Soccer Anxiety

Conferring with Coach Jeff.  (No idea about what.)

Today was Zach's first soccer practice ever, and he had a blast.  Over the years, Abby has had more than a dozen coaches (some better than others), but this year we hit the jackpot with Zach's new coach.  He's fantastic.

Zach was very nervous about being on a team.  (He kept asking me how many practices there would be before they had to play a game.)  Despite having seen Abby play, he was pretty nervous.  He's been dribbling a soccer ball since he was two (and he's quite good), but he'd convinced himself being on a team was going to be hard.

Yesterday afternoon I had some work to complete, so I asked Abby if she would kick the ball around with Zach.  The two headed outside and within 10 minutes, Zach came in crying.  "Abby keeps trying to teach me things," he sobbed.  "I don't know how to do those things.  I just want to play with the soccer ball."

Last night when I went to kiss him goodnight he said something was wrong but he was afraid to tell me what it was.  I tried to gently coax it out of him, but he just asked me to lie down next to him while he fell asleep.  About an hour later, I heard little sobs coming from his room.

He still didn't want to tell me what was wrong, so I just laid down with him.  I'm pretty sure he was either sleep talking or half asleep.  His eyes were open, but his little muscles seemed to be contracting and relaxing intermittently, like a baby fighting sleep.  I asked him if he was nervous about soccer this morning, and he nodded.  I reassured him that his practice would be very easy, since lots of the kids have never played before, etc.

Eventually he mumbled, "I just can't kick the ball far enough," and succumbed to sleep.

Zach, age 4 1/2