Do you let your children quit activities they've asked to do?

[cloudy23]

My daughter begged to start swimming lessons a few months ago. She was so excited at first, but now every week it's a struggle to get her there. She says she's bored and wants to stop.
Part of me thinks she should stick with it because she made the commitment, and I don't want her to think she can just give up whenever something becomes difficult.
The other part of me thinks life's too short to force children into hobbies they no longer enjoy.
How do you handle this? Do you make them finish the term, the year, or let them stop as soon as they've lost interest? Curious to know what others do and whether you've ever regretted either decision.

Swimming lessons are not a choice, imo. They are essential.

Our youngest quit gymnastics, karate, athletics club, archery and probably more that I’ve forgotten. (He actually got asked to leave karate 😂). None of them on a whim, all after at least 6 months.

Swimming wasn’t optional, but for other activities they were welcome to try it and see whether they liked it. Some stuck, others fell away. I know too many people who played an instrument every week until they left home and dropped it like a hot stone once they had autonomy.

For swimming it’s easy -basic safety requires they can swim 50 metres so I’d insist she stays until she can do that. Paradoxically we found public swimming pool lessons much more effective for getting kids swimming than the private ones - there’s obviously a financial incentive to slow down the learning process…!

More generally, I tried to encourage my children to stick at stuff but eg with guitar I just realised I was chucking money away, she’d never practice and didn’t want to. Brownies/Guides I managed to get them to stick to it for a couple of extra terms.

The problem these days is that they don’t want to do anything except be on their phones, clearly sport or music involves effort and why would you bother when you can just be digitally entertained. It’s tragic but a losing battle.

Swimming is a life skill she needs to learn so...tough. I've forced her to continue all the ones she started and a year later, surprise surprise she loves them. I only ever stopped ballet cause a year later she still didn't enjoy it.

Swimming for me non negotiable until they can actually swim.

others. See the term out if pay up front if give it at least two months if payg

Swimming lessons are not essential, that would be being able to swim.
Dd23 does triathlons so I know for sure she can swim and never had a lesson. We went swimming as a family, it is our preferred exercise, and a lot more fun.

Depends on the activity, age and context.

Swimming was always non negotiable in our house. The idea that DS would have to beg to do it is crazy to me.

DS didn't enjoy it but we felt it was an essential skill for many reasons so he had to suck it up. We said he could quit when he went to high school.

As it went for various reasons we let him stop early in yr6 because it was one thing too many, he had learnt to do 50m, he hated it and he wasn't progressing so it was kinda pointless at that point.

Otherwise swimming was tough shit.

Other activities it's down to him but if we invest in it, we expect commitment for sometime. But that's a conversation before making that financial commitment.