Soccer Season

Soccer season began last month for these boys. Ryan has played once before, when he was 5 yrs old, and Lucas has never played before. Both boys were really enthusiastic about playing this year. Jenna even asked to sign up for soccer, but we decided to delay her a year because I didn't want to make our schedule TOO crazy. I will probably laugh at this post in a few years when all 4 kids are in school and extracurriculars!

So how has soccer been going? Well, it has been mixed. On Saturday the boys both had games, but first we visited a local car show in Rocklin. Ryan proudly wore is jersey.....and Lucas did not. #foreshadowing

We saw the cool cars and had some fun.

This guy had a great game afterwards. He doesn't know anybody on his team, but he just goes out there and plays hard.

Ryan definitely covers a lot of ground out on the field. He is a really fast runner but is still working on being a bit more aggressive with the ball. He did score a goal at last week's game!

Lucas knows quite a few boys on his team, and is good friends with them. The first few practices went really well. He had a really strong kicking foot, and most importantly, he was having fun. But then he refused to go to his last couple practices before his first game. At his first game we got him out to the field, but he would not play. He then would not go to his 2nd game, and then this weekend after the car show I somehow convinced him to go to his 3rd game......but he wouldn't actually go out by the field. Instead he sat on the concrete path by the next game over with his head in his lap.

It's hard because on the one hand, he wanted to play soccer. And between the registration, money for uniforms, special socks, team banner and trophy, team snacks, etc.....it's quite a bit of money! I do not want to teach my kids that they can just quit when they don't feel like doing something. (And this is definitely not the first time Lucas has wanted to quit or not attend things) And I'm 99.9% sure Lucas would love soccer and have a ton of fun if he just got out there and played!

On the other hand, I would never want to force him to play a sport he doesn't want to play. And if something was making him nervous or self-conscious, I would want to talk to him and help him. But when Lucas doesn't want to do something, he shuts down. No eye contact, no communication. So at this point we are trying to encourage him without lots of pressure. I'm not sure if it's helping, but I'm hoping he will get back out on the field before the season is over.