For the last three Saturdays, we have gone to a soccer field filled with 140 4, 5 and 6 year olds to practice soccer for 30 min, then to play a game for 30 min. This is Son's first time playing organized soccer. He had attended two sessions of practice only over the last year and had fun, but this is different. There is no practice during the week. The children come to the field, practice, then have instant gratification with being able to play a game that same day.

I tricked my husband into coaching. It was not premeditated. I had initially volunteered, then my feet grew cold, he begrudgingly said he would do it and I graciously accepted his offer. Whew. That was close.

Parents are encouraged to go on the field and help coach the children as they play. We are lucky that all of our parents are sportsmanlike in their behavior. They are not ultra competitive, at least not outwardly. They are not mean or hard on their children. The idea is to have fun. If the kids happen to score and / or to win, then that is icing on the cake. But it is not the goal at this point.

When we arrived at our field today, there were three middle school kids who volunteered to coach our team for today. We accepted. Pressure off. Son's two closest friends from school happen to be on his team. These boys are tight. They are hilarious and they are fun. And they happen to be rather good.

The team we played did not want any help from the middle school kids who offered to help us. These coaches were serious. They were all about winning and scoring and sticking to the rules. The way we played the past two weeks, the rules were flexible. We wanted to keep the ball in play as much as possible. The kids learn more that way than if they were continuously stopping to ball and setting it up for a goal kick or a corner kick. So, today we played a more structured game. The lines were not wavy, they were straight. I am happy to report that our team won. I normally would not be as happy as I am about this, but the other team had parents who were just downright mean to their children.

"Turn around and look at the ball."

"Are you picking boogers out there? Pay attention!"

"If you don't score, I am going to pull you out."

"Come on, Jack! Don't let him beat you!"

And worse. Much worse. These are small children, mind you. I wanted the other team to score at least once. They did not. They barely had the ball at our end more than twice.

The cherry? My son scored three goals. Even better? We were not coaching today, so it didn't look like it was our decision. The middle schoolers read the parents and coach from the other team and deliberately put the best players on the field during the last 4 min to enable us to score. They're not stupid. They know they were snubbed. And they snubbed the coach right back, using our children as their pawns. So early to start this, isn't it?

We adopted one of them as our coach for next week. I look forward to it. I just hope the other team is in it for fun, like we are.