Making children do extra curricular activities

[Daisyblossom13]

How do you feel about forcing/pushing school into doing extra curricular activities.

Ds is 9, soon to be 10.

He plays football in a team and does swimming lessons. All fine, that’s plenty.

He enjoys the football, but does sometimes complain about going to matches on weekends. He’s not brilliant but certainly not terrible. The football teams are getting much more competitive and selective as he’s getting older. He has the opportunity to join a second team which is very relaxed/just for fun and not too time consuming, and would give him a bit more practise, but he doesn’t want to. His only reason is that he can’t be bothered.

He moans like crazy about going to swimming lessons, he’s a very good swimmer, so could potentially stop, but it’s only 30 minutes a week and it’s not like he finds it difficult.

We tried tennis but he hated it, we started taking him to parkrun, he’s a really good, fast runner, but he always said he couldn’t be bothered to go.

I don’t want to over schedule him, but I do find it a little bit odd that he can’t be bothered to do anything lot of these things. He doesn’t like going out much at all. He doesn’t like school, no particular reason, he just wants to be at home. He only likes going out for a very short time and short distance and always wants to go home.

god don’t force him. Would you like to be forced to do sports you disliked?

Suppose it depends on what he would do at home. If productive stuff and outside play don't force him. If iPad/screen then he needs them

If he's a home body who likes playing Lego or reading or similar, then I would listen to him and not force him to do lots of extra curricular activities. But if he wants to be at home so that he can go on screens, then I would have a lot less sympathy.

No I wouldn’t, but we can’t just laze around all the time can we?

Going to school, getting exercise, fresh air, learning some skills is essential.

I strongly disagree with forcing children to do extracurriculars. It’s awful to demean their agency to that extent. Listen to your kid!

He goes to school. The rest of his time should be his to do with as he chooses.

School
homework
free time

Find him something he does like. Extra curricular don’t have to be sport.

scouts, cadets? Get him out and forming friendship groups.

skill based sports like archery, shooting, martial arts?

climbing? Parkour? Stuff that won’t feel like work.

theatre groups? Coding? Lego building? Robot wars?

I think different people prefer different amounts of scheduling. Would he prefer something more casual like going for a swim session or to the gym or something outdoors as and when rather than as part of a schedule?

Tricky,
lots of posts about older lads who are stuck at home gaming all night
no mates no social life

not saying this would be your lad, but I think society needs to be aware there seems to increasingly larger amounts of young people, particularly boys who get stuck indoors / online in their teenage years and onwards

As a kid I was forced to do shit I hated during the holidays. All my friends looked forward to the holidays - I dreaded them alongside dreading school during term. It’s a pretty miserable existence when you can’t even look forward to your time off.

what sports do you do OP?

No, but I also don’t do exercises I don’t enjoy. Can you not work with him to find things he does like to do

He just wants to laze around watching YouTube in his pyjamas.

Don't get me wrong he is a lovely boy, he’s good at school, so well behaved at home and at school.

But he literally just doesn’t want to do anything. He doesn’t like Lego either.

We would go for bike rides/walks but he doesn’t even like doing that anymore.

Sounds a bit like my son. Swimming lessons were not negotiable until the end of primary. He is 18 now and isn’t very active at all. He does as you say “laze around”. He’s doing exactly that, now. Makes my teeth itch.

I dont understand this mentality really. Surely these clubs are for the kids who are interested in them? Why would you need to schedule his time for him? My 8yo DD does a music session in school once a week which is over £40 a month and that's enough. She likes that and it seems worthwhile. She hasn't mentioned any interest in anything else yet, she's happy at home and with occasional parties/playdates and holiday club sessions.

What sports do YOU do OP?

I run, walk a lot, ride my bike, do online workouts.

What do you think would happen if you negotiated with him that he can drop the organised things on the understanding that he's expected to do something active every week?

For the love of God do not force him, it will backfire spectacularly in my experience.

Dd does various activities but none of them are forced, forcing her makes her dig heels in and become more defiant about it.

He is 9, he knows his own mind. Why do you think you need to force him to be better at something he isn't that bothered about?

Ds at a little younger had a serious illness that meant he dropped all activities. Once he'd got enough better I realised that he was fast settling into never leaving the house and only wanting to do computer games.

So I introduced the "you have to do one activity".
The rule was simple. He had to choose to do one thing during the week. He could change it every term, but he had to go unless he was ill.
He chose drama because it was only one hour, and close so he'd have the minimum time out of the house. He moaned the entire first term every time he was due to leave. I asked him if he wanted to change at the end of term, but he said anything else would be worse.
Halfway through term two he bounced out of the group and asked if he could do a second class on Saturdays. It increased from there.
At one point he was doing 15 hours a week, and he's off to uni next year with a related course. The group are his friends. They message each other, insult each other a lot (!) and call on each other to help in different things.

I'd go for something similar. Tell him he has to choose one thing each term. You can make it one active thing if you want, but I don't think that's necessary.

I don’t think that people are reading my post properly.

I DON’T force him to do things. I said we tried things but we stopped. He plays football which he enjoys and ge has swimming lessons, which he doesn’t want to do, but swimming is very important.

Other than school he doesn’t do anything else.

But my concern is that sitting around for hours and hours watching YouTube isn’t great?

Of course he shouldn't be watching YouTube for hours. You're right OP. Do you have limits on screen time? Maybe if he knows YouTube isn't an option he'll be open to other ideas?

I’d make him do SOMETHING, but allow him
to choose what it will be.

We make two out of home activities compulsory for our DCs, DD does more, DS has SEN and it's really hard to find things that are suitable but he has his two.
This is for a variety of reasons: they definitely don't get enough exercise just with school PE (DS school does almost nothing - definitely no team games - and DD just has average primary school level, she's not in any school teams).
DS does a sport that's more like your son's leisure team, and goes to a church youth group.
He also has swimming lessons in holidays (that's the only slot for 1:1).
DD does swimming lessons and cycling, and she goes to a different youth group. She asked to learn an instrument (which is definitely one of those things you have to stick to past the hard stage) and is in Scouts.

DS would stay in the house and never go out if he could, but that's really bad for him. DD gets very frustrated if things are even a tiny bit hard and doing an activity for several years is teaching her the value of persistence.

(in our house screen time is contingent on expectations - which include clubs)