7yo Son won’t go after the ball or tackle at football

[Folicky]

7yo son is in a football training session with 3 other children from his class. But even when he was the closest person to the ball, he doesn’t go for it. We waits for someone else (from either team) to come and get the ball and then chases after then. He’s exhausted at the end and his little school friends are becoming more distant. He does this with other contact sports. Although fights very robustly with older male cousins, etc

One thing he says is he’s worried that he’ll miss the ball, but I’m not totally buying that. We live near a football pitch and went there during lockdown and he’d rather be in goal having me shoot goals at him than the other way around. What it looks like is: he’s afraid another player will be angry with him if he gets the ball and they want it , so avoids going for the ball... takes himself out of all of this by going into goal.

I’m worried this will affect his friendships and his self esteem.

Anyone else have a son like this? What type of things helped? How did it turn out?

I hate team sports with a passion. I did take my youngsters to football because thats what you do! They hated it. On one momentous occasion I was enjoying a nice cup of tea in the clubhouse and when I looked around my then 6 year old was sat next to me. He'd run off the pitch leaving them a man down. When I asked him what had happened he said 'have you seen it out there? Its pouring down' it was indeed (all weather pitch). I thought 'fair point' and we never went back.
He likes cycling and he's a real adrenaline junkie so he's happy enough. Its ok not to like football.

The one thing which will affects a child's self-esteem and confidence more than anything, is if they feel that their parents are disappointed in them for being themselves.

@Folicky

Thank you for the helpful advice. We're going to try some dribbling and passing tomorrow. And if he doesn't want to go he can stop. I hear everyone about finding what he enjoys. He might be more of a running, tennis, piano guy - so I'll try those things with him... he's shown some interest. He is a good swimmer and before lockdown was good at Taekwondo although not the tiger tail chasing at the end! Thanks again

You still don't get it otherwise you would've stopped at he's good at Taekowndo.

Let him stop and find something he enjoys! If you want him to have confidence and self-esteem, don't make he feel that he has to be someone else, a foot-ball loving boy, in order to be acceptable to friends. He will just end up hiding who he is, because he feels that isn't good enough. If he's confident and good at something, other children will like him for that, and he can join in games if he wants or play with other children doing things he likes. Or be alone - it's not the end of the world, if he doesn't like playing football and prefers to do something by himself that he does enjoy. There's a real danger of him feeling that who he is and what he likes just isn't good enough or acceptable enough, and that can be hugely damaging to self esteem for the rest of life, always trying to make yourself fit in or be acceptable.

There will be other boys who don't like football, or girls as well, and he may find that with increased confidence and esteem, he is popular and people choose to do other things with him at break because they prefer it.

@Folicky I used to worry that my boys would be left out as they showed no interest in football. They wanted to try it but weren’t happy and weren’t very good as they weren’t confident. We told them it was absolutely fine, they don’t have to like football but I did say keeping active was important so I wanted them to find an active hobby. We tried a few and they’re now happy with tennis, swimming and cricket. They really enjoy them all and are good at them all (not that that’s important). Turns out the eldest now likes football and is good at it, probably since he turned 8. But he only wants to play at school because he prefers the other things he does. IMO there’s too much of a push for children to do these things when they’re little and to be good at everything rather than enjoy what they do. They’re tiny, they’re not all confident and that’s fine. When my brother was young and into football games and practice didn’t start until he was about 8, now it’s 2 but mainly reception. It’s too young. Plus all of DS’s friends who are into football that’s all they do because it’s training 2 nights a week then tournaments for at least half a day at weekend.