I let my kid quit soccer and I’m still wondering if I did the right thing.
Here’s what happened:
Over the summer, I signed both boys up for our local preschool soccer league. Big Brother played in the same league last spring and, except for a few times when he showed more interest in trying to climb up the goal than in putting the ball through it, he seemed to enjoy it. When I asked Little Brother, now old enough, if he wanted to play too, he enthusiastically agreed.
“Won’t this be fun?” I thought. “The kids will love it.”
Yeah, not so much.
Trouble started brewing on the first day. The coach gathered the team together to distribute jerseys and pick a team name (the Green Dragons, of course). Then he brought out his net bag of soccer balls and showed the kids how to dribble from one end line to the other and back again. Some speedy and agile, some (like Little Brother) determined and methodical, the team followed the coach’s instructions.
Except for Big Brother, that is. As he dribbled up and back, he steered his ball into his teammates and then bumped into them. When the team gathered again on the sideline, he started picking up some of the other boys, tussling with them the way he does with his dad and brother at home. When I walked over to put my hands on his shoulders to try and calm him down, I could feel his heart racing. Throughout the rest of the practice, he was aggressive, pushing his way to the ball, in a way that was unlike him.
“Boys will be boys,” chuckled one of the other dads as Big Brother hip-checked his son.
Maybe, I thought, but this was a side of my son that I hadn’t really seen before. And I wasn’t so sure I liked it.
The next week was the first game. At home, Husband and I talked to Big Brother about keeping his hands to himself, reminding him of the difference between going for the ball and going for the other player, asking him how he would feel if another player knocked him down. He seemed to get it and was his usual self during warm-ups and the beginning of the game, cheerfully running around and cheering for his teammates whenever they made a good play.
After awhile, his coach asked him to take a turn on defense. He showed Big Brother which line to stay near when his team was on offense and how to get between the other team and the goal when they had the ball. After his coach walked away, Big Brother wandered around a bit, studying a dandelion in the grass, and then made his way to another line on the field. Seeing this, the coach gently reminded him, “That line back there, buddy.”
And that was it. Big Brother lost it. He started crying and kicking the ground. His coach approached him to comfort him, but to no avail. Soon, Big Brother walked over to the sidelines and I took him away from the field for awhile to talk. While I tried to soothe him, he keened in my arms and railed off a list of frustrations:
Idon’twanttobeondefense MycoachkeepschangingwhichlineI’msupposedtostandon Myhandsarecold Noone’spassingmetheballAfter a few minutes of venting and another few minutes of my encouraging him to rejoin his team, he stomped back onto the field, but then fell apart every time the ball came near him.
A version of the same events happened the next week. And the next.
The following week I sat down with Big Brother at home before the game. Snuggled up on his bed, I asked him if he wanted to go to soccer. Right away his eyes welled up with tears. “No,” he said. “I don’t think I want to play soccer anymore.” We kept talking, dancing around issues of frustration, perfectionism, and anger. I finished the conversation knowing that we had a lot of work to do, but convinced that that work wasn’t getting done out there on the soccer field.
So I let him stay home that day. And, after I talked to his coach and learned that the Green Dragons had an extra player on their roster, I decided to let him stay home the rest of the reason.
I’ve written before about Big Brother, my five-year-old boy who loves nature and books and crafts, the sensitive, gentle soul who takes care of his little sister and still hides his eyes when Belle’s father first encounters the Beast. He is smart and thoughtful and loving. But, like his mother, he’s also a perfectionist, a control freak.
And something about soccer rubbed up against the rawest, most vulnerable parts of him. Maybe it was that he wasn’t as good as some of the other kids on his team. (And that’s a pretty new feeling for him, a kid who is usually very good at the things that he tries.) Maybe he was still recovering from that ear infection he had last month. Maybe, after a week at preschool, he just wanted to stay home and read with his dad.
We’re working on that with Big Brother now – practicing naming our feelings and thinking about ways to cope when things don’t go our way. I’m working on naming my feelings too, even as I wonder what lesson my letting Big Brother quit really taught him.
What would you have done in my situation? Have you ever let you kid quit an activity?
