Thursday, June 30, 2011

Soccer... with other 6 year olds!

It's old news that we have a Soccer "challenge" going on at our house.  Aditya takes turns in winning the trophy with Dad, Mom, and his volunteers,  and is equally cool with losing as he is with winning.

In the meantime, he has been steadily improving his skills at the game (although it is still indoors).

Three weeks ago, he first played soccer with another 6 year old as part of his "twice-a-week play dates with peers"... which itself has been a great boost to our program!

In that game, Aditya was trailing 1 goals to 3 when the other child complained of being tired and requested that the game be cancelled.  Aditya was anxious at this time about losing his trophy... a surprise... given that he is okay losing it to his Son Rise playroom "grown up" friends!  Since the other child called it off, the game was declared as "drawn".

Last weekend, he played again with the same child.  This time around, Aditya won the game 2-1.  Of course, he worked very hard with us in the meantime to improve his game, primarily his ability to kick a ball that is already moving.  A few weeks ago, he had to, almost always, stop the ball for a moment before kicking  it again... which put him at a disadvantage when he played with another kid!

Aditya also had yet another play date with another 6 year old child, in which he won both soccer games as 11-1 and 4-3.

Are we excited for him winning? Certainly... as it will hopefully boost his confidence while playing with kids his age.  More important, we are excited that he now plays "for real" with other kids, and not just with his volunteers and parents who are smart enough to lose to him, every once in a while, as a way of keeping him motivated.

No comments:

Post a Comment