Making children do extra curricular activities

Fieldcraft
Drill
First Aid
Shooting
Sports such as athletics and football
Lots of weekends away and up to two weeks annual camp in summer. It teaches resilience, self sufficiency, team work and lots of life skills. It’s also low cost for the amount of activities they do. I genuinely didn’t think my DS would enjoy it but he stayed until he aged out at 18. It gave him a much wider social circle too. As they progress through the ranks they’re encouraged to teach the younger ones so gives them good people skills too.

You can’t make him do things but you can limit the time he spends on YouTube!

Even if it’s lazing around reading, he’s too young to have unlimited screen time

Like other posters, I told my two boys that they had to do something. DS1 has discovered he’s actually quite sporty despite not being a particularly fast runner and has picked up 3 sports in total. DS2 seems to pick a sport, carry it on for a year or so and then drop it. This has always been fine with me, as long as he has something else he wants to replace it with.

I get their time is their own, but if I left my two to their own devices they’d spend every spare minute festering in front of a screen. I’m their mother, I know that’s bad for them, so off to their sports they go.

Yeah maybe be a bit more inclined to do stuff without the screens. Dgs is almost 8. Not allowed iPad at all in week and an hour a day at weekends. He soon finds himself something else to do even if it's on the trampoline in the middle of bloody winter.

And he has lazy tendencies as well

I'd never force it. They need time to just relax as well.

My children didn't start any clubs until high school. One does football, one does St John cadets.

As a family, we cycled a lot when the dc were younger and they biyjThroughout primary school we encouraged all sorts of other sports, when the were offered as holiday or after schooland both had music lessons at their request (we have an excellent school music service).

Now, as teens they have settled on their things. For DD drums, percussion (several bands!), cricket (year round) and scouting; for DS music - guitars (classical and electric) and choir, he's several bands/ensembles), archery, weight training and scouting.

DS has been having Sixth Form interviews recently - having hobbies, what he's learnt from them (discipline in training/practising; performing in public; self confidence) , demonstrating his ability to learn and progress, work in a team, lead etc has been very useful in setting him apart from other Y11s with good GCSE predictions!, adding to what makes him interesting to the interviews, giving him some dimensions etc.

I guess what I'm saying is..., primary school years are for trying different things.. don't waste time on what he's not enjoying, but do encourage those he enjoys and trying new things. Something will stick!

Depends on the cadets.

we have police cadets, army, navy, Red Cross, and no doubt a few more.

navy is a lot of water- sailing, rowing etc in amongst the cadet-ing. Red Cross is first aid, although they do a lot of field trips, rope rescue training, some get to FA at concerts and events for free.

police are community based.

i think it all has the same basic ethos and activities though.

I’d keep trying to find hobbies, what about martial arts? Honestly I’d insist on a sport or activity outside of the house. Young people are socialising less and I really don’t think it’s good for their mental health. It’s fine to be a homebody but kids and teens should be out doing stuff.

Going to clubs really increased my Dd’s confidence, she used to be really shy and now she’ll just strike up a conversation with a kid in the next lane at swimming or make new friends at her non school sports. There was a point when she really didn’t want to go but I made her and it’s worked out really well.

Starting age for Cadets is 12 but is excellent, they have the opportunity to learn and progress so much.

And agree on the screens. It's always harder if they've had a run of more screen time.

My rule is they have to do one sport or physical activity and one school club. They can drop one, but they have to choose another. DC2 does about 4 out of choice anyway (and music) some more regular than others and none massively seriously. DC1 swims 2x a week with a SEND squad (asd) and if she didn't go wouldn't do anything much at all. She was complaining recently and I said she could stop at the end of summer term but had to name something else. She's thinking about it.

It's so important to keep physical activity up through their teens, and I think it's great for understanding you get better at things with practice. Some kids will need more structuring into that than others and parental encouragement to do it.

Sorry just seen your update that you've tried other stuff. Defo limit the screens.
He doesn't want to do other stuff because screens are too appealing

Maybe he'd prefer something non sporty? What about scouts, drama, music, cadets?
Sounds like you are only offering sports. There are plenty of other activities that can give kids brilliant skills?

Well, going against the grain, I pushed mine to continue with football and swimming. They complained about it constantly.
It was a constant battle for me on whether I should stop or keep pushing. I kept pushing. If they had really hated it and just not hated the effort it took to get there, then I would’ve stopped but I guessed it was because they just couldn’t be bothered.
I’m glad I kept pushing and I think there’s a lesson to be learned in not giving up and then seeing progress.
They’re teens now and still play football on social level. On holidays, they’ve enjoyed snorkelling and jumping off a boat to swim with a dolphin pod. They’ve told me that they’re glad I made them go.

Yanbu - neither of my dc would ever leave the house at the weekend (we’re all introverted couch potatoes) unless I make it clear it’s part of their routine and they are doing it. We don’t have a culture of exercise as a nation and that’s your big issue here - stick to your guns, exercise is important. He’s old enough to swim with a friend now?

I agree with @drspouse - our screen time is earned if other criteria such as homework, exercise etc are met - because that’s how life works, you do what you have to do, what you need to do, and what you want to do is after those goals.

its not extra curriculars that are essential, exercise routine is though.

Do you limit screen time. Ds has a 2 hour limit at weekends (2x 1 hour sessions) so if he doesn’t go out/do activities he’s not getting extra time. Ds is 9 he does swimming 1 day a week. He has done other clubs through school when they run (science /maths/games) but he’s not at all sporty. But at a weekend we will go walking, park, trampolining, rock climbing etc.

OK, so you need to put limits on screen time first and then see what he wants to do to fill his time. As it sounds like it won't work the other way around.

What does he want to do? I’ve never forced mine to do anything, even swimming lessons. My older one can swim just fine and younger one is still learning (neither have had formal lessons outside of the school ones). What activities they actually do do they love and look forward to going to. We also do lots of non-scheduled activities with them, like mountain biking, hiking, climbing, whatever, just regular activities but not as part of a class.

The only thing I ask is that if they commit to something for the term and we register, that they complete the term. If they decide to stop after that, that’s fine.

Maybe he’d enjoy cricket or piano or athletics or pottery instead? If he doesn’t love it, I wouldn’t force him to continue forever.

I never did them when I was at school as it would’ve been my idea of hell. I asked DS when he was at school and he didn’t want to do them so didn’t. I’d never push them as it causes resentment