My 4 year old son has been playing a lot of soccer. After playing, he usually eats some snacks as we walk to the car. One day, he decides that he wants to dribble a soccer ball up a hill instead.

Now the hill isn’t just an ordinary hill. It was paved with a bunch of switch backs that were complicated to navigate with the ball. We were running a bit late to go home, but I wanted to see how this all went with the dribbling. He started to dribble and made it up almost all the way, but the ball started to roll downwards. There was a moment where I was debating on helping him stop the ball from rolling down the hill, but I decided against it since I wanted to see how persistent he was. He ran down the hill to get his ball and tried again.

As he was dribbling up a second time, he was almost up again and at the same spot on the last switchback, he lost control of the ball and it rolled downhill. I watched as he ran back down to get his ball and I reminded him to be persistent and take his time around the last curve. Third time was the charm and he made it all the way up the hill. He was so happy he wanted to dribble the ball in the parking lot and proceeded to accidentally kick it under a car! I had to get it and told him that was enough dribbling for the day.

I was super proud of my son for wanting to dribble up the hill so many times even though the ball rolled really far down to the beginning of the hill. He was determined to do it by himself and I love that little energy from him. He even inspired my 5 year old daughter to dribble up the hill and she got the same treatment where that last switchback got her bal and it rolled all the way down. It took a few tries for her and I was equally proud of her for keeping a determined attitude on to make it all the way up that hill by herself. It’s now a routine when we go to the car and they are slowly getting better at dribbling up that hill (and building a stronger will as well).