{ 42 comments… read them below or add one }
Even though Abra is two, I felt a flash forward to her five-year-old self in reading this, as I suspect these two children are alike in many ways. As someone who is often emotionally overwhelmed herself, I often find it difficult to be a “container” for her strong emotions (and toddler temper tantrums) without losing it myself. If it’s any consolation, my mom let me quit countless activities when I was young. Her attitude, which not all parents, I realize, would agree with, was that childhood was for trying out different things, and not everything “fits.” Although, there was that one time that she promised me a winter coat I desperately wanted if I just finished out my “season” of ballet… :)
At 47, I am still learning the life lesson “I need to finish.” It’s so important to me that I’m spending 31 days blogging about it.
And…
I quit many things, because, like your daughter and Big Brother, not everything I begin wants to get finished. My mind likes the tidiness of things done and all wrapped up, but my body doesn’t care about this at all. For better or worse, I live inside my body and it typically wins.
When I LISTEN to that body, there’s a wisdom reason. I think your mother was right, Elizabeth, life is for tasting.
I think he is young enough that allowing him to quit something will not have any lasting ramifications. Really it doesn’t matter what I think because he is your child, and nobody knows him and what’s best for him better than you and your husband. Let him be who he is and try not to worry too much about screwing him up. Sounds to me like you all are going to be just fine.
I am getting more and more comfortable with the notion that every child is an individual with unique circumstances and their own timetable. I think forcing your son to stick it out would have caused anxiety…and he’s five, he’ll have lots of opportunity to explore commitment in the future.
We live in a town where skiing and soccer and mountain biking are big for kids. Most of my kids’ friends have done one or more of these sports at one time, some all three every year. Personally, I would rather my children connect with the spirit of nature without the distraction and cost of sports, but I don’t tell them this. We’ve been to friends’ practices and games, but so far my kids haven’t been interested.
I let my daughter quit 2 dance classes (one was pre-paid, one was drop in). Sometimes I need to take my kids places because I have to work. If they don’t want to go, that gets very sticky. But my son, maybe like yours, love nature and books and being home, and so I try and give him as much home time as possible.
I find we’re doing less “activities” lately and it feels good. I’ve felt in the past like I wanted to give my kids lots of enrichment opportunities. My son loves art, so why not enroll him in an art class? And he’s enjoyed them, but he’s also motivated to check art books out of the library and follow his heart at home.
I think you gave your son the message that you will listen to him and trust his words and feelings. That will go deep.
Ugh, this is so hard. I’m really bothered by the way sports are pushed onto younger and younger kids (I’m not saying that you pushed it onto them, but that the activity was made available, directed at that age group, so that any reasonable parent would think, “Hey, that sounds like fun!”) complete with all of the rules and competitiveness of other ages. As a parent, I think the pressure (from somewhere…the universe? inside yourself?) is so strong to join, to make your kids part of the group, and once you begin, it’s really hard to stop. Because it seems like it’s not possible to just pick up a sport in middle school or high school anymore, like when we were kids, if you haven’t been playing all your life. Last winter, the twins begged and begged to play basketball, so I signed them up despite my reservations about getting to the court by 9 every Saturday a.m. After two or three practices they were like, “Ok, that was fun. Time to go back to Saturday morning Legos.” But that was when the games started, with refs enforcing rules they had never really been taught, and all the chaos of ten six-year-olds running after a single ball. They hated it, I hated it, but I didn’t let them quit. I had that “You signed up, you need to follow-through” mentality going, which I still don’t know if it was the right thing to do. It resulted in a lot of miserable Saturday mornings, and they will probably never ever want to play basketball again, even when they’re old enough to understand and enjoy the game. So, like most things in parenting life, you have to make a decision based on very little other than gut instinct versus what everyone else does, and then doubt yourself for the rest of your life. But, reading your story then writing mine, I think you did make the right choice, because it reflected your child’s needs at this moment in time. It doesn’t mean he’ll never play soccer or be a quitter, it just means that it was too much for him right now and you were sensitive to that. So pat yourself on the back for that.
Hi Andrea,
Your comment made me realize that, as much as I rail against it, I am nowhere near immune to the siren song of what-other-parents-are-doing. If I had really stopped and thought about it, I might have realized ahead of time that preschool soccer wouldn’t be a great fit for my kid. But I got caught up in the nowhere thinking of, “So many other kids seem to like it, won’t it be great for him too?” And in that pattern, I find myself (I’m embarrassed to say) hoping that doing what everyone else is doing will guarantee an easy path through childhood. Yeah, right! What nonsense.
I still think I would do the same thing if faced with the situation again, but I also have learned that I need to be a whole lot more thoughtful about what I commit him – and the rest of us – to.
