I forced my son to play soccer. By Keri Fisher for Babble.com’s “Bad Parent” column.
I forced my kid to play soccer.
Bad Parent: Game On!
I forced my kid to play soccer. by Keri Fisher
March 26, 2009
“It’s too hot,” Declan whined at the first practice.
“It’s too cold,” he whined at the last.
In between, my four-year-old son proffered every excuse in the book for why he couldn’t play soccer that day, despite having begged me to sign him up for it. His socks were falling down. His jersey was too big. He didn’t want to play.
But I wouldn’t let him quit.
“You have to finish the season,” I told him. “You don’t have to play ever again, but you have to honor your commitment.”
We suffered through that season, me getting angry, him getting upset, and for about twenty minutes each week he’d actually get out there and play, running after the ball with a huge grin on his face.
I have no illusions about Declan’s athletic ability, or lack thereof. He’s small and skinny, prefers tuxedos to track suits, and would sooner run a puppet show than run a mile. But I still want him to be active and learn to play team sports. I want him to have fun. And I think he will have fun, if he just gives the sport a chance. How can he possibly know he doesn’t like the game if he doesn’t give it a chance?
Jodi Slepian’s seven-year-old son, Max, begged her to play basketball last year, but after the second class wanted to quit. “I told him up front he had to at least do his best and try,” she says. “I had to hire a babysitter to go in with him and keep him motivated, while I watched with his sisters.” To encourage him to finish the season, Jodi promised Max a trophy. That, coupled with a lot of motivational talks, got him through. “He is not too into basketball now,” she concedes, “but is SO proud of that trophy!”
Most of the parents I spoke to agree that teaching our kids to finish what they start is paramount. “I definitely believe that if we commit ourselves to soccer, or baseball, or whatever, we will continue until the session is over, even if the kid doesn’t like it,” says Dana Kapustin, mother of three, “We just won’t sign up for it again.”
Biff Sturla, the president of Lower Merion Soccer Club in suburban Philadelphia, where my son (reluctantly) played last fall, disagrees. “Why would you want your child to participate in an activity that they don’t enjoy?” he asked me when I told him about Declan’s soccer experience. “It’s great you signed him up and gave him the opportunity to participate and play,” he said. “He let it be known that this was not fun for him. You should hear his message.”
Stacey Levitan took those cues from her six-year-old son, Jacob, who hated soccer after going to just three games. “[We] decided not to make him keep playing, but we were nervous about the message of quitting mid-season,” she says. “In the end, the message was that we respected his right to decide that he really didn’t like something. Soccer was just clearly not his thing, and he hasn’t become a quitter because he stopped doing soccer.”
But how old does a child have to be to know what he wants? How can Declan know that he doesn’t like soccer if he hasn’t fully committed himself to playing?
We have the same rule, and it is a rule that my husband and I both grew up with: “If you decide to sign up for X (join the soccer team, take the dance class, try out for the musical), then you will complete the entire session (season, semester, show).”
We think it is a great rule, as it forces our daughter to focus on what really interests her and teaches at least a small lesson about finishing what she starts and her obligation to team members, coaches, and teachers. That said, I think it is a policy that is best suited to school-age children who can understand the commitments they are taking on.
My family has the same policy. If you want to sign up for an activity, you must complete it. I think it teaches kids commitment. Our children know that when you say you will do something, you’d better follow through. That being said, when parents sign their kids up for activities without regard for their children, that is where the problem lies.
My kids must participate in one activity. It doesn’t matter what the activity is. They choose it. They must complete the session, and then they may decide whether to continue or try something else. It teaches them to think of others, ie. the team suffers when a player is missing.
My 3 month old baby is obviously not old enough to “quit” an activity, but I do feel that if I tell him that he must finish everything he starts, he might be hesitant to start something that he could enjoy. I grew up with the “finish what you start” rule and I remember agonizing over whether to start an activity. On the other hand, I don’t think I would allow my son to quit an activity if other kids were counting on him, because I want to instill a sense of responsibility in him.
Just like adults I feel kids have a “job” in life: do as well as they can in school, do household chores, maintain relationships with friends and loved ones.
