How did you choose sports/activities for your young children?

[7Worfs]

DS3 is currently doing only rugby (as far as you can call it rugby at that age), and has been on a waiting list for swimming for ages - I hope we make the cut by the time he starts school in 2023.

I think in the next few years we can start introducing him to more sports and clubs, but I am just not too sure how to choose and not get it wrong. This concern only came to me this week, as I was watching him kick a ball around with DH and noticed he really likes it and shows decent control of the ball. I checked for football classes and they clash with the rugby club. Now I'm torn about it, what if I choose the 'wrong' sport for him, whilst he is still too young to choose for himself?

Did you take any particular approach when selecting for your children, e.g.:

• wait for them to show aptitude/interest
• sign them up for lots of things and see what they enjoy and want to do more of
• sign them up for the more popular activities or those that are well invested in in your area?

My son is 10 and does football and martial arts. He also did swimming from being little but has completed that now.
We picked martial arts randomly and he loved it, that was 5 years ago and he is now working towards his black belt grading. Martial arts is great for discipline and we picked Multi skilled so they do self defence, although he also does kick boxing and I do not enjoy watching him spar! When he has his black belt he wants to drop martial arts and try basket ball, there is just a clash at the moment.

We got him into football as the local footy club offered free sessions on a Sat morning for 5 year olds and he enjoyed it, he now plays for a team. If you are considering football don't just look at the companies that do lessons, minikix, etc. We have found a lot of local grass roots teams do offer sessions for kids before they are old enough to join a team so you can see if they are interested. You don't have to pay for expensive lessons.

I second what everyone has said about them picking interests up at school, my son's basketball interest came from the local team running an after school club for a few weeks and he found that he loved it. A few of my friends children have developed a love of tennis, rugby etc after doing it in PE.

My D's was a bit shy so we wanted him to get involved in team games. Signed him up for Stage Coach singing, drama and dance which he enjoyed. He did this for 5 years. He also did swimming lessons and later joined swimming club, joined cricket team and did training in winter and played junior matches in summer. Once he decided to give up Stage Coach he started karate and now a brown belt and really enjoys it. He swims for our town and plays cricket at county level. I'm not sure he would have chosen swimming or cricket on his own. He has become far more confident and made lots of good friends through sport. Let him try 2 or 3 different sports and see if he enjoys them. My son also loves dodgeball, handball, tennis and badminton.

I have come back to this thread.

Looking through briefly again, people have not mentioned piano?
That used to be seen as important.
Is it not seen as important now? Or is it that it is so expensive?

Hi @lightand I think piano is a good first musical instrument and intend to give DS the opportunity to try, but piano tutors usually have a minimum age of 5, as little hands and little attention spans are not conducive to it.

By way of update DS is now 4.5 in YR and does:
Saturdays - swimming and football
Sundays - rugby.