Do your older children (age 10+) nag YOU to let them do hobbies/activities, or do you nag THEM?

[fluffyhamster]

This has been playing on my mind for a while.

DS1 is 10, nearly 11. He does (IMO) quite a lot of after school activities - plays 2 instruments, goes to scouts, plays tennis/cricket/rugby (depending on season) on a fairly casual basis (i.e. not A team commitment level)

The things is, he never seems very passionate about any of it.

We've just had the usual beginning of term 'do you want to xyz club' discussion and he has said yes again to all of the above.

But it always feels as if I'm pushing because I think it's the 'right thing' to do (to have outside interests/skills).
I feel I should be stepping back more and letting him lead, but I can't see how...I think if I didn't 'force the issue' then he just wouldn't so anything except sit at home, read, play computer games and annoy his brother.

He's not doing these things under duress - once he's doing them all he really enjoys them.

He just seems so, well, lazy and unmotivated really?

I assumed that by this age kids would be chomping at the bit to be 'allowed' to do stuff? I keep telling he how lucky he is to have the option!

Any mums with similar issues?

My household is rather like an African republic; even when all is seemingly calm and peaceful, serious civil unrest if not outright genocide could break out at any moment -- and especially when my 6yo DS is present and awake.

DD doesn't care about music, really, she just has serious loss issues; she can't stand stopping lessons because it would be a kind of loss (like throwing away a sweet wrapper -- she hoardes them and anything else you can think of).

I think music lessons and practice are an exception, most other clubs and activities can be taken up and put down at will, or started later.

I do wonder if we should have pushed my dds into keeping up with the instruments they started, but I didn't want daily arguments about it. And I was a child who learned 2 instruments throughout primary and early secondary, was absolutely no good at either, and the only benefit in my life from having learned them was the dubioius benefit of knowing for sure that I'm not musical and no amount of lessons would change that. And the dds who did learn, they certainly didn't show any huge potential there, though one sings beautifully, so she still goes to choir.

I do see that music is perhaps something worth pushing, if you feel your dc has any potential.

On the unmotivated thing, we are pretty strict on TV and computer time. 1 hr a day. with a bit of flexibility across the week. It does mean they can't just watch tv all day, which they would probably be quite happy doing. Their motivation for all activities increases massively once the TV and computer are turned off firmly.