^{Originally published on BabyCenter.com November 5, 2015}

Hockey season has begun, and our son has taken to the ice for the first time. By default, he’s already better on skates than I am, since he’s able to move about ten feet before falling down. This season’s all about learning to skate, which means all the hitting and actual competition can wait.

Hockey is a realm where I have very little experience. I’m a big football fan, and I played soccer, basketball, and baseball at an intramural level in school. But hockey is an area where I’m only passingly familiar with the rules and the idea of hitting a puck around the ice is foreign to me.

Since this is such a new experience for me, and since this is only my second time dealing with the sports-dad scene, I’m learning quite a bit. Here are a few of the basic discoveries I’ve come across so far:

1: Our son didn’t realize that Dad wasn’t always a coach. I helped coach our son in soccer, and on the first day he assumed I was going to coach hockey, too. He looked somewhat surprised when I explained that not only would I not coach, but I didn’t even know how to skate yet.

2: Our son gets to teach me soon. We won’t be able to skate as a family until after the holidays, and by that time our son will be able to skate effectively on his own. We’ve made it clear that pretty soon it will be his turn to teach me something.

3: Frustration is the biggest enemy at this stage. The first day of practice involved 20 minutes of fun and 25 minutes of crying. Since then we’ve worked to eliminate frustration tears. As long as he can keep himself from getting frustrated, our son listens to coaches and keeps standing up after he falls.

4: It’s going to be hard to hold our daughter back. Our daughter loves hockey, especially now that her big brother is playing it. Keeping her from climbing onto the ice itself is going to be a challenge as the season goes on. Thank goodness there’s a sheet of plexiglass between us and the rink.

5: Bribery still works. After the first day, we made a deal: no frustration tears means some ice cream when we get home. This has worked like a charm each day since. I am not above using ice cream as a bribe to make sure practice goes smoothly.

Our son’s favorite part of hockey so far is, “Skating and falling down.” From where I’m sitting, that’s the only part of the sport he’s experienced so far. But he’s having fun and learning skills I wish I had picked up at that age, so I’m just going to enjoy the ride.