One of the most important (and hardest) lessons in parenting is learning when to trust your gut, even when that means doing something you always swore you wouldn’t. I think most parents have that “finish what you start” mentality, and I think in general, it’s a fantastic principle. Certainly Carl and I have said that with the girls – once they start something, they have to see it out through the end of the season/year/whatever, and then they can quit if they want. Faced with a situation like that one, though? I probably would have done just the same thing you did. No sense in making problems worse, or even creating issues, just to stick blindly to a general principle.
You are a wise mama, and your thoughtful choice is right for you, right now. Period.
I think I’d probably agree with Shannon, above, that at this young age the potential lessons in “sticking with it” are outweighed by the importance of listening to Big Brother’s emotional needs and helping him as you have. I don’t know that he’d really learn much from being forced to stick with it.
I always come back to the question: what am I ultimately hoping to equip my kids with (in their social/emotional arsenal)? In this case I’d really want my child to feel heard and understood, and know that the way he is feeling is okay. I think honoring those feelings trumps the lesson of “sticking with it” – in this case, at this age, for me.
But see my first sentence. Because that’s all that matters.
Ahhhh.
I love this: “I’d really want my child to feel heard and understood, and know that the way he is feeling is okay.” To teach our children to listen to their body and when it gives a cue to respond with gentleness and respect? LIFE lesson. Finished.
Thank you, Rebecca, for helping me see the truth of this life lesson when I was in the middle of the soccer storm. xo
Holy heck, were you just around the dinner table at my house last night? My husband and I had a long conversation about whether Miss D. (miss ADHD) should quit Kumon. I was in favor; he wasn’t sure. I told him that it’s ME who has to deal with the daily struggles/battles, not him. She hits the house at 4pm, has a half hour to have a snack and unwind, and then she starts her homework. Between math and spelling and reading, it’s at least an hour, oftentimes more because she is (ahem) distractable. Then dinner. Then Kumon math, which should take 20 minutes but ends up taking an hour because she. is. spent. Tears, tears, tears. She’s left with 30 minutes of the day to be a kid before bedtime, and that’s just not enough. She’s ten! A kid should be allowed to be a kid, for Heaven’s sake! I won the discussion, so I just sent an email to the Kumon director. Miss M. will stay in it, but D. just cannot go on.
You know what you did? You listened to your son. You let him express his feelings. You respected those feelings. I think you did great, Mama.
Kitch — Kumon was forced upon me when I was about Miss D.’s age and I hated it. My mother didn’t let me quit (despite a LOT of protesting) until I finally found a way around doing the awful, repetitive, brain-draining homework I knew wasn’t doing me any good when I needed a break from all the other things that were consuming my energy: I found her answer key and straight-up cheated out of desperation to end the torture. Not that that’s an answer to anything, but when she discovered my duplicity (it was obvious because I hadn’t shown any work where indicated), it sent my mother a message about putting too much on my plate. All this to say, I’m glad you know where D.’s limits lie.
TKW, my son, also ADHD, was in Kumon at about the same age as Miss D and we quit as well, after about a year. I felt it was a very bad choice, not just because of his attention problems (which I think we were still in denial about then) but because there was no teaching going on at Kumon, just packet after packet that he was somehow expected to master.
Linda!!! So great to see you here. Are you blogging somewhere other than Bar Mitzvahzilla these days? I miss your writing!
I’d say forcing a kid to pursue an activity that makes him cry regularly isn’t a good way to encourage trying new things down the road — props to you for listening to what your son needed and helping him name his feelings. So, so important. The lesson I’d have taken away from not being allowed to walk away as a kid would have been that I shouldn’t explore anything that I didn’t want to get “stuck” with! Even so, as a teenager, I was also pretty hard on myself about abandoning an activity that I didn’t enjoy but felt I should continue doing because I didn’t want to think of myself as a quitter — so I definitely had a large list of extracurriculars I would rather not have done. I can’t say that helped with my coping skills when I got to college and needed to learn how to balance time studying with time developing career interests, friendships, and all the other amazing things campus life has to offer. I’ll always regret the role that being overcommitted to commitment played at that time in my life.
Hi CT,
I really like what you have to say about the dangers of “being overcommitted to commitment.” Maybe I’m just trying to assuage the lingering doubt over the way I handled the situation with my son, but I will remember your experience (in Kumon and beyond) as a cautionary tale about the drawbacks of sticking with a principle that doesn’t always work to our advantage.
