Change is Hard. Especially for our 6 yo.

AAAAUUUGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

So, that pretty much sums up how my husband and I feel when our 6 year old (actually he turns 6 tomorrow) is struggling with something new and different.

I don’t even know where to begin…

He is the baby in the family. So, yes, I will admit that I probably, most-likely (most-definitely) give into him – more than I should – to try to make him less uncomfortable when possible. And he is almost always uncomfortable with anything new or different or not part of his routine.

When we started him in pre-school, that was tough. Lots of crying at drop-off. Lots of hugs. Lots of holding onto me, not wanting to let me go.  Lots of guilt. Lots of mornings I was late to work because I just didn’t want to leave him, while at the same time I wanted to yell, what the hell?!? EVERY DAY?!? Why do we have to do this EVERY. SINGLE. DAY?!?

Every year after that first year, we have requested our older son’s same teacher for him so that he would already have a comfort level of knowing the teacher and the classroom… yes, I’m that mom.

The first time we signed him up for soccer, he did NOT want to go over to the coach. So I took him every week hoping he would come around. And every week, I ended up kicking the ball with him next to the field where the coach was having practice. I paid for soccer, we were going!

So since it seemed he would struggle with anyone else coaching, I decided I would have to coach his team if he was going to play. I’ve now coached him for four seasons… which leads us to today:

I signed him up for a soccer camp this week. We showed up today (there are 30+ kids already out on the field) and my kid immediately starts crying that he doesn’t want to go out there. GAH! Seriously?!? So, with 30 sets of parents looking on, Matt and I try to figure out the best way to convince our child to go out on the field. “It is soccer!” “It is just practice!” “It will be fun!” “Look how easy that is… you can do that!” “You love soccer!” More crying. Then we start to get that irritated tone in our voice, which is never helpful, but is, at this point, almost impossible to keep hidden. Our older son catches wind that we are weak and starts telling us he doesn’t want to go out there either. So, at this point, we have three options:

1. We can give in, which basically teaches our child that he never needs to step out of his comfort zone and try new situations
2. We can force his hand and make him go out there, which basically teaches our child that his parents are bullies
3. We can try to bribe him in some way that convinces him to try it, which teaches him that he has a lot more power than we do…

We tried all three.

None worked.

Over the next hour, I got him to follow me from the parent area to the field area – even though I was the only parent near the field. I even got him to go out on the field for about 3 minutes, and then he came running back – he was hungry, thirsty, his arms were hurting, he had a headache. I tried to negotiate that if he would practice one full drill (until the next water break, which were every 7 minutes), we could go. Nope. I threatened to return his brand-new cleats I bought the day before since he wasn’t going to use them. More crying. I told him I wanted to see how great his new shoes would work, so he needed to go out there so I could see! Nada. I just wanted him to get out there and try it. He just broke down crying every time.

At one point, I said to him, “This camp is every day this week.” And the tears welled up in his eyes and he looked at me with the most pitiful face and wailed, “Even tomorrow on my birthday?!?!” OMG! How can you force a child to do something that he CLEARLY does not want to do on his birthday!?! So, I bargained – if you do the last drill with the coach, you can skip tomorrow. He jumped on it. Finally.

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We are planning to travel the world, to try new things, to visit new places… I’m just not sure how our little one will cope with it all. And I’m definitely not sure how Matt and I will cope with his inability to cope considering we apparently can’t even get through a one-hour soccer camp successfully.

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Updated: Thought I would include one of my favorite pics of the birthday boy! How can we get so frustrated with this cutie!?