How do you celebrate your child’s success?

As I shared in an earlier post, my older son’s flag football team won the city-wide tournament, which qualified them for the Regional Flag Football tournament (dubbed the Super Bowl Championship).

My son was much calmer going into this round than the city-wide games. I told him to just ‘enjoy it’ (easier said than done, I know), and that ‘no one could take away what they’d already accomplished. They’d be the city-wide champions regardless.’ This seemed to help. We arrived early and waited for his teammates. The other teams were there early and were getting prepared. One team even arrived in a limousine. My initial thought was “that’s so nice” and then I thought “is this team here for a different game or tournament?” when the kids stepped out of the limo in matching uniforms, the limousine started honking it’s horn and there was a line up of fans for the kids to run through. I was genuinely confused, what was going on? Then my husband leaned over and said, “I think they’re trying to psych out their opponents.” Aha, I thought, my husband was probably right, though I was disappointed because if what he said was true the psyching out was being coordinated by the parents of the players, and not the players themselves.

Our team continued arriving slowly over the next hour. One of the coaches got caught up in traffic, another was with his son at a soccer tournament that was running long. It was becoming a little concerning.

Our fears subsided when we had five, and finally a sixth player arrive. The first game started. The other team had over ten kids, plenty of subs and we had five players with a sixth on the sidelines (he’d been injured and they were holding him out of the game unless absolutely needed). The odds were stacked in our opponents favor, but then we played. Our kids played with toughness, determination and a will to win. It was special. They beat the other team 44-6. Then they moved to the championship game. We’re going up against the kids that showed up in the limousine. Their fans were cheering them on in droves, they’ve had balloons and tents set-up. We had a decent showing on our side, but the other team had us beat. Then the game started. They drove down the field, it was looking like they might score, when we intercepted a pass and ran it back for a touchdown; and then we get the ball back and drove down for another touchdown. My son’s team was so in-sync with each other that they were not going to let a player on the opposing team have any success if they could help it. They batted balls away from the opponents, they intercepted, they pulled flags at the last minute to stop a score from happening, it was magical. As I was watching it I was thinking this is one of those moments we’re going to remember for the rest of our lives. We won the game 28-0. My son and his teammates got trophies — they were SO excited. It was amazing to watch, see my son be a part of it, and talk to him about what a special day it was.

We went out and celebrated with the team afterwards. It was one of those days you just don’t want to end. The following day we watched, and re-watched video we had taken. My son paced around with excitement around playing flag football again in the Summer League, Fall League and any league available to play in in-between. 🙂 As the weekend came to an end my son asked, “Mom, is that it?” I asked him what he was talking about. He said, “Is that it? We won, and now there’s nothing else?” I knew what he was referring to. When you’ve prepared for something for so long, it happens and then it’s over, where do you go from there? I told my son, “You’ll see your team soon when you go to the coaches’ house for the season ending party. And we can have people over during the summer and maybe we could get a pick-up game together.” But I know there’s only a 50-50 chance that will happen. It’s hard when the victory is over, the dream realized. When you reach a goal and have to find a new one.

I’m grateful my son, and our family had this experience. It was a special one, but it reminded me that I have to help my son appreciate his accomplishments, be grateful for his opportunities, to believe in himself and his capabilities, and to set his sights on the next goal. After all, my desire is to help him be victorious in whatever he does.

How do you celebrate your child’s successes? How do you help them prepare for their next?

Happy Fourth of July! I’ll be off next week enjoying the holiday.