So when do you go with the desire of a child or make a decision for him?
My husband and I have always believed in exposing our two kids - now 4 and 7 - to a variety of activites. First, it keeps them physically active and second, it allows them to experience a number of sports to maybe make a decision to focus on one or two.
Plus, I don’t want the kids to have the option to come home every night with hours available to watch TV or play the Wii. Now and then is fine, but not every night.
Wouldn't you want to do this, too?
So in the past few years, we’ve done soccer, t-ball, football, swimming lessons, karate and dance.
Our incredibly busy summer is just about behind us, chasing on the heels of a sure-to-be-busy school year.
Though both kids did karate for a month in May, my work schedule didn’t allow us to keep it up. So we maintained just a once-a-week swim lesson this summer (and still managed to miss plenty of those).
I got a coupon to try a fitness center that offers karate, dance and gymnastics. I signed both kids up for sample classes: gymnastics for my daughter and karate for my son (who has earned a yellow belt in this sport).
We got there and - yup - my son wanted to throw karate out the window and join his sister on the gym floor. I can see the temptation - check out the photo of the pit!
Our swim lessons end this week and so far I haven’t enrolled for the next session. So I tried to convince my son, 7, to take gymnastics AND karate. I’m not sure he should give up the sport he’s been involved on-and-off with for the past few years.
But he insists - he just wants to do gymnastics.
He’s very happy with it. Last night was our second class and I couldn’t believe what he was doing on the rings.
After swimming finishes this week, we’ll be down to just one activity a week - the gymnastics class - for a few months. My daughter starts soccer in October, but my son didn’t want to do a team sport.
I’m not sure what we’ll do. We could do nothing, add another gymnastics class each week or start another session of swimming. I may try again in a week or two to see if my son wants to add karate.
I’m hoping the start of school will give me a better picture of what we should do to achieve the right balance. There’s a lot to be said about down time and play time at home.
Perhaps after sports, have him look at something artistic? That way, he’ll engage in some intuitive activities. Once he learns that, he might enjoy playing the piano at home and such. I grew up taking lots of sports lessons and never developed anything one speciality so that didn’t pay for college. I now wish I picked just one and stuck with it.