the team’s game.  She plays harder than she has ever done so in the past, but compared to the skill and intensity of her teammates, it pales.  She has wonderful coaches that pat her on the back for all the little or big things she does.  The parents around us have been wonderful over the past 2 years.  But I have always wondered if they think she is deadweight to the team.

It started to feel that way with swim.  S is not competitive by nature.  She just goes however she goes.  Somedays it is with a spark, and somedays it’s not.  And for my husband and myself, we really have been and will continue to be what she puts into it and what she is getting out of it.  And our goals are far different from that of other parents.  We like that she is around other kids/females her age.  We like that she is apart of a team, and to start understanding what that means.  We like that she continues to move out of her comfort zone and tries these new things.  She continues to show so much growth in these aspects.  But other more competitive parents really don’t care where we are coming from.  They are looking at their end winning result.

I wondering where that leaves us as they get older and the separation becomes even starker.

Social skills, try 2

So our never ending search for a social skills group for S continues.  On the one hand, I’m a little picky for her to find a good fit.  On the other hand, it’s been difficult to find it out there.

I didn’t want to go too far or too late at night.  I have to think of both S and M.  How well would a social skills group be for S if she were so tired or a long drive away after school?  There are lots of groups popping up, too.  Then I started to question if the person was really qualified.  Most groups were run by social workers.  Now speech pathologists,  occupational therapists, and physical therapists were running them, too.  If no initial evaluation was done, then how do you know if your child’s abilities will match another one’s in the group?  What if the group was too advanced for S?  Or if S was too advanced for the group?  I had seen both.  One was a very low functioning group, and others were asking way too much of her.  When I hear of groups up to 6 children per 1 therapists, I think that’s too many. A group of 2, 3, or 4 max was acceptable to me.  S needs very small group attention for social skills.  She can answer most questions initially, but the more complicated ones freeze her.  Also, she doesn’t carry the conversation well back.  Asking someone else questions based on what information they have given her doesn’t come naturally to her.  S’s conversations are more observation statements that are hard to build on for others.  For example, she’ll point out to another, “OH, we have the same juice box.”  They answer, “yeah, we do.”  Smiling at each, and pleased, but then the conversation is dropped.

S’s time with Step and Kev are great.  Yet it’s 1-1 therapy.  She can learn from how they foster the conversation, but it would be better with peers.  She’s in group therapies at school.  Speech once is a week is with one girl, and the other time in the week is with 2 boys.  OT is done in the classroom once, and with a group of 3 boys on the other day.  These are good opportunities for her, but we believed she needed some more.

We have been modeling and correcting as much as we can without making it overly obvious and therefore stressing her out.  But we’d like her to be able to do it with her own peer group.

So I tried one out today.  A social skills group.  It’s with movement, too.  This one place I had been going back and forth to has mostly been boy groups only.  I don’t think S would mind so much, but another girl would have even the balanced.  S is not a girly girl, but she does like the company of some girls, although she usually bonds very well with boys.

Today’s group was just her and another girl.  Maybe next week, 1 or 2 girls might be added.  S was reluctant to go in at first.  She recognized the facilitator, actually.  He recognized her, too.  He is a Physical Therapist at her school!  S wanted me to go in with her, but I told her I was busy paying, and it was kids only.  She walked in with tears in her eyes.  Within 5 min, I heard both girls yelling and giggling.

The next 1/2 hr, I could hear all 3 of them.  They were having a great time.  M was playing next to me with a bunch of things I brought.  All I heard from her for the 30 min was how much she wanted to go in a play, too.  M has been dragged to every therapy of S’s since she was 6 months old.  All she knows is I take S to these places where S gets to play, and comes out with stickers or lollipops.  M got a taste of it when she spent a session with Kev (another post later).  She is so dying to get in there, too.  I don’t know how to explain it to her either.  I don’t want to say it’s because S needs these things and she doesn’t.  It’s the truth, but I don’t want to put it as the haves and have nots.  Nor do I want to explain that these are S’s difficulties, because M would be put it out there without any thought for sensitivity.  I imagine them coloring together, and M casually saying, “S, you do all these things because you need a lot of extra help since you have trouble with these things.  But I don’t have any, right Mommy?”

So I’m left with really not having any explanation for her which actually is terrible, too.

I’m happy to say, S came out of social skills today smiling from ear to ear.  She thought it was great.  She made a new friend and had a ton of fun.  The facilitator, we’ll call him FACM, said that the girls were a good match together.  Both are wiggly, have some balancing issues, have some motor planning difficulties, and need some help with the conversation flow.  I’m hoping this turns into more conversation than movement therapy, but that doesn’t hurt either.  I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

how far to push?

S gets homework every night in Kindergarten, well, Monday through Thursday.  It’s pretty simple.  But I’m surprised by some of the concepts they are already hitting on.  I taught Kindergarten for 7 years, but this is impressive.  For the most part, S seems to be managing it well.

