Basketball

Owen's been in basketball now for about 5 weeks. His first practice was mostly fun, except for one incident where another player passed him the ball in an aggressive manner. He got immediately very upset and shook his fist in the air at him. The next two weeks of practice were spotty due to the holidays. They had their first game last weekend. Well, tonight was not a good practice.

Owen walked into the gym with wet shoes (it was raining) and the kids started making fun of him. At the first drink break, he told me he was never coming to practice in the rain again. Then he got made fun of at the drinking fountain and refused to go inside. The coach saw him talking to me and not returning to practice. I felt really good that I was able to ignore the social norms and do what I thought was right for Owen. We talked about his options and determined that he could avoid the kid (leave practice), ignore the kid, or confront the kid. He did not want to leave practice, but he couldn't leave it alone either. He decided to talk to the kid after practice. In the meantime, he went back in to practice.

There seemed to be some interaction going on between them. The eyes, the coach talked to them both, the nudges, but in the end Owen was smiling as we walked out of practice. I didn't ask any questions... I'm learning not to talk to Owen unless he talks to me first. He's not really a much of a talker.