Determined or Just Stubborn?

When Leif was six, he wanted to learn to ice skate. Our visions of him as a future pro hockey player were complete with competing college scholarships to Ivy League schools. Max had played as a wee lad, and I wanted those tiny-bronzed ice skates. We started his lessons at the local ice rank. He was so excited about learning. I outfitted him in over sized snow pants– the idea being the extra padding would help shield his small butt from any hash falls. That poor boy spent more time on his butt, then on his skates. Every time he fell, I winced. He would fall, scoot over to the boards to get up and then fall again. He would fall and then get right back up and keep trying. It broke my heart to see him try so hard. I spent the 90 minutes of his lesson planning on how I could make all this up to him. Ice cream at DQ, or a toy at Wal-Mart? Anything to help my poor little boy to feel better, all that falling had to hurt his pride as well as his bum. When Leif finally got off the ice, I ran to help him get his ice-skates off and to tell him how brave he was and how proud I was of him for trying so hard. His first words were, “Wow, Mom, I’m really good at ice skating!” Did we see the same lesson? I was so proud of his determination. He still is that determined about everything he does, some times, we just call it being stubborn.