Last week, there was a math page that dealt with the concept of more/less.  This week there was one on same/different.  Both of these concepts are pretty simple to the typical child.  For S, we had to work it many different ways for her to really understand and be able to expressively use it correctly.  I thought she had it.  Both of these pages gave her a lot of confusion.  She was so unsure of herself.  There were a lot of problems on the page, so I think visually, S was overwhelmed.  But I am wondering if it was the way it was all presented.  I tried to do it in another way after she finished, and she definitely understood with me.  So now I’m confused.

Both times, as I helped her through the page, I could visibly see S start to shut down.  As she wavered on her answer, she guessed even more.  She had no confidence, and was looking to me for the right direction and answer.  By the end of both, she started to cry and asked to do something else that she enjoyed.

S is young, and homework is new for her.  But there is a deeper problem that I see projected from all of this.  If she isn’t confident, and she is unsure, S has a hard time pushing through the work.  Once she starts to shut down, you lost her.  Her concepts and work are only going to get harder as she gets older.  How is she going to learn to persevere to understand.  We all have to walk away when we get frustrated, but we have to jump back in, too.  She can’t cry everytime something is hard for her, you know?  But then again, she is only 5.  So we cut her slack.  I am fine rewarding her with things she likes to do.  But I have a problem with handing it to her when she just wants to quit.  Is it me?  Is it my expectation?  What’s the best way to know how to help her?  I’m a bit torn.  I’m hoping anyone can shed some light.

On the flip side, I’m happy with the progress that S has been making over the past month.  A lot of things have been coming together.  It’s nice to see her so happy going to school and making friends.   It’s always an up and down, isn’t it?

They get there when they get there

One of my very good friends gave birth to her 3rd healthy baby boy this weekend.  (Congratulations MKY!!)  It’s been a crazy coutdown these last couple of weeks.  1 cm dilated and nothing happened.  2 cm the following week and nothing.  False labor pains and a few hours at the hospital, only to be sent home.  Last week, she called me with the news…she was 4 cm dilated and still nothing.  My friend is not exactly the most patient person.  I felt like I was living the angst along with her, though.  I got a text pic the next morning.  He finally decided it was time to keep his mom out of suspense.

Although raising a child and worrying about any delays are different from the waiting game baby experience, there is a parallel.  No matter how we intervene, and prod the process along, kids just get where they need to when they do.  There’s only so much we, as parents, can do for them.  They need to do it for themselves at some point.  We can have medical/therapeutic intervention for our younglings.  But they still have the work to do.

Over the years, birthday parties have been an absolute high and low for S.  Depending on who its for, what they have to do, and who she knows there, I have always felt like each party is a roulette game.  I just never know which S we will get.  At her age, most of the parties this year have been drop off parties.  I was initially unsure about them not because I couldn’t leave her or thought she wouldn’t be dropped off.  But if by chance S was uncomfortable and anxious, would someone else be able to calm her?  Heck, I’m not sure I could given the circumstance, but I could always drag her out of the party, right?

This weekend, our neighbor invited both girls to her son’s 4th birthday.  S knew just a very small handful of children.  It didn’t matter.  She loves the birthday boy and his mom and dad.  She had her dad and me to lean on, if needed.  S was playing the games, waiting her turn, and fully participating.  I rarely saw tears or her yelling that she didn’t want to do something.  S was having a great time.  M…well, we don’t usually worry about her.  She goes to the action and rarely holds back.  It didn’t matter that she was the only girl among 6 boys on a certain game.  She was in there, boxing out with elbows and knees when the pinata burst, and they gathered the candy.

When Spiderman came out, S did hold back a little bit.  She didn’t cry, but she observed from a short distance.  M was right up there with him.  She was cheering for him, giving him high 5s.  When Spiderman busted out his boom box and started freeze dance, well, S wriggled out of my chair and was front and center.  She decided that Spidey was so bad.  He could be kind of fun.  He played red light, green light 1 2 3.  And guess who he chose to be the model to show all the other kids how to play?  Funniest part was he told her what to do and yelled, “OK! Let’s try it!”
“Okay Spiderman! I’m ready to play!” was her enthusiastic, equally loud response!

There are many aspects of S’s development that I have worried and still worry about.  The fluency of her speech, the development of more complex expressive thoughts, auditory processing, how she relates to others, learning to play more interactively, her sensory processing and how that impacts every aspect of her life……a lot.  Birthday parties were a smaller deal but it’s a public setting with parents and kids.  It’s hard to shutdown your own radar of how people are looking at you.  Like I said before, S has been to several parties over the years where she has been fine.  But the last year or so, the structured games have not held her interest and given cause to multiple meltdowns.  This year is different.  The parties we’ve gone to from Oct-present have brought out an easy going enthusiastic side.  S knows what she wants to do and doesn’t.  She’s been able to take herself out calmly and appropriately, where before that was not the case.

Like the arrival of a newborn…when you are biting at the bit…waiting and waiting, trying to will your baby/child to come…..even later, children sometimes get there….when they get there, not necessarily when we want them there.

is it okay to bribe your child?

