Switching activities - will one ever stick! What to do?
It is a real challenge to narrow down the pool of after-school activities for your kids. Parents also choose to spend money for the kids’ extra curricular activities. Kids tend to get excited and would like to enroll to almost anything or any activity that they thought have heard of - or even better, the ones that their friends are engaged in!!!
Have you seen the initial enthusiasm drop quickly shortly after enrolment? Or did it die down after you had just spent a fortune on outfits, shoes or specialty gear? Or you have just managed to completely re-arrange your schedule, obtained approval from your boss to change your day off from work and organized pick-ups and drop-offs …!!
And what if the child wants to immediately switch to a different activity? What if they refuse to continue what they have started? Probably sound familiar!! This is a situation that almost every parent has to deal with at some point or another.
We have found that is best to sit down and ask what reasons your child has for switching. It is essential to take a few key things into account:
Remember that children do not think like adults and their brains work differently. They cannot reason their way through an issue yet like adults can. They are much more emotion driven than we are as adults. Try to put yourself in their shoes.
Children are continuously discovering. Sports, play and other after school activities play an important role in facilitating the discovery process. It can happen that an activity just does not sit well with your child - and that is ok. We have always considered the early years as testing.
With that in mind, try to find challenges and reasons why your child would like to switch to a different activity. It can be anything from not liking the activity itself to not liking the chairs they use or the color of the walls in the bathrooms. Try to be sensitive to your own ideas and wishes. If it concerns the activity that you love and did all your childhood your motivation maybe slightly skewed. Pay attention to what your child is telling you and respect their opinion. It is about the child after all. Not about you!
We do encourage to negotiate with your child to stay and finish up to a certain point. Maybe finish all the sessions that she / he is enrolled to and if he really don’t want to go further after that, then that might be a good time to stop to that specific activity and try a new one.
But prior to moving to a new activity, you must discuss with your kid the consequences of this action. How much money, time and effort was invested on this activity. Let him realize how important decision-making is and how will it affect him in the future. This will give him an idea and spend a little more time to think before he decide on what activity to get involve to the next time.
Most important message to convey to your child consistently is that, no matter how often they switch and no matter what they choose to do in the end, you will be right there for him to support and cheer him on. That is the beauty of being a parent :) !!!
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