After that it’s their free time to relax and recharge. Just as I wouldn’t want anybody forcing me to do an activity I hate in my “fun” time, I’ll never be forcing my kid to do something he hates with his free time. Just because I tried volleyball and it wasn’t for me doesn’t mean I’m going to suddenly decide I can quit my job too, and just because I tell my son it’s ok not to continue a leisure activity he hates doesn’t mean he’s going to get the idea he can slack off in school (believe me).
Everyone says that forcing a kid to complete what they start teaches them commitment and they will become adults who keep their word and who can be relied upon. So with millions and millions of parents having raised their kids that way, there must be mountains of data to tell us the outcome one way or the other.
So. Does anybody know? Does it really work?
I just withdrew my daughter from swimming lessons yesterday. She begged me to take her and then, after two lessons (at the first lesson it looked like she was having the time of her life, at the second lesson she was sobbing for the whole 45 minutes) begged me to stay home. In this case, I suppose, it’s more about fear than lack of commitment.
As adults we know that taking on something new can be frustrating at first. If we let kids quit too easily they may not have the opportunity to see that the frustration sometimes gives way to a real passion. It seems reasonable to stipulate, before a child takes on a new activity, that you expect them to finish the class, season, or maybe just a certain number of lessons/practices. We might also better prepare them by helping to understand what this commitment involves (take them to a couple soccer practices and let them see what it’s all about).
I agree there’s a balance but I think a big part of dealing with it is just understanding where kids are developmentally.
At four who is REALLY making the commitment? Not the child. A four year old doesn’t understand the length of time and effort involved in signing up for a season. Not only that, but most team sports are not appropriate at age four (although soccer drills and stuff obviously can be, and some kids love the running around and nascent play).
For me, it’s about gradually ramping up the commitment/responsibility. So at four I would not necessarily make my child continue to play, although for a few weeks I might well make him get to the start of the class/practice and see if he would get engaged at that point, since a lot of the resistance at four is just about not liking transitions. I would also try to build excitement by watching games, etc.
At 6 or 7, I would expect more commitment but not if the activity were really really a problem (like sobbing). And I really liked Denise’s comment about helping a child to understand the commitment before signing up.
By 10 I would start to implement the ‘finish what you start’ rule.
I don’t really understand why we get so rigid that we have to make four year olds behave the way they should behave as adults. Yes, habits are built over time – the research shows it takes about 60 days for an adult to form one.
I am strongly with Shan. Giving soccer a try with a 3-4-5 year old means kicking the ball around at the park for a few minutes, or as long as the child wants to stick with it, but it’s an exploration and not much more. Organized sports are a highly complex social activity that is not a match for the way four’s play – just think about how many times in any sport the play actually comes your way… very rarely. Most of the time you’re positioning yourself hypothetically for offensive or defensive possibilities that never actually occur in the flow of the game.
Dropping money on an activity for your child while you go have a latte’ is not how you instill an understanding or a value of that activity, either. Maybe you can hope the kid gets hooked somehow and makes an experience to which you have exposed him his own, but clicking on a bunch of registration buttons isn’t parenting, it’s scheduling.
“At four who is REALLY making the commitment? Not the child.” Oh, a thousand times this. Give me a break; this is all about mom, not the kid.I also belive that forcing a child to play a sport can be harmful. I know it was for me. I absolutely loathed the season of softball my parents signed me up for, but I wasn’t allowed to drop it — not for my tears, pleading, arguments about being the worst on the team, nothing. And perhaps not surprisingly, I developed a long-standing hate for sports that lated until I was an adult and learned not that all physical activity involved misery. (And really, how much “exercise” is involved in something like softball? Precious little.)I’ll never understand the American obsession with ogranized sports for little kids. My husand and I just had lunch with a friend yesterday who was telling us about parents with multiple kids involved in multiple sports who literally spent all of their free time as a family going from one sporting event to the next. The parents weren’t even able to attend these games together, because one of them “had” to be at each game. It sounds like madness to me.