We had our 2nd week of PreK soccer.  It was a late morning game and a zillion degrees.  S spent almost the entire hour hopping in and out of her dad’s lap.  She was very restless and HOT!!!!  At one point, she ran onto the field, and we were stunned.  As soon as play resumed, S ran back off the field into the safe haven of dad’s arms.  I felt quite strongly that we wouldn’t push S if she didn’t want to play.  We wanted to let the choice come from her.  Towards the end, I asked my husband if we should just try a small bribe.  I have seen and heard parents make all kinds of bribes to their children.  Come on, most of us are guilty of it.  I tell my 3 year old that if she finishes her bowl of strawberries, she can have a go-gurt (yogurt in the tube).  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.  I haven’t decided how I actually feel about bribing my kids, but is there a difference between that and rewards?

Anyway, S loves Dora ice cream bars from the ice cream truck.  I’m not one to buy ice crem from the trucks often.  (although I have bought more in 2009 so far than I have in all of 2008. )  I heard the announcement that 1-2 min left in the game.  And I told S if she ran out there to play that I’d buy it for her.  I made it clear that she didn’t have to, and we wouldn’t get the Dora I.C. if she chose not to and that was okay.  S definitely thought about it. She said YES!  I yelled to the coach that she wanted in, and she looked kind of surprised.  S ran out and almost as quickly changed her mind.  I reminded her of her reward, and she went back.  She held the coach’s hand and ran along the field for the last min.  She never made it closer than 15 feet to the action, but it didn’t matter to us.  S, with a nudge and upped antee, was out there.  Wasn’t that a step in the right direction?  Do the ends justify the means?

The flip side of this story is one of frustration for me and S.  It was so hot this weekend.  There should have been no problem finding or hearing an I.C. truck anywhere.  Can you believe I was unable to find 1??!!!  We listened in the neighborhood, we drove around to every park that ALWAYS has one parked.  NOTHING.  S was okay with the idea of getting a cone somewhere else, or a slurpee at 7-11 (God Bless you for your flexibility on that issue!), but she still asks, “Where are the trucks?  Can I still get one next time?  Is it still a promise?”  How can I say no?  I think in this situation the follow through is very important.  An immediate gratification might have been the best, but no can do this time.  Seriously, where were all the trucks this weekend??????????  It just wasn’t meant to be.

I thought it was great that S got in the game because I offered to buy the Dora bar.  But what happens for each game after?  Will she go in at all if I don’t offer a reward at the end?  Have I set up a bad system, that doesn’t come from her own nature and will?

Visitation Day

It was visitation day at S’s school today.  For 20 min, parents observe whatever the kids are doing.  Whenever I have volunteered to be in the classroom with S (any year), she has always cried when I came in.  We can’t quite figure out what exactly makes her cry, but she does.  She eventually settles down, and is fine.  But the initial reaction is usually something to be desired.

No sibs allowed, so M had to go to a friends house.  She was not crazy about being left behind when I told her about it.  However, she soon forgot about it after dressing up as Ariel, and jumping into a “sailboat” with her buddy.  They were sailing to Shoprite!

The kids were sitting at circle time when about 10 of us moms and 1 dad walked into the classroom.  S gave me a big smile, but then her eyes watered.  She kept asking if she could sit with me.  Her teacher said, no.  1/2 the kids were laughing at whatever she was saying.  I couldn’t tell if that upset her more or calmed her down.  We walked with them for gym time where the teacher does some organized game time with them.  They did relay games.  S has this thing when people are behind her, she gets out of line and goes behind them.  She doesn’t like people behind her, and she’s wiggly and hopping around.  She never got a turn to do the stilt jumping or jumping in and out of the hoops.  1 teacher and 2 aides, and nobody noticed.  S’s teacher asked if everyone got a turn.  1 of S’s friend asked her if she went, and S just shrugged.  I thought about speaking up, but as long as S was okay, I just let it go.  It made me wonder how often things like that happen, and how often it is overlooked by the teacher.  

It’s funny what we each see and take away from it.  A lot of the other moms were remarking how excited and happy S always is.  They were surprised that even though she didn’t get a turn that she wasn’t crying about it.  They thought she was just so easy going.  S was indeed extremely giggly and smiley in the gym.

For me, I saw S completely distracted by the added company and observers.  She needed constant help from the aide to focus back to what the teacher was saying.  And then they needed to help her stay in line (even though she didn’t get a turn the 2nd and 3rd time!).  To me, she just stood out.  Wiggly, jumpy, excitable, and all over the place.  I kept hearing from others how happy she always is.   And I left feeling a bit down.  S has made so much progress over the year, yet we still have a ways to go.  Do I have a harder time seeing those positive aspects because I’m so close to it all?

If you ask S how it all went today, she is so proud, saying she had fun and “I only had happy faces.”  She doesn’t even remember crying!  And she tells me about the relay games.  I guess what she takes away from it all is the most important perspective of all.  As long as she is happy, has a positive experience from it, and learned something, what more can I ask for?