Some of us just, aren’t, agile enough to do sports here, and there’s, no need, to push it! Translated…
We’d often gotten ask, on homeschooling, how do we socialize the kids, without getting them into the groups of their, peers? The adults’ presumptions are, quite interesting, because, although the kids stayed in school for long hours, and yet, the actual time they got to socialize with their classmates freely, is quite, limited, if the teachers ordered the students, to review over their assignments during breaktime, punishing them to write, or, punishing them to stay in their seats, then, the so-called, “peers” became nothing more than “those with whom we rode al the way to school with”, and, on this train to advancing in education, we’d become, familiar strange partners.
I do believe, that it’s important, to have peers of our same age to learn from, to play with, and so, although I’d homeschooled my own young, I’d signed my children up for the physical activities at the community centers, to ensure that my own children get a chance to interact with children their age, to see how one another is capable physically, and, for them to know the differences in their, performances compared to their, peers.
My child swam for a whole year first, from the shivering cold of one winter, to another winter; then, he’d taken up rock-climbing, from the beginning of how he’d cried to me he wanted to quit it, to shortening his own time to reach the top on his own., during this time, we’d, signed him up for the physical education classes at the local school, but my son felt defeated, as the instructor was, competition-oriented, whether it be track, or the sports with balls, in the end, the sessions always concluded in the team competitions.
The kids who are more agile, performed quite well, but those who couldn’t run fast enough, with not a strong-enough coordination, like my son, became the one, holding the group back, and, several of his classmates started, criticizing him harshly, and, it’d, depleted him of his, confidence. To change his mind about competitions, we’d, selected to sign him up for the baseball team for children in the community, hoping that the teams are, group-oriented, that every game they’d played, they can lose or win, so he can have a different experience of sports.
Whether it be swimming, rock climbing, or baseball, because of homeschooling, we were able to take the time to help our son to learn a new sport from beginning to end. First, we saw how badly our son was in it, and we wanted to tell him, to work harder, and found, that we can’t tell him to work harder at the sport, then he’ll become, excellent. The parents must learn, to give encouragements to their own young when they couldn’t perform well, and took her/him to see the other players’ better qualities, to help them improve their skills.
illustration from UDN.com
We also saw the progress that our son’s made each and every time, also, that children aren’t, robots, so, there would be the unstable performances with the moods, the physical wellbeing, that we can’t understand; during the training sessions, sometimes it’s joy, sometimes, chaotic, we often laughed hard, and, gotten angry a lot too, or that as our son felt defeated, he’d told us, that he wanted out for the sessions of next month!
On this, there are, the multiple layers of understanding to consider: had he lost interest in the activities? Or, that he felt that he couldn’t, do it? Or, what’s the goal of this, physical activity? We know our son’s temperament of hating to fail, but, this hating to fail didn’t make him force himself to learn better, but instead, it’d, made him, reject the activities, to avoid the chances he might not succeed in the activities. And, even this learning environment won’t make him feel that he wasn’t capable enough, but as he thought of those bad words, blurted out toward him when he couldn’t do it, he’d, decided, to drop the activity, that sense of anxiety, and defeat, it’s, truly, difficult, to manage.
Actually, I can, empathize and understand my son’s rejecting sports! Compared to my own father, who’d, almost had a full scholarship in kinesiology, I’m, hand-eye uncoordinated, with no sports I’m good at, and I’d hated, the strains on my body from the trainings, nor did I feel, any sense of achievement from the practice, the training sessions, I kept believing, that I wasn’t, agile enough, and, even as I’d finally learned to ride the bike in my college days, I’d still felt, that I wasn’t, agile enough.
Sharing my experiences with my son, it wasn’t to teach him, “Don’t be like mom!”, but, for him to know, that I get it, there are, children in the world who’d, hated, exercises, not every kid enjoying running around, hopping up and down, let’s just, let our selves, off the hooks temporarily, if we can’t manage it, so what, and don’t let how we’d performed in the physical activities, define our beliefs about, exercising. We must feel, what our bodies feel when we’re, exercising, that, is the time of conversation we share, with our, bodies, seeing our own, stamina, how we can, manage, it’s actually, quite, interesting to experience!
And so, this, is what this mom learned, from homeschooling her own son, that he wasn’t, agile enough, and she didn’t press him, because, there are just those of us, who aren’t, agile enough, meaning, we can’t run a marathon, we can’t lift those, dumbbells, we can’t do the push-ups, the sit-ups, etc., etc., etc., but, there are, things that, we may be, good at, we just have to, give ourselves the time, the chance, to discover what that might be. We don’t need to, fit into, those, tight, square (or rectangular) boxes that everybody fits into.