Above any good grade for him, what I really want is to keep his self-confidence intact. Like every child, there are areas where they have their weaknesses and their strengths. He is an incredible athlete. He runs fast; he can learn new skills on the field and put them into a game instantly; he can do crazy tricks on a board or a bike, and is happiest when he is in motion. Team sports were wonderful for him. Starting after COVID, when he went back to elementary school, he and his friends played flag football outside of school every morning and then joined a league as a team. They played together for five years and won three Super Bowls. They won their last season, and it was a perfect way to end. Everyone would be graduating, and some kids would be moving to different high schools, joining different teams for different sports, and the boys would all have different schedules.
He also played soccer and improved so much on the field this past year. He had a wonderful coach and a great group of teammates. Together, they won first place in the city and got to play a few rounds against super strong players in the state. When that ended, I thought he would continue soccer at school in the spring, and so did he. We checked the school newsletters and made sure to have the dates for the tryouts. He didn’t want to go alone, so he made sure his close friends would also be going. Soccer is a serious sport these days, and some of the kids at his school have been playing since they could walk. He had been on a skateboard since he could walk, but not on the field. He knew he wasn’t going to be the same level as a lot of the kids, but since he played on the team the year before, he wanted to try again. When he got there, though, he changed his mind.
When he came home that afternoon and I asked him how the tryout went, he started to tear up. He told me he was intimidated. He said some of the kids were asking him why he was there since he hadn’t really been a soccer player all these years. That was not helping, but he might have been able to get past that; the main thing he couldn’t get past was the size of the kids in comparison to him. We are not the biggest family, but none of us were early bloomers, and he is no exception. We started to see this play out on the field the last few seasons with football and soccer. Once he was meant to block someone who should have had his ID checked before the game, because he looked like a full-grown man.
One of his best friends started going through puberty in fifth grade. My son knows people develop at different times. You can’t walk the halls of middle school each day and not see that. The changes around him are obvious, and his flag football and soccer teams had a nice mix of a few kids his size, a few fully grown, and a few in the middle. There were teams that they played that only had one or two smaller kids, and the rest were super tall and strong. No matter how strong or skilled as an athlete you are, it is hard to be the small one on the field. I tried to build him up and encouraged him to try for the soccer team again on the day that they held the second tryout. He seemed to want to try again but was hesitant. He brought his cleats to school that morning, and before he left, I reminded him that trying out for the team did not mean he had to commit if he got in. He could just try out and decide later. He agreed and brought his cleats to school again that day. When he called in the afternoon and I asked him how it went, he started tearing up again, telling me that he just couldn’t do it. He went, he tried to be brave, but ultimately he felt too scared by the size of the other players. I told him I understood. I didn’t want him to feel any worse than he did, but inside I was sad to see him having to stop something he loved. He claimed to be not interested anymore and didn’t miss a beat in riding bikes with his friends and continuing his skateboarding. I was more upset for him than he was.
Those expectations will get us every time, and I had always imagined he would be playing some team sport in high school. I wanted him to have the structure of practices, teammates, and games to fill his week and his spirits. As his mother, I worry about how he will do in high school; that worry comes with the job description. He will find his thing, his people, and his place in school. I know that given some time, he will settle in fine, but it might take him a little longer to get there, since he has a little further to reach. I will continue to remind myself that high school can be bumpy, but it can also be wonderful. Either way, he comes home each day, I will have my hands and heart open to him, even when he just wants a snack and some money.
