Friday, May 20, 2005

Foot Dragging

Just about every day we all go to TKD, my boys do some serious foot-dragging. It happened yesterday.

"I don't want to go to Tae Kwon Do. Can we just go Saturday? I think I want to quit."

I am taking this approach now: we're doing this together and you'll keep doing it because you really do like it and you need to keep at something even when it's hard to give up free time for it.
They usually do settle down once we're there, though they've been a bit squirrelly as of late. I think they take advantage of Mr. Houtz's easy-going classes. Next week we'll go to Master Hughes's classes. He runs a tighter ship, and I think that will be good for them, help them to behave better and learn more.

But if Robbie does continue to lose interest (he seems to be very uninterested in learning his form recently), I'll have a dilemma to face: Do I make them keep going, hoping that they'll revive? Or do I let him quit after a certain amount of time?

And what would that mean for my study of Tae Kwon Do? Would I quit, too (especially if Eli followed in Robbie's path)? I go now because it's something we can all do together, during a time I'm with the guys anyway. Would I continue it if it meant going out at suppertime to practice?

I don't know. I don't want to think about that now.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I say make 'em do it. In an firm but encouraging way. Show by example and all that. One of the best things in the world to learn, imo, is the ability to muster through the mundane, boring, painful, whatever down side to everything in our lives, even those things that are at the top of our enjoyment lists. Think about camping- what a monumental pain in the rear it can be sometimes. But then what rewards are the good stuff! Or traveling- how much of that is sucky! Man oh man. Or fishing. Wait, there is no down side to fishing :-)

The other thing is that sometimes boredom or "I don't want to" is just a today thing. Kids tend to think and live in the "right now". Like, why go to TKD when I just got my Legos out for heaven's sake!?! As parents we focus on the long term- how going to TKD is going to help 'em for years to come (confidence, strength, whatever.) They just want to play with Legos!

So tell them "we're going to TKD or I'm gonna round house you!" :-)

My two centavos.
B