Connor vs. the Zamboni

My three year old has been taking skating lessons since just before Christmas. He loves it and he seems very proud of his progress, from learning how to get up from a fall on his own, to gently stepping across the rink, to now taking three or four giant strides before getting scared by his own speed and hurling himself down on the ice. Although my wife and I joke about kissing our future Saturdays goodbye, we have taken such pleasure in his pleasure.

And then something happened.

The other day, at his lesson, his instructor suddenly plucked him from the ice, and skated him over to the boards. He had tears streaming down his face and he kept crying that he didn’t want to skate anymore.

“What is it, sweetheart?” I asked. Did he hurt himself? Were his skates too tight? Did he suddenly have visions of playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs?

I got nothing from him other than, “I don’t want to skate anymore.”

I gave him a minute or two to regain his composure before I tried to send him back onto the ice. He went into ‘limp’ mode, and recommenced with the sobbing. He started screaming that he wanted to go home.

I began with a speech about commitment—about finishing what you’ve started. I reminded him that, after we finished his first set of six lessons, we asked him if he wanted to take another six lessons. He had wanted to take more lessons, so we were going to finish them. If, I went on, he wanted to stop taking lessons after we finished those to which he’s committed, that was fine by me. But, by golly, we weren’t going to quit before then.

Nothing doing! He was having none of it, and I was powerless.

Over the next few days, as I looked back at his behavior, it bothered me. Not that he was crying—I’ve never laid the “boys don’t cry” bullshit on him—but that he just quit. I don’t care if I raise a son who isn’t good at anything; I just want to teach him about trying your hardest and having fun in the process. On the other hand, I told myself, my son is only three, and maybe I need to just let it go.

Shortly after, we discovered that my son was terrified of the zamboni. I had forgotten that the last time he was on the ice prior to the meltdown, he freaked out when the loud buzzer sounded. He thought the zamboni was coming, not only to flood the ice, but to swallow us whole.

There is often more to our children’s emotions and subsequent actions than we know. My son wasn’t even able to really vocalize his own fears though, in his eyes, they were very real. He still won’t step out on the ice, so we’ve decided to hang up the skates until next fall. If he’s going to become an Olympian, a few missed lessons at this age aren’t going to make a difference.

My son’s three year old reasoning and intuition were telling him it wasn’t safe to go out onto the ice, even if he was incapable of articulating that. If you have young children, try to keep in mind that the emotions behind their actions are very real and logical to them -- even if they seem silly or irrational to you. It is really important, especially for us dads who tend to push our children more, to let them come to trust their own instincts. My son was visibly shaken at the prospect of going back onto the ice, though I was hell bent on “teaching him a lesson.” The only thing he would have learned had I thrown him back out there is not to trust his intuition when it comes to his own personal safety.

Take a time out!

I was reading a great post from Jeremy Adam Smith over at his blog, Daddy Dialectic. It had to do with dads, their sons and the sometimes painful dance that they do around playing sports---in this case, hockey.

It got me to thinking about my own relationship between sports, my father and me. I played just about every game under the sun (ironically for a Canadian kid) other than hockey. I excelled at some, floundered at others, and mainly just tried to have fun playing the rest. My father rarely got to see me play anything. I lived primarily with my mother, and dad lived too far away to come to games. Like many fathers and sons, sports became a talking point, and it was my dad who took me to my first professional baseball, football and basketball games.

When I was ten, our little league team went undefeated. I had been a steady-if-not-flashy important part of the team, and had at least one hit in every game we played. My dad drove the seven hours to see our semi-final, and hopefully, final game. This was the first time he’d ever seen me play.

Well, we won both the semi-final and the championship, but I didn’t get one hit. I think I had more strike outs in those two games than I had all season. After each one I looked to my dad. To this day, I am still grateful to my coach who recognized how desperately I was trying to please my father, and who, in front of me, told my dad how I was a real leader and contributor on the team.

My dad was never a boisterous or pushy sports parent. He never drove me to succeed nor did he ever seem disappointed by any failures on the field. Yet I was still so desperate to impress him—to make him proud. 

I once asked retired Major Leaguer, JT Snow, if he pushed his son harder because he himself had played professional baseball. “No,” he said immediately. He said if anything, he pushed his son less because he knows how much pressure a kid can be under if he shows major league potential. “After the game, give him a hug, tell him you love him and take him for ice cream.”

Keep that in mind if your children play sports. They care more about impressing you than anyone else: team mates, coaches, even scouts. Conversely, they will agonize if they feel they have let you down (which, statistically, will happen more times than not.) If they are going to defy the odds and make it to the pros, it isn’t going to be because you barked at them all game long. By having no vested interest in the outcome of the game, and by loving them just for being them, you will be helping to create an environment where your child can thrive—whether they ever win a game or not.