Trina, you are clearly an experienced soccer mom (and clearly one who is living much further north than me)! Thanks for the advice and good wishes. My daughter was tired out but very happy after her first practice, and even said she wished she had soccer every day. :)

Anne, as I just noted, she did have F-U-N today. And yes, the life lessons will be rich (and as a Twitter buddy pointed out today, the blog post fodder will be abundant, too).

Chuck, that's a great story about your basketball experience. I'm curious, were you ever a bad sport growing up? Did you ever say you just wanted to quit? That's something I always struggled with, and I don't know if I would have stuck with it, had I been in your shoes. Learning "humility, trying and failure," as you put it, is so important, and so painfully hard to watch your kids learn.

Marty, you're so right—we're going to screw up our kids in some way. Sometimes I worry that my kids, have more than their fair share of disadvantages, since their dad and I are divorced. But I also can see how much they're learning, and how many great conversations we've been able to have with them *because* life isn't perfect. It's a balancing act, for sure, with lots of give and take. (Btw, I have a feeling that your focus on emotional health for your son will pay off in many ways.)

Daisy, I love hearing about your kids, and about these completely different perspectives on getting involved in sports. It really helps me see how taking the pressure off your kids to be "sports stars" is healthy, because it allows them to follow their own path of enjoyment. Who knows where it will take them? 

Cobalt-Blue, that's a great point. I wish our society wasn't SO focused on organized sports for elementary-aged kids. I think that's partly why S was feeling like she wasn't good at anything, because the things she IS naturally good at aren't legitimized with lots of group/team activities and opportunities (or at least there aren't nearly as many such opportunities for 8 year-olds as there are for athletics). I do think S is naturally inclined toward collaborative team efforts, though, rather than feeling like all the pressure is on her alone to win or lose, to perform or fail. It will be interesting to see if this experience softens her tendency to be a "poor loser" (a trait she gets from me, sadly).