Yesterday, Ian had his brain sucked out by an hour and a half stint at computer games. (We recently took away his computer time during the week in exchange for longer times on the weekend to help him with motivation in home school.) Not surprisingly, he was drained of motivation, bored, and not very fun to be around.
Hannah was out having some away time, Lizey was napping, and Caroline was in quiet time, listening to a story CD. I suggested shooting Ian's bow and arrows with him. Nope, didn't want to do that. Read a book together? Nope. Play a board game? Nope. Finally, I took him outside and began to throw a Nerf football at him. "I can't catch," he said as he watched the ball soar through the air and hit him in the chest. "See?" He hadn't even moved his arms to try. After repeating this performance a few times, I saw this wasn't working and that we needed a change in tactic.
"I bet you can't pin me." I ran up and tackled him and promptly rolled until he was on top of me. He put his knees on my shoulders, and I made a great show of not being able to get out from under him. I "tried" all sorts to tricks to escape, all to no avail. Eventually, he started to smile, and we kept it up for a while. He especially seemed to enjoy pushing my face in the grace and watching me overreact to having grass blades go up my nose.
Finally, I got out from under him and said "Let's try again." I tossed him the ball, and he caught it. He hurled it back to me. Standing 4 feet away to ensure success, I tossed it to him again. He threw it back. Up to this point, he really hasn't been that good with a football, and lack of confidence has been a main contributor. We took baby steps. I congratulated him each time he broke a record for number of catches in a row. Finally, when he got to 15, we stopped counting, and before I knew it, we were throwing back and forth clear across the yard together. We ended up playing catch for almost 2 hours.
I think sometimes gross-motor engagement is vital for connecting with boys. I've heard somewhere that playing catch is one of the best ways for fathers and sons to connect. I've never been too big a fan of ball sports, but after seeing the magic it worked today, I'm changing my mind.
1 comment:
yay for daddy magic posts! i love this post -- made me smile so much -- i'm reading this book on the brain right now and re-developing an appreciation for the physical things we do in life to engage our brain -- catch in this post; handwriting, puzzles, artwork, etc in the book.
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