Oh well.

Parker has still been having a tough time in soccer class. He is actually quite good at kicking and moving the ball, but he has huge issues with the competitive aspect of it. Whenever another kid gets the ball, he melts down. He just starts crying and screaming while running around. The coach talks to him about it but he never really can recover.

So after last weeks class, we talked a lot of about things that he is really good at and things that he isn't the best at. We talked about swimming, drumming, bike riding, math, reading, tree climbing, etc as things he was really good at. Then we talked about keeping his hands out of his mouth, eating lots of different kinds of foods, pouring milk, carrying 6 plates (his addition that I didn't understand) and soccer as things that he needs to work on. I told him that when another kid was faster than him or better at kicking the ball quickly, he could just say, "Oh well" and remember everything he was good at. We practiced a bunch and I confirmed all of this again before his class today.

But...almost on cue, when that part of the class started today, he melted down. He's running around with tears, screaming, "I can't do it! I can't do it. It's too hard!" He's a complete mess and I feel just horrible. Then he yells through massive tears, "Oh well. Oh well" and continued crying and running. It was at that point, that I started crying. I'm sitting there in my mom soccer chair, with my latte and People magazine, crying about my poor kid doing his very, very best. It was heartbreaking.

After class, he was still in tears, and came to sit with me. He asked if he did a good job in class. I asked him if he thought he did and he said, "Yes, because I said Oh Well." I agreed and told him that he never had to take soccer class again. He was relieved. We sat together for a good long and then he was ok.