Well, I’m 4 weeks in to Ladybugs Soccer, and we’re having a blast! I will admit that I get a little frustrated at times . . . girls are just different than boys. Really - they are much more flakey. With boys, you had one or two that would just refuse to play - they’d sit down and whine or whatever and refuse. But with girls, they want to be out there, but they’re always looking at something else, or hugging someone else, or pointing out the beautiful dandelions, or running across the park to pet a dog. My favorite is when we’re scrimmaging and one girl falls down, whether it’s because someone tripped her by accident or she just fell down on that one extra long blade of grass; but the result is that no less than 4 other girls will immediately stop what they’re doing and go see if she’s OK. I’m all for the empathy and wanting to make sure others are OK, but with boys, you’ll never see that. They see it as an advantage - ooooooh, someone fell down - that’s one less person trying to kick the ball away from me - advantage!!!
We had our first game last week and it was a BLAST! I never realized how much different it was for the kids to play against kids they don’t know. When you’re practicing, they all know each other and are friends and nobody wants to take the ball from their friend and make them feel sad (again, this is only applicable with girls). But get them out on a field playing against girls they don’t know, and watch out! Out come the claws - they are BRUTAL! The littlest, teeniest, sweetest girl turns into this crazed maniacal creature, something like what you might see in The Exorcist. They are AGGRESSIVE man! The game was fun and very even as far ability on both teams, and even though technically the YMCA doesn’t keep score, you know darn well the girls are keeping score. I am proud to say that my little Ladybugs beat the Unicorns by 1 goal . . . 6-5. And how fun is it that there were so many goals scored so lots of the girls had a chance at it! And believe it or not, there was even PASSING - I couldn’t believe it!
Tomorrow we have our 2nd game . . . the last game that coaches are allowed on the field to assist their players with positioning, etc. Next week we’re still allowed to coach, but we’re not allowed ON the field - just on the sidelines. We can break up the occassional scurmish that breaks out when two people want to do the corner kick and neither will back down - but other than that, it’ll be all the girls; 4 and 5 year old girls trying to figure out who gets to kick the ball this time and where the heck the rest of them should stand.
Wish me luck!
It is so funny how different boys and girls are! Obviously there is quite a bit of difference in their nature and the nurturing part only has some to do with how different they act.
Passing? Really? My daughter’s teams have not figured that out. How did you do it? That’s amazing!
I think the passing was an accident. We practice it, but it turned out that one girl was just hanging out in front of the goal watching all the others . . . my daughter just happened to kick it hard enough out of the pack right at the other girl, who got it and kicked it in the goal. But, of course we all congratulated them on the awesome passing
Sounds like lots of fun….the phenomenon of falling over isn’t just for soccer playing girls. You would be amazed how many kids fall off chairs, fall over in the hall, etc for no reason. Balance is apparently a very complex thing
Glad everyone is having fun…can’t wait to hear about the second game.
Megan had her first practice last night and unfortunately it is a co-ed team this year. Doesn’t fare so well for the girls who are too busy playing with their hair or looking around or just trying to get out of the way of the big boy who happens to be good and is cruising across the field at full speed. Evidently they don’t separate them until next year. She has mixed feelings - last night she didn’t want to play anymore but this morning she’s been practicing her dribbling in the house. So we’ll see. But, it their little scrimmage our team did win (amazing how those kids keep score when no one else is!). Oh, I and can’t believe I am saying this, but I actually got into it. YIKES!!!!!