Football dad looking for advice?

I signed up my seven year old to play Jr. Clinic (7-8-9 year olds) and volunteered to be an assistant coach also. When we started hitting he was crying and just not ready to take the next step (contact shy). As one of the coaches it was difficult to watch. The head coach, my wife, and I decided it would be best to pull him out now. The reason, we didn't want to rattle his confidence when it came to football. Yeah, we could of left him in and let him stick it out, but we were sure he would never want to play tackle football again. He is now in a community flag football league, which is low stress and he loves it, and I'm still coaching on the Jr. Clinic team. Moral of the story: Sometimes you may need to take one step back to go forward (don't lose sight of the big picture). Good luck.