To wish my child was more sporty?

Look at things that aren't team sports: climbing, running, martial arts, swimming for fun. I hate team sports and have pretty poor hand eye coordination and thought I hated exercise for a long because of that. There's lots of benefits of exploring the woods type walking too.

DS doesn't agree. He views any sort of sport/activity as a chore

Your DS is correct, leave the poor boy alone.

All this 'just find the right sport and he'll love it' is total BS. It took me to age 48 to find an exercise I could tolerate (not love, tolerate) on a regular basis.

At school the teachers and I had an unofficial deal that as long as my friend and I touched the ball once, we could spend the rest of the lesson chatting uninterupted on the side lines.

He doesn't have to be sporty, but he does have to be active. Cycling places instead of driving, ping-pong, trampolining, inflatable obstacle courses at the pool, junior sessions in the gym, skateboarding, ice skating, it doesn't matter if he never finds anything he's amazing at (although it would be nice for him if he did). You just keep him moving until he gets to an age where he can understand the need to do so for himself.

Exactly this.

I loathed sport. Still do. I was no good at it, not interested in it, hated team sports and couldn't run (asthmatic). I was bullied for years at high school by the sporty kids and one of the stereotypical PE teachers - knew jack shit about anything else, expected kids to be sporty and good at it (and know the rules of games without being told, presumably by osmosis) from day one, and made it clear that kids who weren't were beneath contempt.

Don't go anywhere near that path with your son. Let him find activities he enjoys. Stop putting pressure on him - all you'll achieve is cementing his dislike of physical activity.

School sport is miserable - more so if you're also shit at them, whether that's because you're hypermobile, can't see properly because you need glasses or just not very coordinated/dislike the team culture (no point standing in a field somewhere if nobody's ever going to pass to you because they think you're shit and will tell you so repeatedly, after all).

The stuff I actually liked was

Outdoor climbing
Horseriding
Weight training
Kickboxing (actually making contact with pads and sparring, not the equivalent of shadowboxing)
Rowing - preferably on water, but I also really enjoy putting headphones on and just zoning out from the world for a while on an erg.

If you look at it from a different angle, what if you were trying to force him to get into gaming and were making him play any number of RPGs, First Person Shooters, Driving Games, Match 3 games, Idle Tycoon games, Fifa whatever-the-hell-it-is and he was telling you that he didn't like them, he was shit at them and didn't want to do them? Would you be trying to enforce a love of darkened rooms on summer days and encourage him to listen to others telling him he was crap over headset? You wouldn't.

He doesn't want to do something he doesn't like doing. That's OK.

I'm not "sporty" but I've always been active. I'd like to be and have tried some racquet sports but I have no natural skill nor the motivation to really work at improving. You can't and shouldn't force him.

One of mine was a very active child - not sporty as such, but liked swimming, cycling, active play etc. Stopped all activity as a teen and moans about walking as a young adult. Not all continue their interest in sports into adolescence either.

My DS was similar. One thing I insisted he learned, as a life skill, not a sport, was swimming. We went every week, adding one length each week until he could swim a mile without a break.

I also got him a pedometer. He went from hating walks to wanting to count his steps and now as a young adult often walks 22k a day.

I'd focus on a few outcomes, not the sport itself. The skills of swimming, scootering, cycling, handling a row boat; the personal challenge and excitement of climbing a mountain or navigating a river by kayak; the pride of building muscle and strength from weight training; the pleasure of mastering a few current dance moves for the school disco etc.

But swimming is non-negotiable. It could save their lives.

As a child who wasn’t sporty: please just leave him alone. He already has to do PE at school, so don’t make him spend his leisure time doing it as well. You’re just putting him off exercise forever by pushing him into ‘activities’ that he clearly gets no enjoyment from. I guarantee you that he knows you’re disappointed and feels bad about it, too.

If it helps, I do plenty of exercise now I’m an adult, but I was so put off by being made to do organised activities as a child that I had a real hang-up about it until I was in my 30s. It messed with my self-esteem. Now, I run and do boxing workouts that I love, but I do them alone and on my own terms. I still hate organised activity. If I’d been left to my own devices as a child I’d have been way healthier about exercise in my teens and 20s.

I hated sports as a child and still do. In my late 60s now I'm fitter than average and not overweight. I regularly go to a gym to do things I like - various dance styles and pilates and I walk for at least an hour most days. You don't have to be sporty to be fit let him be who he is.

I never wanted to do 'sport' with other children but would happily spend all day outside at that age, sailing or hillwalking or gardening. Activity matters, sport less so.

My ds was tall and looked like he would be good at certain sports. He has dyspraxia, was useless and hated it all, including the teachers disappointment. I would never have made him do any sport that made him unhappy. He has other much nicer interests, will happily go on a walk, and is perfectly fine.

I think you need to back-off a bit. He's at the age where the more you push it, the more he'll dig his heels in.

You can't make someone sporty, but he does need to be active. This can be achieved with family swim sessions, walking, trampoline park, going for a bike ride, kicking a ball about in the park etc. He doesn't need to pick a sport and do it regularly or be 'sporty' to be active.

