First Sparring Tournament

This past weekend, the boy participated in his first sparring tournament in Tae Kwon Do.  It was just something that was put on by the place where the kids take Tae Kwon Do, so he was fighting against kids that he knows, but it was good experience and he seemed to like it.  We couldn't get the girl to try it.

In fact, she's been whiney and annoying for awhile now every time we go to Tae Kwon Do.  And she keeps saying that she doesn't want to do it, but then during class, she has an excellent time.  We're not really sure what the problem is, but we don't want her to quit and it's finally come to the point where we've told her that she's not allowed to quit until she gets her black belt.

Quitting was something that I just never considered when I was growing up.  If you started something you finish it.  I'm not sure how my parents instilled that quality in me, but it's something that I feel very strongly about.  And luckily, the husband feels the same way.

Some woman wrote a book recently about how Chinese mothers are superior and got an article published in the Wall Street Journal about it in the last couple of weeks.  When I started reading the article, I expected to hate it, but there was one thing I found that I sort of agreed with her about.  It was that, in general, non-Chinese parents allow their children to quit things too quickly and don't demand excellence from them.

When I was growing up, I took piano lessons and continued them even when my friends quit.  I continued in Girl Scouts and got my Gold Award even when all but one of my friends quit.  I continued doing lots of things even when my friends quit.  And in each case, there was a point when I did not enjoy what I was doing. But I continued because I just never thought I should quit something I started. And I was always rewarded by getting over that hump.

So I think that if a child doesn't learn to put in the work to achieve something, then s/he will never learn the satisfaction of earning the accomplishment.

Now, having said all that, I have to admit that we've fallen into the typical American life of over-scheduling our kids and maybe Marxo is just tired of always go, go, going.  We have something planned for every night but one per week.  Swimming lessons, Tae Kwon Do, and Gymnastics.  And we're debating about whether to enroll the boy in baseball this coming season.  We skipped soccer last fall so that we wouldn't have something controlling every Saturday's schedule, but Fellan specifically said that he wanted to play baseball and have me be the coach again (last year, I was an assistant coach for his tee-ball team and I guess he thought that was pretty cool).  The thing is, he doesn't pay attention and doesn't really show much interest in actually playing the game.  But, I'm afraid that if he ever does want to play in the future, that he'll be missing out somehow by not playing and developing his skills each year.  (which is sort of crazy to think about - he's only 7 years old, for goodness sake!)

Anyway.  Here's a picture that Marxo took of Fellan in his sparring gear on Saturday.  At least she enjoyed being the photographer of the day.  :)

First sparring tournament!