dd wishes she was more sporty

OP, why not start with ParkRun. You can go with her to get started. It's free. You can take the dog. We have a junior England team runner through to a couple in their 80s in ours. Times are between 15 minutes and an hour for 5k.

Your dd can walk, jog, run, do a bit of all of them. Start to improve her times.
There is absolutely no pressure and most Parkruns have 400 people to get to know if she wants. Lots of teens and twenties.

Plus the basic improvement in fitness will help with any other sport she wants to try.

I hated sport at school, had no co-ordination or fitness and was made to feel useless and humiliated, so I didn't do anything until I was 48. Now I run parkrun, I swim, I cycle and practice karate with a club.

There are new adult joiners at Parkrun, karate and swimming all the time. Age isn't a barrier at all.

She could choose a sport or two, join a club, have a few swimming lessons. It doesn't take long to get absorbed into the clubs.

Also ladies cricket gets a lot of funding and many clubs have ladies teams. As with all sports practice and more practice makes improvement. She could try the park run, badminton, tai chi, karate, indoor climbing, kayaking.

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@TizerorFizz maybe so.

Look OP sporty people are usually pretty busy with training and matches. If your daughter wants to be increasingly friendly with them then the thing that will massively improve her chances of that is playing the same sports as them as that will give time together and strengthen relationships.

You've had lots of advice and ideas on here about sporty or less sporty ways for your daughter to spend time and develop friendships.

I'm a bit lost as to what you're asking actually. No one else can make these sporty types more available to your DD as friends other than her. Perhaps unless she starts having legendary house parties to which the sporty kids are invited!

@TweedCoat I was forced to "play" sport for years. I know I'm useless. I'm not running anywhere at the speed required. I've never had any fun at any sport at all, ever. I've been miserable and a complete failure. I don't need more failure. I'm ok at other things and sporty types find each other. I find people like me. The DD here needs to do the same. She should not just see sporty types as the sole source of fun. There's more people out there. And my eyes have been tested to oblivion.

Here's an interesting thing @TizerorFizz.

18 months ago I had an eye test that showed I have poor binocular vision. I've had it all my life... just no optician ever thought to mention it until I jokingly asked my current optician if she could do anything to help me see the ball. She said she could actually, and I was surprised no-one had ever mentioned this to me. I've worn glasses all my life and by that time I was playing ball sports (fairly badly) without glasses. A new prescription to sort my binocular vision, along with contact lenses, has been a game changer.

Look, if you physically can't run, then maybe cricket or hockey isn't for you. But if you can run albeit badly or slowly, then there's only one direction you can go in, and that is to get better. The only way you can improve is to just do it, and hopefully have some good coaching along the way. There's a woman that plays cricket locally and she only has one arm. She manages ok! We're not playing at county level... we're playing organised sport for fun.

It's very easy to find lots of reasons not to do sport. I think I was discouraged because my family didn't understand it, didn't want to take me to anything, didn't want to stand on the sidelines in the cold, didn't want to pay for it, and just couldn't contemplate how running around chasing a ball or whatever in sideways rain, whilst losing, could possibly be fun.

But you know what, it is. It's fun, fitness and friendship all the way.

@TweedCoat So you can hit a ball then? Run a fair way in a coordinated manner? In fact you are sporty but you were just told you weren't. I know I cannot hit a ball. I cannot run any distance. I'd never hit a cricket ball or bowl accurately. I never hit a rounders ball ever. I mostly missed the hockey ball. It's simply not possible to become good at these things if your coordination truly isn't there. You were just lied to.

Energetic DD? Dance! I loved music and dance. Energy doesn't necessarily need a sporty outlet.

Actually I dont think OP is being negative. Just cos people have suggested loads of ideas doesn’t mean theres something in that list that stands out as being a possibility.

The think that puzzles me OP is you describe your daughter as being energetic .If she doesn’t do sports , how is she displaying her energetic side currently? Because maybe the answer lies in that i.e. picking something thats linked to her natural affinity rather than just plucking something out of the air.

OP apologies I repeat things here I've read your posts but not all the responses - have you considered things that are social but not necessarily competitive/team based?

I'm part of a Brazilian jiu jitsu club which has the same sort of comradely for the club, but as competing is a choice and individual (it's 1:1) there's not the same pressure of keeping up with the team. Also have tried other martial arts and capoeira which are all very social and athletic but more accommodating of people who aren't perhaps natural athletes.

As someone from a not sporty family this makes me so sad!!

I was always told I was too cautious and uncoordinated to play sports. Boy did I miss out on fulfilment, friendships and fitness!