You could look at the things he does enjoy, and try to find the sport to match. E.g. if he is a gamer with good hand eye coordination, then try golf or target sports. Would he enjoy orienteering/geocaching? Watersports? Martial arts? I wouldn't push it too hard though.

If he is THE child in his class, who no-one wants on their team, then it's hard to come back from that. It's a big knock to confidence, and finding a hobby sport that he likes isn't going to fix it.

I also think if he is really so bad that he has basically given up then there is probably a reason - e.g. mild hypermobility or something - which is making it harder for him.

I'd mainly concentrate on fun active activities as a family.

You can't make him sporty.

Mine aren't and my (rather body fascist) MIL is always fretting about this as she's convinced that anyone who doesn't do lots of sport and exercise will be overweight and unhealthy. But my brother, sister and I grew up without being sporty at all and doing nothing after we stopped having PE at schoool and none of us are overweight or unhealthy. Sister and I did start exercising in 20s/30s (brother has always just walked a lot and gets a lot of fitness from that) but relatively sedentary childhood and teens did not do us any harm.

Now oldest is starting 6th form I am trying to encourage them to exercise - not for weight control but because it's a good habit and you can see how much healthier my in-laws are in their 70s compared to my parents who didn't exercise later in life. But I get they were never the sort for team sports etc, which I always hated.

IMO you BU depends upon whether you mean sporty or active.

Not every child is good or interested in sports, but as long as they are physically active that doesn't matter.

Some kids just aren't sporty, and that's fine.

I was one of those kids definitely. I did enjoy riding my bike, swimming and playing badminton or table tennis. Only ever "for fun" though. I had zero interest in clubs or being serious about it.

The problem with "school sports" is that they're quite limited. And he just hasn't found the thing he likes yet!

An old primary school friend of mine, who seemed exactly the same as me, with zero interest in "organised" sport, turned out to be an INCREDIBLE long distance runner. Towards the end of secondary school, a cross country run was organised for one PE lesson and friend (to the surprise of everyone AND herself) won it by a landslide. She ended up running for the county for a couple of years.

I had another "non-sporty" friend who tried out trampolining at university, just for fun one day, and turned out to be really good. She ended up in competitions for it and everything.

Golf? Not particularly sporty DS has shown an interest in this recently. Ok - it's not a highly aerobic activity, but you do have to be outside in the fresh air and walk for three hours. Better than nothing.

Let your DC be who he is. I wasn’t sporty as a child (poorly coordinated with hypermobile joints) - it was painful and exhausting and humiliating. And being told all the time it was good for me and character-building just made me feel like I had a bad character.

As an adult, with nobody hectoring me anymore about healthy lifestyles and good attitudes and the benefits of fresh air, or making me feel like some sort of morally inadequate weakling for not being an outdoorsy type, I go to the gym several times a week and enjoy bodypump classes and am in pretty good nick.

You don’t need to push it. He’s not going to atrophy.

Keep trying OP, my DD is similar. We have just started martial arts and she is OK with walking/ hikes and tennis. We force netball outside of school which has helped her to play in school (but that is my DH who is super sporty himself).

I think it is harder for boys. My DS plays a LOT of football outside school and host friends do the same. Unfortunately it seems that most boys who are strong in sports in our school plays football (or tennis) minimum three times a Week outside school which makes the teams/playing in school inaccessible for the less sporty boys.

i would keep going with sports but trying more unusual sports (with a focus on fun) in addition to walking everywhere.

I wasn't sporty at all when I was his age. I hated team sports.
I found horse riding at the age of 12 and still do it now at the age of 43 so he may find something he enjoys that's not typical school related sport (team based).

I also hated walking when I was younger but now I get withdrawal symptoms if I don't have a daily walk!

Does he like cycling?

Being active is really important for both physical and mental well-being so it's good to emphasise this.
What about park run, cycling, swimming, hiking, running club, climbing wall, roller or ice skating.

My DS is not sporty at all but he'll happily come for a walk or go out on his bike with DH (they cover miles and miles and will combine it with a lunch stop). He's 16 now and thin as a rake. He walks a lot just getting around seeing his mates. As long as they are getting out of the house and not sat on their backsides all day he'll be fine. DS's passion is music and he's in a band. Any hobbies are fine, they don't have to be into sports.

Have you asked your child what he is interested in? There's more to life than sport. One of my kids is into drama and music so these are the clubs he goes to. There's nothing worse than having sport forced onto you when you have proven your arnt interested, it will cause resentment.

If he thinks he’s rubbish that’s probably what’s holding him back. Is he unfit? Asthmatic? I was both and loved running around and dancing but hated sport at school - must say that the things my parents emphasised despite my complaints at the time are the things I came back to as an adult. So don’t feel you’re wasting your time, but also don’t concentrate on sportiness at the expense of other things he DOES love, it’s not the be all and end all as long as he moves around.

I don't think doing sports is a necessity. I didn't do any as a kid, didn't like them.

My DS isn't interested in team sports but he rides horses so spends most Sundays outdoors at the stables.