Am I being unfair to my son?

[auntysocial]

My son has confidence problems and is currently seeing a councellor through the school to help him with this.

He has few friends due to being "different" from other boys, not as rough for instance.

He is bullied pretty routinely by various boys at school because he does not stick up for himself.

He spends all his free time on the PC chatting on forums or playing games, up until recently he was getting little excerise.

I decided enough was enough and I started taking both my kids swimming every tuesday night, I also enrolled my son in karate class (for the 3rd time, he has quit 3 times already and quite taekwondo once too).

This time I told him that if he joined he would be staying for a year at least, he agreed.

Anyway he went last monday and said he liked it but was not too impressed with getting beaten in every sparring matches he had, I explained that this would happen if he stands there and doesnt defend himself or counter attack!!

I asked him if he was going to continue going and he said yes, he wants to reach black belt this time.

He's just been again for his second lesson and again came out chatty and told me about a new friend he'd made...but then told me that he'd again been beaten in all of the sparring matches. I told him that this was why I enrolled him in the first place, to teach him how to defend himself.

I asked if he was going to continue and this time I got "umm probably" as a reply.

Deep down I think he wants to quit again, he's lazy and misses the time he spends on the pc. Thing is there are so many benefits to karate, especially for a kid like him that I'm really determined not to let him quit this time. I never thought I'd "make" my kids do a sport though and I'm wondering if I'm doing the right thing.

He's still saying he wants to continue but I'm sure he's only saying it for my benefit. I asked him if he would like to go to an extra class on wednesdays (this would make it 3 times a week karate training) and he gave a straight and instant "No".

It's just lazyness with him, I know it is...should I stop asking him so many questions and just treat the classes as routine giving him less chance to moan about it or let him quit (again) if he wants to?

Pretty soon I need to buy the suit and license so this is another factor to consider.

Possibly sticking my head above the parapet to be shot down, but dh as a kid was terribly bullied and karate changed his life.

From what he tells me he was a bit like your ds, no PCs those days but RPGs and books, and he had a lot of trouble sticking up for himself. He wanted to quit Karate loads in the beginning, but his parents were the type who insist that once you start something you carry on until you are good at it so he sort of wasn't given the chance to quit iyswim.

Anyway, just saying he is now very grateful that he did it and that his parents insisted he carry on. I think physical bullying is very tough for boys and can leave deep psychological scars, it's not surprising that he finds the sparring difficult initially.

I would second the thing about just making it a part of the routine rather than grilling him on it, otherwise he might feel it like he has pressure to perform which is probably not helpful.

Sorry to have waffled.

ib, it's stories like that that convince me that I'm doing the right thing, thank you and well done to your DH just out of curiosity, did he get to black belt?

The other boys are playing but at the expense of my son, they will tell him he cant play with them because he's crap and x,y and z not to mention gay and everything else they can throw at him and then suddenly say "oh ok, lets all play together..." and will then dive on him, hurt him and then walk off together laughing leaving DS on his own.

So yes they playing but my son is not part of the fun, he's "their" fun IYSWIM?

at those boys, auntysocial, it must be excruciating to watch!!

kudos to you for trying to help.

and fwiw, I found doing ju jitsu at age 25 very confidence-building, but I was terrified of the sparring part and absolutely could not hit back (I could've blocked punches til the cows came home tho). A lovely (older, male) black-belt gently persisted in taking me out for a little session each week until after 6 months or so, I finally hit him back!

A good sensai will ensure that newbies are not being hurt or bullied. Ours always used to say, "older ones look after the others".

We plan to have ds in that same class when he is old enough.

Your son plays rugby, guitar and wants to start football. I'd let him drop the karate in a flash (although I see why you're pushing it).

As your boy is ganged up on, I don't see how he's going to be able to do anything physical in retaliation. Hugely outnumbered. I'd've thought getting really good at football would be a better 'fitting in' activity.

It's a hard call, though. I have similar sorts of issues with dd1.

Is it not also strictly forbidden to use martial arts out of class and doing so results in banning?

(But I know being a stickler for the rules makes things worse)

Dh certainly got to black belt, and 20 years on still trains every week. Btw he never fights at all, I think he had one big fight in school where he beat up the big bully and never had a problem with bullying again.

I actually asked him about this yesterday and he said that if you don't confront the bullies (which after a while are in your head and much worse than any real life bullies could ever be) they will haunt you until you do...

He also recommended Saint Seiya/Knights of the Zodiac (Japanese cartoon!) as a motivator