Another Fear That We Crushed - TOGETHER
A fear of mine was suppressed and for good reason. But I was still scared.
Remember when I was fearful of allowing Trey to play tackle football? What was I thinking and I was I so afraid? It wasn’t just me, my wife was afraid too. Check out her Facebook comment before we began our season.
I’m the 3rd/4th Grade Head Coach and even though I’ve played tackle football, things get different when they’re your own children. I get it. But allow me to set the record straight: after the first game I had to ask myself, what the heck was I scared of?
One of the things I’ve realized is that kids don’t have as many fears as we do. I know - part of it is because they haven’t experienced enough and part of it is that they simply don’t know. And sometimes being naive is a good thing.
You’re not hampered by the limitations that you’ve mentally put on yourself. You’re not worried about things that may or may not happen and you’re not focused on any failures or possible shortcomings.
So the naivety of Trey and the way they play combined with my teaching and methodology, helped kids to perform higher than my expectations. This was awesome but at the same time made me turn in on myself and ask myself a real question: Am I not giving enough credit to my son’s toughness or am I being a true concerned parent.
I believe it’s the former. I haven’t given my son enough credit. And that’s how it usually happens. We as parents worry about the worst of the worst happening but we never give our kids the credit to our teachings. Why? Trey is nine years old and he’ll be ten in November. Why haven’t I given him the credit he deserves.
I’m not going to make excuses about this. He rose way above many expectations which only means to me that I need to refresh my thought process about my son and I need to raise the expectations level for him.
This made me realize my fears and my limitations that I subconsciously put on my son. I mean, I was all for him playing but deep down, I was scared for him to get injured badly and for him to not want to play again. I think as parents, we focus way too much on the negative side of things and not enough on how they can overcome any situation.
He had a fantastic game last Wednesday. Our team won and he gained infinitely more confidence with his play as the game moved along.
My mindset shifted. It’s always good to have a mindset shift. My mindset shifted to raising my expectations with my son as well as not being a scaredy cat parent when it comes to him doing new things. I must commit to this shift because it will help Trey plow through plateaus and it’ll help him to always progress to a new level.
It was a fear that both Trey and me and Michelle crushed. The next fear lies ahead somewhere but right now, I’m going to enjoy that we attacked this fear and plowed through it like there was no tomorrow. No injuries, no hurt, nothing bad happened.
Just good, clean fun. And most importantly a WIN.
FB