It’s such a tricky balance, this motherhood thing… You want them to learn and have new experiences, but some things aren’t right at certain ages and others just don’t suit some kids. I’m in the process of letting my daughter give up violin. She doesn’t want it. And I don’t see how yelling at each other will make her stronger and better. Sigh.
He wasn’t happy, he wasn’t learning what you wanted him to (I’d hazard a guess that you wanted him to learn about being on a team and having fun with soccer first and foremost), letting him quit was right.
I think I would have done exactly the same thing. Lucy has that same kind of temperament which makes her incredibly frustrated and unwilling to perform activities that make them feel like they are not excelling. As you know (and so do I) that is a really uncomfortable feeling for some people. Still, they are young. At this age, activities are supposed to be fun. Sure, playing soccer sounds fun, but maybe fun, right now, is reading books and cuddling with Dad. I believe that it is important for them to be pushed a little, to do what’s uncomfortable, but not quite so early. Lucy made it abundantly clear to me after camp that she will not be playing sports this year. She was adamant enough that I didn’t even try. Instead, she is taking Ballet and Science in addition to Hebrew School, which I think is more than enough for a 6-year-old.
I wish you were my mother. I don’t know if it matters as much whether he stays or quits, but that he has thoughtful, mindful parents is the BIG SCORE for him. It’s tough. My kids are younger and soccer has been a royal bustaroo. Both of them would rather pick their noses so we don’t do it much any more. It’s a tough decision and not your last, but I love your process and the care with which you think things through. This is Wholehearted Mothering to quote/butcher Brene Brown.
Yours is the second post I’ve read about pre-school soccer that made me so so glad I didn’t sign my kid up (YES! They allow 2.5 year olds! And people do it!) My son sounds like a younger version of yours. Smart, perceptive, but very very very sensitive & emotional and shuts down or acts out when pushed even slightly out of his comfort zone. I get your concerns—on the one hand, we want to listen to our children, validate their emotions and not force them into anxiety-causing activities. On the other hand…”finish what you started” “practice makes perfect”, etc… My parents forced me to do certain things I hated, but let me too easily quit the things I liked but were challenging me…I still regret both. His reaction sounds more like the “hated it” kind…tears, anxiety, etc… and I think you did the right thing. Maybe in a few years he’ll be ready for soccer again, or maybe something completely different will strike his fancy. He is your oldest but still so so young!
I think you are a great mom. Trust yourself !!! My parents never let me quit anything and now I never join anything:)
I found this post really helpful in crystallizing _why_ quitting might be character-building.
http://project-based-homeschooling.com/camp-creek-blog/perseverance-and-grit-vs-knowing-when-quit
I think it’s like eating–the sense of when to keep going and when to stop are related and important not to override. If you can’t tell when you’ve had enough, you can’t be healthy.
Thanks for that link, Heather. I really like what Lori has to say about good vs. bad persistence. Very instructive for me, both personally and as a parent.
Omigosh Kristin, I wrote about the *exact* same thing on my blog 2 years ago – our struggles with our then 6 year old son and soccer, and whether or not we should let him quit…
I think you did the right thing. Because he’s just 5. It could be that he just isn’t ready yet. You were very astute in saying that maybe soccer is pushing all his buttons, and making him face things that are still difficult for him. So you listened and you took a step back. Just because he’s not ready now doesn’t mean he will never be ready. Being in a team environment, having to follow brand new rules and instructions, dealing with all the coordination and other efforts required in playing soocer, all of that could be overwhelming for a young child. He can come back to it next year, or 2 years later, or in junior high.
Looking back on our very difficult saga (really the lowlight of my mothering career) I realized that we were crazy obsessed about the idea of our son learning perseverance and teamwork, RIGHT there and then, at age 6, or else. It was like now or never to us. But the truth is even 6 is young, and he has so many more years to pick up a sport.
We ended up keeping him in soccer for 3 seasons until he, on his own (well, through his best friend), chose taekwondo. We went to a sample class and he ended up LOVING it. That year he went on to win 2 gold medals at an international tournament and also joined the demo team, which goes around the city performing. We simply stepped back and let him do his thing. We realized from watching him do taekwondo what passion looks like, and it is so different from when he was doing soccer.
So, I think it’s fine to give your son time, and have him try different things until he finds that sport or activity that suits him and that he loves. Good luck!
Thanks so much for sharing your perspective, Cecilia. I can’t wait to read your post about your experience.
