Three More Practices, Then We Can Talk

A child who says he's quitting after one bad practice is a different case from a child who says it in month three, and most of the advice I read treats them as the same one. I wrote yesterday about music and finishing a term. This is the shorter, earlier version of that question, the one that gets asked in a parking lot with the car door still open.

What I keep finding is a single rule, repeated by nearly everyone who writes about it. Give the child three more tries before the decision counts. Three practices, or two practices and a game, and then a real conversation. "You signed up" is a simpler rule, and it lets a parent skip the conversation altogether.

My child wants to quit the team after the first practice

Caleb hasn't said it, and he's been at fall ball on Tuesdays at 5:30 since school started on the 19th, eleven years old and in sixth grade with David helping coach. I've drafted my speech twice in the shower anyway, which tells you how well I'd do if I had to give it on a tired Tuesday with a ball bag in my lap. So I'm writing the rule down while nobody needs it.

A first practice measures less than it feels like it does. It measures whether he ate anything with weight to it after lunch, whether the drill was built out of standing around, and whether a coach spent forty minutes correcting boys who still aren't sure which way to face. Ben eats four things and I've made my peace with it, but Caleb's trouble runs the other way. He'll eat a whole lunch at noon and be furious with everyone by five. A granola bar rides in the Odyssey cup holder on Tuesdays now, and it has settled more arguments than any speech of mine.

I taught third grade for five years and watched kids walk away from a recess game because their turn never came, which does the same damage as an empty stomach. Nobody called it a character flaw until a grown-up did, and calling it one never got any of them the ball.

He also cried over math in the first week, which I wrote about in my sixth grader cries over math. A bad hour on a field on top of a bad packet makes the uniform look like the easy thing to drop.

When should I push my child to stick with a team

Mostly I push when he's sore or embarrassed or just new and the hour was an ordinary one, and I also push a little when a small roster is counting on him. A private lesson is a bill you can move to next month. A team can't always replace a boy once the schedule is printed, and the other boys notice an empty spot even when the coach is kind about it.

"Your team needs you" arrives in my mouth at exactly the moment I want the talk to be over, and that timing is how I know to distrust it.

Feed him first.

Ask the next day, with the cleats off and nobody making a decision in a hallway.

Two questions do more work than the speech. Is there one person out there he's glad to see? And does he think next time could be less embarrassing, or has the hour told him he's the worst one on the field and that the worst one keeps the job forever? If he hasn't been enough times to know, three more is the whole push I believe in.

Do not run faster or labor more than you have strength and means provided to enable you to translate; but be diligent unto the end.

D&C 10:4

The Lord is talking to Joseph Smith about the work of translating, so I'm borrowing it and not claiming it was written about Little League. Still, the verse holds both halves of what I'm after in one breath. Don't run past what you've got, and don't quit before the end. I tend to hear only one of those halves at a time, depending on how the day went.

David loves coaching that team, and he loves having his own boy on it, and those are two different loves. Caleb shouldn't have to look after the second one. If both of us react too big to a hard Tuesday, he ends up standing there managing his parents.

Signs a child should quit an activity

Some reasons don't need a three-practice trial, and pain that changes how he runs is the first one, and I don't mean the heavy legs of a boy who spent August on the trampoline and then acted surprised. A coach who mocks children where the parents are expected to laugh along is another, and so is meanness from other kids that keeps going after an adult has been told. If a boy can't sleep or breakfast won't stay down or Sunday night brings a stomachache he could circle on a calendar, I stop asking for patience and start asking questions.

Then there's the quiet case, where nobody is cruel but he's had a real try and has no one out there and can't point to one stretch of the hour that felt like play, only the relief when it ends. I'd let him go, and I'd try not to make him prove something so that I can feel consistent.

A hot, confusing first practice isn't that case.

Should I make them finish the season

Fall ball here runs into mid-October with games on Saturdays, so when I say "season" in our kitchen I have to say which one I mean. If I tell an eleven-year-old he has to finish, I ought to know whether I mean this Saturday's game, the last game before the weather turns, or some older rule I picked up at a dinner table that had nothing to do with baseball.

If he's safe, and the trouble is that he was new and the drills were dull, I'd ask for the games on the schedule. Then next year's sign-up has to be its own yes. People staple the two together when they're annoyed. He said yes in August, so he owes somebody a sport until high school. He doesn't owe that.

Caleb did most of a year of piano at seven and then lay with his cheek on the keys, and I let him stop. It was the right call and I'd make it again, which is the reason I can't be the mother who never lets anything go. What I'm trying to avoid is a boy who learns to stay quiet about a bad hour because his mother is afraid of raising someone who quits. He'll keep coming and stop telling me the truth, and I need the truth more than I need the attendance record.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I know it's adjustment and not a real problem?

Ask the next day after he's eaten and not between the parking spot and the front door. If he can name his legs or one drill or a kid whose name he hasn't learned yet, send him back and mean it. If he dreads one adult, or something hurts when he runs, or the dread starts before he's found his socks, stop calling it a phase.

Do I make my child finish the season if he hates it?

When he's safe and the end is close, yes, and I say the date out loud so "finish" doesn't turn into a fog I can stretch later. Hating it after one night isn't information I'd hand a roster over to, but hating it just as much after three more tries is.

What if my child begged to join and quit after one practice?

The boy who begged in July hadn't stood on the field yet, and the boy in September has, so both of them get a vote. I'd collect the three tries first and then let September's vote count for what it's worth.

What if the coach is his dad?

Then the lineup doesn't get to settle it. David helps coach Caleb's team, so a quit would land on his practice plan and his son on the same afternoon, and he'd feel it more than he'd say. Caleb hears one sentence from both of us and the extra practices happen and we don't keep a second answer in the other room. I want the reason in Caleb's own words before I side with him or overrule him, because a reason I had to compose for him belongs to me and he's already left the conversation.

with love, Melissa