We just went through a painful season of skating lessons with our 4 year old – he hated it. And I really cannot blame him – it was poorly organized with too few staff and too many kids. Learning to skate is tough – especially because I think he has his mothers weak ankles. But he wants to play hockey like his daddy, so he has to learn to skate (besides, he is french canadian, so it really cannot be avoided…). I do not think there is any easy answers – if it was up to only me, I probably would have let him quit (it was painful to watch him teeter through each lesson…), but I asked him every time if he wanted to play hockey and the answer was yes – then you have to learn to skate. I explained to him that this was the hardest part, that it would get easier. The look on his face when he was finally able to glide a bit was fabulous, and when he got his medal for completing – he was on the moon. Was it hard to make him stick it out – absolutely. Am I proud of him for doing it – very. It may not be his thing in the end, but he will never know if he does not acquire a few skills to actually be able to participate in the things all of his peers are doing. The other side of it for those of us living in winter climates is that I want my children to be able to enjoy the winter – andit sure makes it easier when they learn to ski and skate at a young age (they are closer to the ground when they fall…).
I will say that my father to this day tells how I went kicking and screaming onto the soccer field and how I wanted to give up, I was 6 when I started playing. I ended up playing my whole life, even in college. I also still play pick-up adult games for occasional group exercise. Couldn’t have imagined my life without it!
Now, I think at this point it is his age. 4 is pretty young to try and “enjoy” group think and organized sports or activities. Like many previous posters said I would try again in a year or so – I didn’t even know that they had little leagues that young! But unlike previous posters I do understand and have benefited from my parents being wiser than me, at age 6, and making me stay committed to the sport.
There is more to sports that just physical activity and for some kids, like me, it gives them the structure they need to succeed in other things like school, jobs and friendships. It teaches life lesson that didn’t even reveal themselves to me until I was an adult.
Now a side note for Denise, who withdrew her child from swim lessons, this is the life guard in me coming out. If your daughter is over the age of 4 I would encourage you to sign her up for private lessons where she can get the one on one attention to help her with her fear. Swim lessons are not an “activity” they are life savers and for your child’s safety. Children as they become more aware of action/reaction and fear begin to naturally fear the water. If it is sympathized it grows into a problem as they progress to age 5-6. Your local YMCA should offer private lessons at a reasonable price and have the same model as most other lesson plans. I implore you to stick with swim lessons for your child’s safety.
I agree with SammEsMomma’s concerns about raising a child fearful of exploring and engaging in anything for fear she’ll be forced to complete it. In this age of uberparenting, in our eagerness to help teach our children to get ahead, we can sometimes mistake a curiosity for a passion. Maybe the kid just wants to have fun shooting hoops and get better by playing pick-up games with you and friends, but doesn’t necessarily want to commit to basketball camp and doesn’t yet know that camp will mean commitment. But I also don’t want to raise a quitter. Hmm.
As for Dennis Bratland’s interesting question, it seems to me that if you are raised by people who practice commitment to work, family, community involvement, etc., that you, too, will lean toward practicing this commitment, whether or not you stuck with those violin lessons in the 4th grade. But I, too, am curious to know if studies have been conducted and what they yielded.
I have to say, this article was poorly written. It felt more like a stream of consciousness (with interviews to boot) than a story with a point. What was the end goal? That you forced your kid to complete the soccer season and now feel bad about it? What’s the message – should you or shouldn’t you feel bad? Should you or shouldn’t you implement the start-and-finish rule?
I agree that the rule is contigent upon age. But for the poster who referenced their 3 month old child – WOW. What are you telling him? “If you’re gonna start tummy time, you darn well better finish tummy time!” ???
I have to agree with Anon, as I thought this was a poorly written article as well. There was no conclusion here. Although different parents would handle this situation in different ways, I would at least expect the author to draw her own conclusion at the end of the essay. It just seemed like she reached her word count, or got sick of writing, and decided to stop.