Meanwhile, it really strikes me that you mention your son loving taekwondo. My son was just asking me about how people learn martial arts and I mentioned to my husband that karate or taekwondo might be a great fit for him. Then again, I should probably make sure that this idea is really coming from him and not from me. We see where that led last time! ;)
OK I feel the need to confess that my 11 year old wants to quit violin and we aren’t letting him. And I feel the need to blog about #that#….stay tuned for the other side of the story.
Delia Lloyd
http://www.realdelia.com
As adults, we are so overcommitted (even to so-called leisure), so easy to judge others (parents especially) by what activities their children are in (gee… should my kid do that, too?) and we all chase our tails in a society that continues to spin spin spin into non-enjoyment and non-learning even as we micro-manage ourselves and our decisions to go with our gut.
My beliefs are pretty straightforward. Little kids should be little kids. One activity – maybe – if they love it. And when they no longer do? Let them be a little kid and try something else! Competitive sports in preschool? Nuts.
Of course it’s important for children to take their lessons in not always winning (or excelling) just like it’s important for them to win / feel good / excel some of the time. Real life. But they have to grow into responsibilities (and lessons). They need to be able to change their minds (and we should listen). As they get older, the formula changes… somewhat. The schools dump so much on them that even in late elementary / middle / high school I think we need to let them show us what they really care about and not fall victim to overloading them so they’re stressed to the max.
Easier said than done?
Maybe. Then again, maybe not.
My daughters tried a lot of activities while growing up; clarinet, gymnastics, softball, cheerleading, golf. Some they excelled at and some they didn’t. While there’s merit in helping a child work through physical/emotional/mental struggles in an activity, it’s never a great idea to force it on them when it’s apparently not a good match. But they never know unless they try it! You know his personality, so I’m sure you’ll find an activity out there that he will embrace and be passionate about doing. The trick is never letting him give up until he tries the best he can…and then giving him permission to stop participating while not making him feel like a failure.
I am with Kitch, you listened to your son and you respected how he feels…that’s what matters. I always talk to my sons and listen to how they feel. So important to let them know that we understand and that we are there for them. You did good!
I have a perfectionist kid who can’t handle frustration. He wants everything to be right the first time. Knowing when to push him further into his discomfort and knowing when to back off and just listen is the whole trick. There’s no manual. I think you did just right. Five is young, and if you err with a five-year-old, it’s best to err on the side of listening.
That sounds like a tough situation…and I would be perplexed since had enjoyed soccer the year before. Interesting that the year that Little Brother joined Big Bro had these issues. My younger sister is better than me at all sports. She is just ultra confident and a quick learner–a natural. But in college I took the ins and became pretty good, even eating my hubby and Dad sometimes. Last year my sister, who now lives on the other side of the country, started taking tennis lessons and she loves it. I am happy for her, but in one of my still immature places, have no desire to play tennis with her! It’s just one thing that I had that was mine. I just know she will be a pro and, like your son, I’m a perfectionist. I just want to hold on to this one area that was mine. Who knows if any of that is going on with your son, but it just reminded me of it. You are a great mom to pay such close attention to your son. I don’t think you will know if it was the right decision until e takes up another sport or activity…and there are many to come. This one decision won’t make or break him. He knows e as a loving, interested mom and that’s what matters- especially at his young age.
Hi Stephanie,
Thanks so much for visiting and taking the time to leave a comment.
I really think you’re onto something with your sibling rivalry observation. It’s something that my husband and I are just starting to see as our boys get older (now 3 and 5). On the one hand, they’re very different and my guess is that they won’t end up sharing a ton of extra-curricular interests. On the other, this soccer experience might have given us a taste of what to expect when they do.
My bet is that Big Brother’s reaction to soccer was a mixture of a lot of things, with competitiveness with his brother being a definite component. Both my dad and my father-in-law come from families with close-in-age brothers and they’ve gently warned us about their own experiences growing up.
Definitely something worth keeping in mind. Thanks for the reminder!
Typically I don’t let my children quit an activity once they’ve gone through the first week of it. But he is still very young and I think it’s important to see that sometimes when they’re really young they get into something without having any idea what it’s going to be like, so you have to cut them a little slack. It doesn’t sound like soccer and he match up at all. That’s the way it was with my oldest and soccer too. And she (and I!) figured it out pretty quickly!
Hi Missy,
I like your point about not letting your kids quit things after a week. A good rule-of-thumb for me to try in the future.
I was trying to understand what was going on with him, but I think you hit the nail on the head – that it rubbed him in the most vulnerable spot.
