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I need to know if anyone else has experienced this and navigated it. Our 8yr old son has played hockey for 3 years.

However, he has NEVER scored a goal in a game. And only a handful of times actually had taken shots on goal. I finally got out of him that he “doesn’t want the attention” but then he lied to one of the coaches when they asked if he got any goals or assists.

Help:
What can I do to support him? What do I say to this? What would you do?

Background:
Skating is one of his loves and he is exceptional at it. He is a natural at playing defense, seeing the whole ice..anticipating and coaches love him for it. He actually plays on 2 teams, his year league and then the next house league year up. He seems to loves everything else about hockey, even getting up early and being the first on the ice.

This year we set a couple of goals for development…getting into gear all by himself and participating in the celebrations when teammates make goals. Even getting him to join the celebration for a hug or fist bump is a lot for him. But he’s been doing it.

I told the coach what he said, that he didn’t want to score a goal. The coaches first reaction was to say that after he scores his first, he’ll be hooked. The coach, even though he is a volunteer because his son plays on the team, was a professional player in NHL, CHL and in Russia. He’s not a typical gruff or scary, coach, he is very patient so I was hoping he had come across this before. But I guess that is unrealistic.

The opportunity for goals was there for him this weekend. The game they played was a blow out something like 20-2.

If he scores doesn't it mean that one or two of his teammates get an assist too? (so the attention is spread around).

And it was Lombardi I think who said to his players "When you get into the end zone, act like you've been there before" so celebrating and attention is not necessarily a part of scoring.

When you sign up for a team, you have a moral obligation to your teammates to play your best. In hockey that means trying to score. Otherwise he has to quit the team. This may sound harsh, but I would be angry at a teammate who was not playing his best.

My DD9 has a similar profile in soccer... loves playing defense, and would prefer to play goaltender, though that job is ably taken on her team, so she's a defender. She sees the entire field, is strategizing beyond her age cohort, and runs the transition game extremely well, to the point where her teammates have started openly calling for her to take all the throw-ins. She's an ineffective midfielder or striker (ESPECIALLY striker), though for different reasons than stated here... she says she doesn't like them, and so she only tries hard at what she likes. It's not an issue, because her coach doesn't like defenders jumping in on the attack.

To watch her now, you'd never suspect that she was so tentative on defense in previous years that she might as well have been a cone to dribble around, because she was always so concerned that she might do something that could trip and hurt another player. To remedy that, we took a number of different paths:

- Openly expressed a support of rough play, and even roughhoused with her at home, which she LOVES.
- Showed her World Cup soccer, so she could see the players making contact, and the refs taking no action. This lent itself to a talk about the distinction between incidental contact and a deliberate foul.
- Bribery. I kept personal stats on DD for goals, assists, clean passes, and steals, and gave her an associated dollar value for each.

The bribery component no longer exists, as it has achieved its intended goal. I'm sure this post will be followed shortly with one about how extrinsic rewards don't achieve lasting results, and reference the studies that go with it, but in this case, DD found the pay scheme to be motivating, and once motivated, she found the results to be rewarding in their own right.

One key note about the bribery strategy, though... it was quite common for adults to be offering up bounties for their kids, but nobody else did it like we did. They all just paid for goals, which had the outcome of turning the league into a cherry-picking, ball-hogging mess. This is why we rewarded DD for playing a multi-dimensional game.

Hockey has a somewhat different take on post-goal celebrations than the No Fun League: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-p...ird-leg--toews--third-leg-041612539.html

Offering rewards to shape behaviour will build habits within weeks, after which the rewards can be phased out. See Kazdins Parenting the defiant child. No idea about studies to reference. But to surprise, it works.

I was very much like Dude's DD as a soccer player.

Honestly? Team athletics with scorekeeping are just not my thing, mostly. I can play a defensive position very well, but basketball, softball, and volleyball were not my thing. I didn't like the spotlight, and more than that, I didn't like the pressure to "score" points by defeating another player.

I guess part of this is a philosophical thing-- I didn't mind the physicality of some sports, but I did mind the existential fact that these are zero-sum, on some level.

Gymnastics, cross-country running, golf, and sailing were much more my cup of tea. Cooperative teamwork, yes-- but individual performance was respected without interference.

I guess what I'm saying is that while at 8yo, you might just be looking at a quirk of the developmental arc, (4-H, for example, won't PERMIT children of this age to engage in "competitive" projects at all, because they feel that it isn't entirely developmentally appropriate), it's also possible that this is simply an explanation that comes close to his inner framework, and how he feels about this particular type of competition.

I was this way from very early childhood-- and I never really grew out of it. I don't like the spotlight, I don't like feeling "no win" with respect to making SOMEONE unhappy no matter what I do (my teammates or the other team's defenders... hmmm?) and I really prefer activities where the level of the performance/play is the main point of it all. Let's ALL do extraordinary things, and the one who does the MOST extraordinary ones of all gets the big trophy, KWIM?

I would agree with HK - maybe it is time to really examine the reason. If it is fear or something similar - then yes, the kind of process that Dude did with his daughter would be a great option to try.

But I can relate to the whole preferring defense over offense. I was a lot like that, oddly, when it came to soccer (and floor hockey) - where as goalie, I was intensely competitive, but on offense, despite my speed and abilities, I just did not have that same bloodlust for scoring that other kids did. And I am very competitive by nature in some arenas (which DH can attest to - foot races, boat races where it is side by side or against the clock, I am competitive to the point that my teammates would never challenge me unless they were ready to go all out), but I always preferred playing a defensive role like goalie in sports like soccer. Volleyball never bothered me in the same way, because of the net, and I was just not really tall enough to be a blocker anyway.

Oddly, when I first ready of OP, it completely made me think of a snippet of the book The Blind Side about Michael Oher - where when they tried to make him into offensive tackle, he struggled but once they changed to defensive tackle, he was completely different player. And it made me wonder if there is a parallel there with your son. Playing offensively and defensively, to me, are very different in some aspects, and it may be worth seeing if that is what is driving your son.


ETA - correction - it was defensive tackle he struggled with (attacking the offense of the other team), but protecting the QB was where he found his spot.

And not wanting to score in a 20-2 blowout may be attributed to feelings of empathy for the other team or just sportsmanship. A lot of leagues have mercy rules and massively lopsided games will be stopped (or coaches will insert the 2nd and 3rd string players to even things out as much as possible).

No, I don't, which may not surprise you. Foiling the adversary is integral to many sports. Throwing a football to someone who catches it is not hard. Completing a pass, while people are trying to sack you, to a receiver who is being closely covered, is beautiful, I think. I'm not a baseball fan, but the coordination and accuracy required for a triple play make it also beautiful, IMO. In chess, the great games and great matches (Kasparov vs. Karpov, for example) resulted from evenly matched players who were trying to destroy each other.

Competition and conflict can produce value and even beauty.