Parenting a 2 Year Old – Lessons from my daughter’s soccer

Parenting a 2 Year Old – Today was the first day of the second season of soccer for my daughter.  Season is a very loose term for 2.5 year old soccer. They work on fun drills and run around trip over each other.  Anyway, I digress a little.  My daughter is very tall, so we put her in the class with the three year olds as opposed to the two year olds.

Today, she refused to participate for most of the session.  During the first couple of drills, she sat in place.  Then she took off and began to run.  I wish I could say she dean with the other kids.  Instead she ran off the field.  I kept luring her back to the field with the promise that she would get stickers at the end of the session.

Parenting a 2 Year Old

Now, she was a 2.5 year old being a 2.5 year old, but situations like this can be stressful as a parent and I must strike a balance between pushing her to play and letting her be herself.

There are a few schools of thought on how to handle this.

To simplify, we say -

1. Let them do whatever they want to do and know that they will come around.
2. Do everything in your power to get her to participate with the other kids.

Here is what I did -

Worry at the beginning.  This is probably a normal reaction and I wish I could say that I handled the situation perfectly.  However, I worried and made this mean that I was a horrible parent.

Then, I had my personal breakthrough and it was very liberating.

I just let the situation be.

I stepped away from her and let her sit around and not participate.  Every once in a while, I would go over to her and ask her if she wanted to participate.  However, this time, it was coming from a different place.  It was not coming from fear or an attempt to coerce her to do anything.