dd wishes she was more sporty

[CosyRubyDreamer]

dd (16) is bad at all sports (her words, not mine). Her coordination and physical stamina isn't the best and as a kid she hated doing sports. However she seems to click with sporty people in terms of personality everywhere. She is energetic and very playful. Her best friends are academic like her but way more quiet and serious. She is friendly with the sporty group at school and has so much fun with them but its hard to get closer as they all are in team sports together. Am at a lost

My favorite (now retired) baseball player, Joey Votto, has been pretty candid about how he isn't a natural athlete and the amount of work he's done to be able to succeed, beginning in elementary school. And people who know him talk about how hard he works and his focused he is. That leads me to believe that she can probably become sportier if she wants.

I assume this was to me? I am not sporty, and anything with a ball is guaranteed to have me missing everything. But there's a big difference between being "sporty" and being able to do fairly basic physical things to a decent level such as swimming and cycling and OP's DD does not seem to have these basic skills. A child who has taken swimming lessons should reach the point they can swim well enough that if they fell into a river while rowing they could manage okay. Similarly, learnign to ride a bike is a fairly basic skill most children can and should master. And if by their early teens they can't do it, I would think that a NT child could absolutely pick it up as a teenager with a bit of effort. Which again, is a bit of a skill.

Is she hyper-mobile? That can account for the lack of coordination and strength. If she is she’ll need to work on strengthening her muscles before taking up sports. Weight training at the gym and then swimming will help her with this. If she gets the hang of swimming she can then move on to team sports like rowing.

I used to cox rowing teams. She won’t need perfect front crawl as long as she can doggy paddle a length she’ll be fine to cox and be able to be part of the team without being overly sporty.

@Sunat45degrees During the Olympics we were told anyone could be an Olympian! It's total rubbish. My DDs didn't ride bikes as we live along unsafe narrow roads with 60mph speed limit. Has it held them back? No.

DD2 preferred dance. Fitness doesn't have to be traditional sport. My DDs can swim but we prioritised it. Others don't and schools do 10 weeks of lessons if you are lucky. Not enough for proficiency. It's also way off being good enough for any team.

Schools tend to have ball game teams and not much else. Practice, if you are inept, does not get you far. It usually makes you realise you are still useless and it's very demoralizing. It's better to swerve sport for other forms of fitness. DD1 now does spinning but never got close to being on a sports team at school. Does power walking too. Writing dc off as not practicing, not trying hard enough and blaming them is counter productive. Most of us non sporty types think fuck that! I have never done sport in my life. I have many other interests.

@TizerorFizz I completely agree with you in many ways - I couldn't be an Olympian if my life depended on it. Your DD's may be choosing not to ride bikes, but I assume they either can, or could learn very easily? And as for dance, I am all for dance as an alternative to sport. DD doesn't do sport - doesn't enjoy it, not great with balls etc, but she does loads of dance classes and Im' completely fine with that.

The issue I have on this particular thread is that OP's DD appears to simply be unable to do any of these things, including things like bike riding and swimming, which suggests there might also be something else going on. OP also says her DD wants to do more sport, but neither of them seem to understand that she needs to get out there and do it, and that she migh tnot be good at it (especially in the beginning) but that doesn't mean she shouldn't do it.

I hope there is a sport that your DD can enjoy, even though not found yet. It is painful for those who do not enjoy or are not good at the sports most schools offer.

If it was your DS, I'd be suggesting contacting a Mr Armorim as he would fit in !!

It sounds like you may be non-sporty, OP?

Slight derail here, but I am surprised at the number of pp saying you need to be able to swim well to do rowing.
I don’t know about other countries but in the UK the advice from British Rowing is that your very last option is to try and swim for the shore if you capsize. People die doing this.
If you capsize and can’t get back in the boat straight away then you stay with the boat as it is a massive buoyancy aid. You only leave the boat if you are in immediate danger eg. from being hit by another boat.

What you need, is to be calm and be able to float if you fall into the water.
If you can’t pass the swim test then you wear a buoyancy aid.

<climbs off soap box> 😁

@Sunat45degrees
Well yes, finding something is a challenge. I'm assuming my DDs could ride a bike if they tried. As they now live in London, the bike lane racetracks are not for them!

At school they enjoyed dance and DD1 tried badminton club. Then the school organised matches and she was dropped. That's the big problem with sport. You are not wanted if you are not good enough. Similar happened to her with netball in her y6 club. Never got a place in the team - for 2 terms of diligent attendance. We were resourceful and did want swimming plus they learnt to ski. School sport was never interested in them.

Haven't read tft but she sounds a bit like me at school. Would she like things like yoga or park run where people will be at different levels but are still in a group together, as opposed to team sports where you have to be good or you let the side down?

School sport was never interested in me either! :)

I landed up doing cross country, with a supportive coach who encouraged us to work to perform better than we had the week before and not to worry about everyone else!

And martial arts is great for a lot of kids like this. Our dance school is also wonderfullly inclusive which I love - we have children there from really really good to others who aren't and it's all the same.

@Sunat45degrees Dance is very inclusive. I agree. Cross country? We could have our own course at home but DDs just prefer a good walk.

Can she ride a bike?
Have you a cycling club locally? It may have a women's section. If not indoors, they may have velodrome sessions if you're near one.

She has tried but she can't.

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!

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).

We have tried a few times across the years. I meant active by very energetic and loves moving around, playing physical games etc.

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".

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.

She got a diploma in piano before so

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.

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.

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)

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

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.