Heartbreak
Last night I felt the worse type of heartbreak.... my son did not make the Boys Middle School Basketball team. Granted in the grand scheme of things he's only in 7th grade no big deal but to see him walk out of the 3rd night of tryouts crying with the form letter saying you didn't make the team but neither did Michael Jordan and keep practicing, blah blah blah is really the worse pain I have ever felt.
Losing my parents & brother and H's A are nothing to the pain of seeing your child hurting. Both my H and I were so angry last night and realize now that we should have not let our son know that we were upset for him. We did tell him it wasn't a big deal but we also explained the politics of sports/life and you know what it SUCKS!
I know I'm his mother and am somewhat biased but Ben is really a great kid who deserves a break at some point. It's like he's always on the edge and just misses out to the kid who's parents play the political game. Ben lost out to a boy that is known throughout the town not to play well but his Dad coaches basketball with the school teams asst. coach. This coach and the asst. coach happen to be Ben's travel team coach as well. All of the other slots on the team were taken by our towns other travel team (6th,7th, & 8th). Ben's in 7th and the other boy is in 6th.
I hate how ridiculous this sounds and think that sports is just not for me. I didn't know that you had to start when your kids were starting school to align them w/a certain group of kids/parents if you wanted them to play sports. We've been on the other side where he's played and a friend of his was put on the team and it was admitted that this boy got on the team ahead of someone else because of who he knows rather than how he played. The other boy was a better player.
What a rude awakening on life that it's just as messed up now as an adult as it was when I was a kid. I guess that's just life. Lucky me gets to have another chance of heartbreak tonight when Caralyn, my 11yr old daughter comes home from the same Middle School tryouts. She internalizes so it wont seem as devastating if she doesn't make it. Unfortunately though she'll go through the same pain. The only difference is that I've learned how to handle it the right way. How do I make things better with my son? I think between our arguing in the past and these types of bad choices, we've really F'd up our son. He's insecure, can't have sleep overs because he doesn't want to leave us (thinks something is going to happen or he's going to miss out on something). Not making the team has just added to his anxiety. UGH, parenting is so hard.
Losing my parents & brother and H's A are nothing to the pain of seeing your child hurting. Both my H and I were so angry last night and realize now that we should have not let our son know that we were upset for him. We did tell him it wasn't a big deal but we also explained the politics of sports/life and you know what it SUCKS!
I know I'm his mother and am somewhat biased but Ben is really a great kid who deserves a break at some point. It's like he's always on the edge and just misses out to the kid who's parents play the political game. Ben lost out to a boy that is known throughout the town not to play well but his Dad coaches basketball with the school teams asst. coach. This coach and the asst. coach happen to be Ben's travel team coach as well. All of the other slots on the team were taken by our towns other travel team (6th,7th, & 8th). Ben's in 7th and the other boy is in 6th.
I hate how ridiculous this sounds and think that sports is just not for me. I didn't know that you had to start when your kids were starting school to align them w/a certain group of kids/parents if you wanted them to play sports. We've been on the other side where he's played and a friend of his was put on the team and it was admitted that this boy got on the team ahead of someone else because of who he knows rather than how he played. The other boy was a better player.
What a rude awakening on life that it's just as messed up now as an adult as it was when I was a kid. I guess that's just life. Lucky me gets to have another chance of heartbreak tonight when Caralyn, my 11yr old daughter comes home from the same Middle School tryouts. She internalizes so it wont seem as devastating if she doesn't make it. Unfortunately though she'll go through the same pain. The only difference is that I've learned how to handle it the right way. How do I make things better with my son? I think between our arguing in the past and these types of bad choices, we've really F'd up our son. He's insecure, can't have sleep overs because he doesn't want to leave us (thinks something is going to happen or he's going to miss out on something). Not making the team has just added to his anxiety. UGH, parenting is so hard.
Replies
I agree, parenting is hard and so is seeing your child hurt. I went through sometime similar last night with my 10 year old.
Optimism is the key here: turn a bad into a good and suggest something else for him, now that he doesn\'t have that \"pesky\" basketball to worry about. Something exciting! (((HUGS))) I understand, trust me.
Just support him, let him know that in the grand scheme of things, it\'s not a big deal and when the right times comes, he\'ll get it.
You KNOW I feel you on this! I was pissed when my son was put on the JV squad. It was all due to politics. Last year, our town had 2 teams, the Knights and the Dragons. Zach was a Dragon last year and he was a starter. This year they merged the 2 teams and created the Varsity and JV squads. EVERY player except 2 on the varsity squad was a Knight last year. Guess what? The 2 kids that were dragons last year are both coaches\' sons. Zach is as good if not better than these kids and believe me, I would admit it if he wasn\'t. I am real about my kids. Anyway, my son taught me a huge lesson. E and I bitched for a while about the fact that he was put on the JV squad, then I asked Zach how he felt. He told me that he was cool with it because now he gets to play both ways and he plays the entire game. If he was on the varsity squad, he\'d probably only be playing defense. Now, he\'s one of the best players on the JV squad and he was able to score a touchdown last week. Also, the varsity squad didn\'t even make the play offs and the JV squad did. Zach is a cool kid who is just happy to play football. He is just not affected by the politics. He does want to win this rematch tonight though!
