Standoff with child

[AliciaWhiskers]

DS(8) does martial arts every Sunday. He enjoys it, and I like him doing it as it’s good exercise for him. He is 98th centile for height and weight and a big boy for his age, and prone to being rather lazy.

Today, we arrived at his class, and he has refused to join in. He says he is too tired to do it.

I’ve given him 3 choices:

1. Join in for 15 mins (out of an hour session) and then we can leave if he wants 2. We stay and watch everyone else for the hour
2. We walk home (20 mins away)

He is currently just sulking.

AIBU to not give in?

If DS does this it usually means he’s about to be poorly but doesn’t know/feel it yet.

We will see re illness. On the way home, he explained to me that he is tired because of all the late nights we had on our holiday...in May!

He's probably just a bit fed-up today and not in the mood for doing an hour of regimented exercise with lots of other kids. Sometimes we all just want to chill out a bit. Maybe he just wants to do his own thing instead of being in a class today.

Did he seem excited about it before you got there, or not that bothered about going in the first place? If he was looking forward to it until the moment he actually arrived, I'd wonder whether maybe he's spotted another kid he has a problem with or something and didn't want to spend the class with them? Or is there a particular instructor he doesn't like, perhaps? However, if he didn't seem that bothered about going right from the start, he probably doesn't fancy it. I don't think it's that a big deal, really. He's only eight.

My DD1 (10) absolutely loves her martial arts, but she is also a very lazy child. So even though she loves it, I often get 'I'm too tired to to tonight, can I go next week'. And then she'll happily go bounce on the trampoline for hours .

I simply tell her that if she doesn't really want to do it I'll cancel the payments, as I'm NOT paying for something she isn't doing. That gets her into her dobok pdq.