I completely agree with implementing the “no quitting” rule. My parents enforced this rule on me when I was younger (although not when I was four – I took dance lessons at that age, and quit right before my recital), from the time I started softball at 6 to when I participated in girl scouts from ages 7 – 11 to when I realized my passion for horseback riding at 9 (which allowed me to find a successful career as an adult). I hated my parents for making me go to softball games when I was younger, mainly because I was one of those lonely kids in the outfield. But when I realized that I enjoyed the sport, and put some hard work and effort into reaching my goal of becoming the team’s pitcher (which eventually did happen), I started to understand why my parents pushed me so hard. And now, as an adult, I understand the meaning of responsibility, and that if you work hard and push for what you want, you just may get it.
Last year, I let my son quit a sport and I could see on his face that he respected the fact that I listened to his reasons. He approached me one day after school with 5 very good reasons why he wanted to stop playing … and I admit that he did not view it as quitting … he viewed it, based on his decision, as a very make sense conclusion (one reason was that he missed playing another sport (soccer) with some of his good friends vs. the one that he thought would be fun to try, but realized quickly that he had ZERO passion for). I looked him in the eye and said “I respect the fact that you had the courage to ask and that you thought through your reasons … therefore you may quit this one time. Going forward we will collectively do a better job selecting the right activities/sports for you. And, if we make a mistake, we’ll see it through and decide if you want to play/do the activity ever again”). He had just turned 7 at the time and “no” I did not use the exact words, but the message is the same.As much as it pained me to let him quit, it was the right thing to do. He knows that he will never be able to quit again and he completely respected being trusted and rewarded for his courage. The end result, he flourished in the sport he missed, learned a great “decision making” lesson, and knows that his father loves/respects him. BTW, we signed up for tackle football this Fall … and he thought about it very long before we committed. He knew there was no going back if he did not like the sport … and I never had to reiterate the “see it through” rule to him. He remembered on his own. As far I am concerned, the lessons he learned and the bond that we built through the experience are 100 times greater than anything he would have learned by forcing him to play a sport he did not enjoy. And being honest with myself, I realized my apprehension was more about my ego than anything else.
First off a four year old is too young to make decisions on his own and also too young to play an orginized sport. I signed up my son to soccer as well when he was four (ahh dreams of the first time parent;). He would chase the other kids for a while and then chase daisies for a while, I don’t ever think he made contact with the ball. I look back now and laugh. Should I have expected much more from my son, just barely coming off the bottle and a walker (I am exaggerating) but still just a small child. I tried not to look at as the loss of a hundred dollar bill and more like a large play group that sometimes he was playing in but most of the time not. Ahh to finish or not to finish…that is the question. Now he is six…we did finish soccer that year by the way…and now have signed up for Baseball, it seems to be the same story different game for us. Only the second game and he is begging us to not go, even sits in the outfield at times, I hate to see him do this, and my husband just cringes (being a great bball player in HS.) but at the end of the day I have asked him what did it all amount too? You didn’t go to the big leagues and you were wonderful at the sport and above all you loved it. My biggest question is does our son love it? Right now apparently not…in three years maybe, in three games maybe. Kids change like the wind and sometimes it takes a little parental pep talk to let them know that we too experienced these same feelings of fear at onetime and to be good it takes a little effort. My son wants things to come easy to him…don’t we all!!haha Life is hard especially with kids. My philosophy: take things a day at a time and cherish each one, as hard as it is, even the days your son is sitting in the outfield, because tomorrow very well will be different, we won’t know until then, but we do know that it will come. And then oneday our kids will be grown. Will they appreciate our valiant effort. Well I believe that probably all depends on how happy they were as a child. If daddy was out there shaking them on the football field for not catching a ball probably not and they might not have a very good relationship with their dad. But I do know this when they have kids of there own they will be doing this very same thing.
Happy Day to all;)
I coach 3 and 4 year old soccer for our local y some kids love it, some kids like it ok and like being with there friends and some are not interested. I as the coach am ok with kids pulling out if don’t want to be there for whatever reason and you push them they will associate it with soccer (or whatever) but if you let them stop in a year or two and there friends are playing they might be ready.
Thank you for this. Both of my kids had their first soccer practice tonight and hated every minute of it. Makes me feel better knowing that I am not the only parent that has experienced this.
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