Anyway, I feel the exact same way about Zoie as you do for your son. She has very little self-confidence, which is why I was so thrilled for her that she got 2 call backs. My heart will break for her if she doesn\'t get one of the parts. She\'s a great actress, but she struggles with dancing and the songs she has to sing today are a little high for her. So, I\'m angsting like you. Here\'s the thing, we as moms just have to keep loving them and expressing our pride. Eventually, they will internalize it. They will bounce back from disappointments as long as we keep loving them unconditionally. You\'re right though...parenting is hard because we take on our children\'s pain. Hang in there!
Yeah, Yipee Xbox (not) He said that he guesses his friend that made the team won\'t be able to get to certain levels because he\'ll have practice every night and he won\'t so he\'ll be able to play more.
On a more positive note he mentioned joinng the book club becausein the Spring, they are going to see Hunger Games which he\'s readng right now.
Read your journal, it must have been one of those nights. Thanks for the advice
Ugh - we\'ve gone through this twice with volleyball and it\'s the most excruciating thing I\'ve had to endure! Lots of tears both times.
Last year she wasn\'t even close and asked me to sign her up for every volleyball camp I could find as well as the Y league. This year she was thisclose to making it, and is determined to play at the Y and attend camps again this summer. After the small boo-hoo session this year, she rebounded and said she still loves the sport and will keep playing even if she doesn\'t make the team.
So maybe resilience is the bigger gift here. : )
Have you gals considered martial arts classes for the kids? As a kid, I was always picked last on any teams, I was always the kid getting picked on, and my self esteem sucked compounded by the fact that my parents were too passive culturally to stand up for me. I always liked the idea of martial arts but my parents told me it wasn\'t for girls.
So I took classes in college and I found a studio that I eventually taught kids at for a few years. The studio didn\'t participate in competitions because the emphasis was on learning self defense. We just wanted to boost confidence and teach discipline while having fun!
shtmy, I actually wanted to do that when they were little, but we couldn\'t find one that we could afford. I want to do it for myself though. It\'s between that and Krav Maga. I want to kick ass Israeli style! lol
I join the ranks of the angst-ridden. Zoie\'s audition didn\'t go well today and now she doesn\'t even want to be in the play :(. It\'s going to be a long teen years! :(
shtmy, my mother-in-law has been after us to sign them up for karate for years. I wish I had done it. Do you think 13 is too old to start? Z, I\'ve never heard of Krav Maga but I do take Kick Boxing where Karate is also taught so maybe it\'s worth a shot. I\'m sorry to hear about your daughter\'s decision and that auditions didnt go well. Would she be interested in chorus? You want them to try everything but it\'s like you can\'t do it just for fun everything is so competitive.
Lisa, I hope he becomes resilient through all of this. I know I\'m not.
Today my husband and I are still mad and starting to go back and try and figure out what we did. Was it the fighting, did we not praise him enough? Who knows. I guess we didn\'t do that bad of a job because he really is a good kid.
Cec, I started aikido when I was 20, and started kung fu when I was 23... it\'s never too late to start!
Karate is good for anyone, but especially good for powerful fighters. Kung fu, jiujitsu, and other arts that use a combination of power, leverage, and more rounded movements are best for smaller frames. It\'s sort of like using a mallet vs. using a sword.
I like my studio because my teacher doesn\'t make us stretch till we look like pretzels because when we\'re much older, we won\'t be able to perform those high kicks. He makes us develop our technique according to our body types. It\'s a laid back environment. None of that crazy Japanese hyper-discipline stuff. I hated studios that poo-pooed other martial arts, claiming that theirs was the best. What a bag of flaming dog poo. Any martial art will have its pros and cons, but a good teacher will appreciate what other arts have to offer and even help integrate what a student learned from another art if possible.
Karate\'s wonderful strength is taking advantage of angles of attack and efficient leverages, not to mention very straightforward defense. The movements are crisp, they have to be in order to maximize power.
Krav maga is brutal! One of the most effiecient, no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners arts around. Lots of testosterone is involved, so make sure you go to class pissed off. LOL, kidding! Znz, if you take that art, make sure you perfect the leverages. It\'s so gratifying to take a 6\'4\" guy down by his ring finger. And then break his ankle when he\'s down so he won\'t run after you, lol.
Cec, you and your hubby didn\'t shortchange on the praise, I assure you. I\'ve seen a lot of parents from teaching kung fu and from the college I worked at who gave too much praise and ended up with self-entitled brats.
IMHO, a little disappointment and pain is okay because it\'s a growth opportunity, but if it crushes a kid (and his/her parents) to the point of damaging self-esteem, there\'s something seriously wrong with how much emphasis is placed on the importance of outside factors we can\'t control.
I\'m late on this one and all I can say is \"I can hardly wait\"