Garrett is amazing!

About May Garrett decided he wanted to play Basketball.  OK - we said, Dad and Gavin can go play with you at the park.  "No, I want to play on a city team"  Um, okay?  We have never heard anything like this out of Garrett's mouth.  When he was 4 and all the other Mom's were signing their boys up for soccer I signed him up.  He hated it.  I asked him if he'd do it another year, he did (I'm not sure why because again, he hated it)  Philip and I coached the second year (even though we knew absolutely nothing about soccer) so we could help him along.  Yep, hated it. Same thing with baseball, and so on.  For about 6 years now we have had the struggle of listening to him be very upset with himself, to the point of tears many times, because he has "no talents."  Of course, we see that he has many talents but that's so hard to explain to kids when the talents aren't something they can perform for a group. 

I held my breath and signed him up for City Basketball(luckily, in Henderson, you can play any sport any season of the year so we didn't have to wait).  I have to admit in the back of my mind I thought he'd back out...but oh no.  He has spent every waking minute that he can learning to dribble and shoot.  Since practice started he has been online looking up drills and then goes to the park with his Dad and brother to practice them.  For a boy who started playing basketball 2 months ago - he is pretty darn amazing!  The first practice was tough, trying to learn lay-up drills and keep up with where he is supposed to be all the time - but that didn't stop him...he just tries harder.  We are so proud of him. So proud that we had he and Philip fly home early from our family reunion in AZ so he wouldn't miss any practices and he didn't come with me to Colorado this time so he wouldn't miss any games.  They haven't won a game yet -- but we keep reminding him how proud we are of him and he leaves almost every game happy and proud of himself.  Garrett has done more than win a game -- he has shown motivation and confidence in himself.  That's more than a simple basketball game win to me - it's a triumph in one of life's hardest lessons for some of us...that he has talent!!

I found the article below today and love what it stands for.  I'll admit it's a struggle for me to always have the confidence I need to in all of my children....this basketball experience has helped us both for sure!  Last night he told me he wants to play baseball....and here we go again....I'll learn, one day.


Displaying Confidence in your Special Needs Child