The Perils of 4-Year Old Tennis<\/a>“). She
\ndonned her white shorts and t-shirt and showed up. The other kids out there
\nwere taller (by about six to eight inches). They were older. They had been
\nplaying tennis for at least a year, if not two (Penny had one day of practice
\nwith her dad). And they only had 46 chromosomes.<\/p>\nIf I had been in Penny’s shoes, that’s all I would have seen.
\nThat the other kids could hit the ball back and forth over the net. That they
\nmoved their feet to position their bodies appropriately. That they scampered
\naround the court. Even at age four and a half, I’m pretty sure, had I been in
\nPenny’s shoes, that I would have finished every lesson and considered myself a
\nfailure.<\/p>\n
But every day, when Penny walked off the court, she beamed. “I
\nhit the ball, Mom!” Sure enough, she had hit the ball, approximately one out of
\nevery ten times it came towards her. “I was a good listener!” True–the instructor
\ncommented that Penny paid attention better than her older and abler peers. She
\nsummed it all up: “I did a great job!”<\/p>\n
If only I could bring a little bit of my daughter back to my
\nown competitive, achievement-oriented, childhood self. If only I could tell
\nmyself as a little girl to pay attention to what I could do, to focus on the
\ntimes I succeeded instead of brooding over the times I failed, to pay no
\nattention to the abilities of the people around me. If only I could be a little
\nmore like Penny. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As I mentioned last week, with some degree of fear and trepidation, we signed Penny up for her first week of tennis lessons (see “The Perils of 4-Year Old Tennis“). She donned her white shorts and t-shirt and showed up. The other kids out there were taller (by about six to eight inches). They were…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disability","category-down-syndrome","category-family"],"yoast_head":"\n
Tennis Update - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/07\/tennis-update.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tennis Update - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As I mentioned last week, with some degree of fear and trepidation, we signed Penny up for her first week of tennis lessons (see “The Perils of 4-Year Old Tennis“). She donned her white shorts and t-shirt and showed up. The other kids out there were taller (by about six to eight inches). They were…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/07\/tennis-update.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-07-06T09:08:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Tennis Update - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/07\/tennis-update.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Tennis Update - Thin Places","og_description":"As I mentioned last week, with some degree of fear and trepidation, we signed Penny up for her first week of tennis lessons (see “The Perils of 4-Year Old Tennis“). She donned her white shorts and t-shirt and showed up. The other kids out there were taller (by about six to eight inches). They were…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/07\/tennis-update.html","og_site_name":"Thin Places","article_published_time":"2010-07-06T09:08:45+00:00","author":"amyjuliabecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/07\/tennis-update.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/07\/tennis-update.html","name":"Tennis Update - Thin Places","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-07-06T09:08:45+00:00","dateModified":"2010-07-06T09:08:45+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/07\/tennis-update.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/07\/tennis-update.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/07\/tennis-update.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Tennis Update"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/","name":"Thin Places","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b","name":"amyjuliabecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","caption":"amyjuliabecker"},"description":"Amy Julia Becker writes about theology, disability, family, and culture. Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}