As of today all three kids are back in school. Abigail will be starting her school this morning and I am certain she is excited. She has told us the first thing that she wants to do is go and hug her teacher from last year. After that she will go to her new class and be with all her friends, and I mean all of them. When I saw the class list I wondered if they had made it with her in mind. All of her best friends are in her class.
When it comes to friendships it is interesting to watch how the kids grow and change over the years. The boys barely miss their pre-K friends and I can’t say I blame them. I’ve noticed that a lot of parents teach their kids competition while others teach their kids cooperation. I like to think we’re a cooperation family but I don’t know if we’re teaching our kids anything.
I have told them countless times that team work makes the dream work, but we haven’t done any exercises that really work on cooperation. I can see it in them though. They want to participate and be included. Watching them at soccer practice last night and they might have taken my one lesson too well.
This past weekend I found a Premier League game and pointed out to them how everyone was spread out and the ball was passed down the field. Off ball movement was more important than movement with the ball. So, at practice they kind of laid back and asked for the ball to be passed to them and when it was they immediately passed it on.
At their age most of the players want to play hero ball. Get the ball and breakaway downfield all by themselves and the really talented or experienced ones can do it while boys like mine who are doing this for the first time cannot, but they may know the value of spreading out and passing the ball.
They also need to learn how to shoot. They have no clue as to how to do that. As I said this is their first time and we’re not really a soccer watching family. I enjoy the game and can appreciate it, but I don’t make time for it, and the boys rarely come to spend time with me when I am watching TV. I have gotten them to watch about ten minutes at a time of baseball or wrestling with me, but not enough where they could learn anything. Honestly I don’t know how other families do it.
Maybe that is what we need to do. Family time to watch sports. That might get them to sit down and watch something. They tend to gravitate to their mother and she isn’t interested in watching much of anything with me. So at the times when sports are on we end up spread out throughout the house instead of spending quality family time together. That might be something we can work on.
David Huzzard Writes 