My DD would give up everything if I gave her the chance

[topcat2014]

DD is 12.5, so not quite on this board yet - but god you wouldn't know it..

She is currently at tennis lessons (with DW), and has a St Georges day parade with Scouts tomorrow.

She has piano lessons too in the week.

I am sure, if I gave her the choice, she would pack everything in, and sit in her room on her phone. Sometimes, for a quieter life, I actually want to let her do that.

She is so argumentative and unappreciative, just because this one time she cannot go into town with a friend.

I am dreading another five years :)

My dd really regrets giving up piano...

But since she restarted she's come on leaps & bounds.
Unless she can't be arsed to restart. Has made no effort.
Talk is cheap. Actions speak louder.

How kind of you to come on this thread specifically to point that out llijkk! Because of course none of us parents have put in any effort at all encouraging our DC to stick at things; in fact we positively enjoy spending lots of our hard earned money on equipment and lessons, not to mention time, driving them about, just so that they can give up after four tries .

Congratulations on having perfect, resilient DC!

I think this is really tough too. I didn’t let my ds give up football when he really wanted to and he’s glad he didn’t as he’s really come along.
I felt really bad at the time persuading him to give it another go but I think I realised that he didn’t want to go because he couldn’t be arsed but felt good about it afterwards.
If he really hated going, insisted he still hated it when he came home then I probably would have let him give up.
My friend also didn’t let her dd give up on her piano and now at 15, earns money playing the piano in trendy cafe for a couple of hours a week and is really pleased she’s skilled enough to do this.

I don’t understand parents who make their children do activities so that they can basically boast that their child does lots of activities. If the child doesn’t want to then stop. I’ve seen parents screaming at their kids as they run round at athletics comps and the kids are crying.

It sounds as if what she is doing at the moment gives a good balance. We have just conceded that DS (aged 13) can stop karate as he is no longer enjoying it. He still does drama, scouts, football/golf (seasonal) & I feel that these are a good antidote to constant screen time...luckily he usually agrees

I think it's an age when they do give stuff up. Mine both learned an instrument for a couple of years and then gave them up. DD1 used to do ballet but gave it up around that age ( and once she did I wondered why we'd stuck with it so long!
It's worth working out what they dislike about the activity. DD1 is happy to do a sport every Sunday because it's not in any way competitive . A friend's DCs do music lessons on the proviso that they don't have to do grades.

I don't think tennis, piano & scouts is too much & they provide a good balance of activity types.

I'm interested if your DD is complaining about scouts OP? I'm a beaver leader too & I was really sad when DS1 stopped scouts at about 13. It just wasn't his thing & He enjoyed the sports he did much more. But it was his decision & we didn't complain.
DS2 by contrast was one of our young leaders & went through until nearly 18.
I think we just have to accept that they will chose their own paths as they mature.

I don't think tennis, piano & scouts is too much & they provide a good balance of activity types

It doesn’t really matter what anybody thinks other then the person doing the activities though.

Absolutely *English" it's just my opinion as all posts are. I did explain that in DS1`s case at that age he decided to stop scouts and we didn't try to force him to carry on.

The other issue is sitting in her bedroom on her phone instead. I have just had a conversation with DH about how we tackle DD15 sitting in her room on her phone instead of properly revising for her Y10 GCSEs and mocks. She gave up all her activities 2 years ago but we have just started c25k together to try and get her doing some exercise.

I think as parents we can’t win with this stuff! I did music stuff as a kid, every weekend and school holidays and I hated it. Always vowed I would never force my own kids to do anything they hated. But I’ve still got friends from those days and we still talk about how much we hated it, we all did, but we hated it together. I think I did be sad if i didn’t have those childhood memories and friendships bonded by “ugh cant believe our parents force us to play clarinet”. I DUNno. My 15 year old does nothing like that. HE seems happy. Who knows.

@Salty I think this is a big issue for lots of parents. It really cannot be healthy for the mind or body to spend so much time alone in their rooms glued to their phone. Having an activity or club to go to is so important for their wellbeing.