I’ve taken my son to a hockey game, which mostly ended up entertaining him with music and the “violence” on the rink. (Oops.) Baseball is a whole different… ballgame. That, combined with the fact that I don’t like baseball, has led to him making it to age six without seeing our local MLB team play. Last night I brought him to his first game, along with my family. We brought headphones and his iPod just in case, but he ended up not needing them.
I observed some amusing behaviors. He didn’t seem to catch on to or enjoy the competitive aspect of the sport, but he immediately tuned into the scoreboard and wanted to keep track of balls, strikes and “O’s.” He casually mentioned that our row had 24 seats after counting them himself (it did). His favorite parts of the game were the hot dog and a cat dressed as a DJ on the big screen. Overall, I don’t think we’re growing a baseball fan, but I’m really happy he made it through the game with relatively few meltdowns. (We’ll just not count him throwing his spoon in a rage after the Dippin’ Dots were too hard to scoop up.)
I noticed a ton of kids there and that really surprised me. I can barely sit through baseball as an adult, but it must be different for little kids who are genuinely engaged in the sport. (My kids definitely loved the Monster Truck rally, but I’m not sure that’s a “sport.”
Do you take your child (neurotypical or not) to sporting events?