In my forties I thought sod it, I'm giving it a go. I now play hockey and cricket regularly. Where I live I could also play netball, football and rugby within a 15 minute drive.

If I wanted to I could do climbing, rowing and parkrun locally too.

Loads of women play sport for a challenge, interest and fun. Getting the game on is the absolute most important thing. I'm just sad I missed out on 30 years of that fun myself!

You are letting her down - she is telling you that she wants to do more sports and you are just shrugging your shoulders at all the suggestions and writing her off as not capable. The aerobic fitness is entirely under her control and her co-ordination can improve enough for a lot of sports.

It is likely she will love the sports club environment and make strong friendships there, at least give her the chance. It will also be a great way for her to find her tribe when she goes to university.

She just needs to get going in some way, a fun touch rugby club, couch to 5k, going to the gym to get her fitness better... anything and you need to be encouraging rather than obstructive.

Being good at sports just takes time and practice.

Anyone - baring obvious physical issues - can get up to a reasonable recreational standard of any sport. Expecting to be just good at something is not how it works.

Has she thought about doing something like drama as an activity?

Hmmm, I do understand that in a school that does a lot of sports, those who are in the top teams have a lot more time outside regular lessons to hang out together and forge their friendships. But your DD has become friends with sporty people regardless? So, does she really need to do the exact same things as then to retain the friendship? They must like her. Is this more a case of FOMOnas she can't do every same thing they can?

Are the lines of personality and interests drawn so precisely at her school? Are all sporty people really playful and outgoing and all academic people quiet and sedentary? With girls especially, there tends to be more cross over, more all rounders. Is it more the case that the sporty people are more popular at her school and that is how she wants to be seen?

There's not much you can do now that she is 16. She won't easily catch up to the level her friends are at. If they are true friends they should still be friends with her regardless of their interests. Sometimes young people ditch their sports the older they get and the more freedom they have to determine what they do with their free time. Some of your Dd's friends might do this.

If she just wants to be more sporty because she feels she missed out and this is something she identifies with and wants in her future life then there are plenty of other ways to join sports teams as an adult (often over 14 year olds)

This is a very odd thread - I'm surprised how relaxed you are about her being unable to do things like ride a bike or swim. That may well work against her as she gets older and lots of late teens like to go on group holidays to beach and seaside places so that could be a real problem for her later.

But in case you genuinely want ideas, what about basketball? It's often the case that children only start playing in their teens, and lots of clubs have their main team training and then also drop in type sessions where they do drills and learn the basics, graduating to a team in due course. And it's definitely a sport where you can learn as you go.

As a teenage girl, I'd also consider a class at a local gym. Yoga or pilates or something more active depending on what she likes. Around here there are lots of Zumba-type classes, cycling or Body Pump type classes.

She’s 16. Surely the conversation should be:

DD: I’d like to be more sporty.

OP: OK, what would you like to try? How can I help?

You don’t seem to really want to help her though.

There most definitely seems to be an underlying issue here like previous posters have mentioned.

Either your daughter has some extra challenges like being dyspraxic or she’s not been taught to follow through and stick at something and put in the hard work to get rhe rewards.

You are very passive about this. It seems obvious to me that EITHER your DD has some kind of neurodiversiry which makes sport, bike riding, swimming etc difficult for her OR that you have never taught her to perservere in the face of something she finds difficult so if she can't master riding a bike/swimming/netball whatever in the first instance, she just gives it up.

DS is borderline dyspraxic. Many sports and physical activities have been challenging for him. He has put the work in to limprove his fitness and his co-ordination. Because he is not actually dyspraxic, this is of course significantly easier for him than if he was, but it has meant that he has not taken to any sport "naturally".

So she can barely swim, can't ride a bike but is, in your words, "Very active"? I assume very active means rnning around and generall yhigh energy and not actually doing anything specific?

Have you ever considered having her assessed becuase it's very unusual for a child to simply be unable to learn to ride a bike unless there is an underlying issue (or if you and her both tried twice and then decided she can't do it).

Well it doesn't seem that the OP's dd would want to be an Olympian rower, and as she is already in with a rowing crowd I doubt she would be concerned with the potential cliquey aspect of it. The very fact that she, a self confessed non sporty person, is in with rowers would make it seem that they aren't that cliquey!

I know my club is the opposite of cliquey and welcomes both recreational and serious rowers - others aren't. You can choose which environment you prefer.

I think it 's more about trying stuff and seeing what you actually like. I never considered rowing and would have thought I would be crap at it but I love boats and water so thought I would give it a go and I have never looked back. I am never going to row in the Olympics but I give it a good go on the Boat Race course!