Favorite sport? Soccer!

In late February or early March, we began inviting Aditya to play soccer.  Usually, he would be reluctant, and would play a few minutes at the most, then ask for one of this favorite activities.

We kept working on this every day, along with other goals like helping him "opine" on things and state "preferences" spontaneously.  Indeed, a lot of progress made on those goals, which we will soon capture in another blog post.

In the meantime... Aditya got hooked on to soccer.  So much so, that Dad and Aditya now play soccer every morning.  And when asked "what is your favorite sport", "Soccer" comes the answer!

Every morning after breakfast... Dad and Aditya come into the playroom and just go about setting up a goal post with a kids' writing desk, and another goal post between two green chairs, as if they are now "hard-wired" to play soccer first thing in the morning!  No invitations required...  Aditya WANTS to play soccer.

We usually play two sessions of 10 minutes with a half time in between.  There is water/ tea sipped and "foot rubs" exchanged at half time.  And some chatting too.

What happens during the play?  A consistently improving soccer player Aditya is busy giving himself passes, then sending the ball flying into the goal!  Often time Dad defends the goal post, only to find Aditya quickly take control of the ball again and give "himself" a pass, then go collect it, and come back again attacking on the goal.

Of course, he wins all games,  but we have tied some games too, as this helps him be more flexible about "winning" and "losing"!  (I suspect the time will soon be ripe for a game where he loses by 1 or 2 goals. )

And when he is trailing by even one goal, we get to see an extremely motivated Aditya who produces a special "goal" that leaves Dad defenseless.  Sometimes, Dad does not even get to pretend not being able to save that goal from happening!

Clearly when we began we had to pretend losing a lot.  Now... we still pretend.... but it is getting harder by the day.  To the extent that we pretend to lose... it is only to give a 6 year old a level playing field... and no more because of Aditya's condition of autism or his motor delays.

Go Aditya!  We continue to play Soccer with you, and have even begun inviting you to other "active" games like Cricket and Kick-ball, because we know... you can not just do it... you can beat us at it!