First Times

My kids recently started playing soccer for the spring season.  For my daughter, this was her first time ever playing a team sport and when her one and only practice got cancelled, I was worried.  She was anxious about her first game because she had never put on a pair of cleats or stepped on a soccer field before. Thankfully, when game time came, she listened to her coach and was out there chasing the ball like all the other kids.  

My son’s start to soccer almost two years ago was not so smooth.  I signed him up when my daughter started kindergarten and he was lonely. I thought it would give him something to look forward to each week.  However, I hadn’t considered that he had never done anything without a big sister to follow and this led to one of my worst parenting experiences.  Even though his coach was our neighbor, he wouldn’t leave me and go out on the field.  After 15 minutes of trying to get him to participate I decided we weren’t going to sit there but go home so I could at least put his baby sister down for a nap. This led to much screaming and kicking (him, not me) which led to lots of bleeding (me, not him), and pounding on the car door (him, not me) and serious embarrassment (me again).  After crying on the phone to my husband, I gave my son another chance and for awhile he stood on the edge of the field while I glared on in frustration and avoided looking at any other parents. By the time practice was over he had gotten close enough to the coach and other kids to realize that soccer is really fun to play and as we left he told me he couldn’t wait to go back.  Two weeks ago when it started again and I watched him run over to his team with such enthusiasm, I was amazed at the difference in him since his first time.

It is normal to be anxious about doing something for the first time. Even when I am going to a new doctor’s office or an event I’ve never attended and so I have no idea what to expect, I get nervous.  My kids missed the morning bus for the first time this week and I panicked. I have never driven them to school and don’t know the protocol of the drop off and I didn’t know how to get my pre-kindergartner on his shuttle bus.  While it turned out not to be a big deal, in that moment I was incredibly stressed.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy doing new things. I’ve decided it is mostly when other people are involved to tell me if I’m doing it right or not that stresses me.  When I was a missionary for my church there was a lot that was new and I had a lot of firsts in the 18 months I lived in Kiev.  One of the most memorable was when my companion asked me to make a pie for our small missionary Thanksgiving gathering. I had never made a pie before, let alone in a foreign country where I couldn’t even read the directions on the pudding box. I had only been in the country for two weeks and couldn’t even figure out how to grocery shop yet.  I strongly resisted making this pie and yet she made me do it, without any help.  I was confused and frustrated and ended up making the worst pie ever.  I totally overworked the crust and it got as hard as a baseball so rolling it out was near impossible. I made the pudding wrong and so even the filling wasn’t good.  It was a complete disaster. Maybe she was trying to teach me a lesson, maybe she just didn’t want to make the pie, maybe I could have had a better attitude but either way we all suffered eating this terrible pie and I was rather embarrassed.  

I like to be good at what I do so doing something for the first time can be intimidating because I don’t want to mess up, especially in front of other people.  I’ve noticed this in my daughter too and seeing it from the other side is enlightening. Luckily my husband is better at failing and not feeling like a failure.  He has helped me and helped our children figure out that doing something for the first time doesn’t have to be stressful or scary or perfect.  Even if it is a complete failure (i.e. our son starting soccer) it doesn’t mean that we’re not good at [insert activity here] or that we can’t learn to enjoy it.  I still will probably never go skiing or scuba diving and I may still get nervous going to a new doctor but because I can now make a killer strawberry pie, there is hope in learning to be better at the first times.