I would absolutely have done the same thing in your shoes. My son is in soccer now and I won’t let him quit because of laziness (once he didn’t want to go) but I would absolutely let him quit if it wasn’t helping him to grow.
You screwed up your kid, he is broken for life and it is your fault. All of the other parents are pointing their fingers at you and shaking their heads.
Just kidding.
Every child is different and you have to go with what is age appropriate. I am not big on letting my kids quit, but they are older than yours and that brings additional responsibilities.
At 5 soccer is a lot like herding cats, the only kids who really get it are the younger siblings who have watched their older brothers/sisters play.
I watched/coached my kids through soccer at the same age and there were some moments.
For a while I thought my oldest might never like team sports and then one day it was like something clicked for him. I attribute some of that to his having been given the chance to make some decisions about it.
We all move at different speeds and that is ok.
My apologies if this doesn’t make much sense, 3 hours of sleep and I am only partially here.
I don’t have anything useful to say that hasn’t already been said. I think you did the right thing. There is a big difference between quitting and following your heart. You saw something was amiss, your son wasn’t having fun, and both of you decided it just wasn’t the right fit. Maybe in a couple of years he’ll feel differently, or maybe it was the wrong sport, he’s so young that there is plenty of time for him and you to figure out how to tackle tricky issues like team sports and/or artistic pursuits.
I think you are a fantastic mom who senses how best to take care of your kids. Intuitive parenting is the best kind, I think.
Kristen, I haven’t come across this particular situation with my girls yet, but I have experienced this myself as a child. We’re taught never to quit in my culture and I’ve had some of my most miserable “learning” experiences in my life because of it. Let’s just say it didn’t make me better at what I was forced to do. It just made me resent the activity and/or my parents. Anyway, all this to say, good for you for listening to your Big Boy, and allowing him the room to grow in the way that works for him, and not just you. This is something I will try to remember when I face this with my daughter(s) someday.
My parents agreed to let me quit cello when I was in fifth grade. The very next year, I started clarinet … which I played for the remainder of my school career. Even though I was a child then, I’ve never forgotten how my parents responded to my feelings. I hope I can do the same for my kids.
This post reminded me so much of my sister. She is, I imagine, quite a lot like you and Big Brother. Perfectionistic, docile, academic, and more competitive with herself than with other people. In middle school all the kids were playing basketball and so she did too. And she hated it. It moved too fast. She couldn’t assess what was going on on the court because things changed so quickly. The pysical contact of it all felt too aggressive for her. I think she made it through the season, but didn’t play again.
The sport for her turned out to be… golf. She got to strategize about each shot. She had plenty of time to size up her next shot and be calculated about it. Her biggest competition was against her own prior performance. It was a fit for her in all the ways that basketball wasn’t.
I realize this is one person’s experience and golf may not be the answer for Big Brother. But I write all of this to make the point (which I’m sure you know anyway) that he will find the right activity that will nurture the aspects of him that you wanted soccer to nurture, but which will be a better fit for him. In the meantime, good for you for being so in tune with him, and for making the decision thoughtfully.
YES! I would let my kid quit, because kids are young and only want to do something they enjoy, so if they don’t, why ruin it for them? My youngest is 4 and a half and he loves playing with a soccer ball, but I have no plans to sign him up on a soccer team. Maybe it’s because I grew up in France, where organized sports are not even available for kids under 7. I had my eldest start karate when he was 5 but didn’t enroll him again after 6 months because he was immature and trying out his moves at recess. Now both kids want to do karate so I’ll probably enroll them in the spring, but if things don’t work out, we’ll do our scheduled sessions and that’s it.
The last thing you want is your kid not to enjoy this type of activity and resent himself, you or the coach for continuing something he doesn’t want to do. Maybe you need to wait till he matures and is ready to join the rest of the team. Or maybe he’ll find something else he enjoys more along the way. I think our role as parents is to guide our kids and identify their interests and likes, and find something that works for them. Just my two cents.
I think you have to do what your gut tells you to do. I will tell you that my Gabe, my old soul/super sensitive/super gentle/super shy guy, cried the entire first season he played soccer and most of the second. We’d go, he’d freak, we’d stay. And now? He’s on a competitive travel team…in soccer. Both of my boys don’t like to play/do things unless they know what to do b/c of their perfectionist tendencies…maybe that’s what’s going on with yours too? Maybe give it another shot if you think he likes it…