Refereephobia

After our practice session went well this week, I was pretty optimistic that soccer would go well today.  It didn't.  We had the team pictures, which he did fine for, but then we went to start practice.  He was acting a little nervous, but I didn't think much of it.  He asked if the referee would be coming, and I told him he would.  He asked if he would have a whistle.  I took this as Joshua just recalling things from previous seasons or else just about referees in general.  We have Coach Travis again this year (per our request), and he started the drills, and Joshua said he didn't want to do them.  The other boys started without Joshua.  I tried to get him to do them too, but he got more and more upset and soon starting sobbing and crying and saying he didn't want to player soccer and that he wanted to go home.  Soon it was time for the game to start, and Coach Travis tried to get Joshua to play, but he wanted no part of it.  So we were in a situation where we were there and perfectly able to play, but he absolutely refused.  Soon he saw the ref come over to our field (the ref only shows up for the second half of the session, which is the game), and Joshua then began asking questions about if he was going to be close to us and if he was going to blow his whistle, and that's when it dawned on me that this whole situation is about referees and/or whistles.  The game started, and I sat with him on the sidelines.  He noticed the other team's coach had a whistle, and he asked about it.  So it might actually be more of an issue with the whistles.  But the kids have their own whistles (from when Hannah was a referee for Halloween), and they love those.  So maybe it's only the real, metal, loud whistles?  I don't know.  But I sat with him while we watched the game and tried to point out the ref and how he was just a nice man,.  He somewhat accepted this but still didn't want to play.  I even tried bribing him with a promise of ice cream after the game if he played.  Finally, toward the end of the game, he agreed to play.  He went in the game, and all the parents cheered loudly for him because they had seen what happened earlier.  Unfortunately there was only about 45 seconds left in the game, and then it was over.  Even though he played less than a minute, I think it was really valuable to him to be able to experience playing and to have a positive memory of it.  Hopefully that carries over to next time.  By the way, we stopped by Walgreen's to return something, and he noticed a Cadbury Creme Egg, and he said he wanted that instead of ice cream.  So here he is in my car enjoying his treat.