"10-Year-Old Wants To Quit Sports"

My 10 year-old son, Brandon, loves baseball and he is very good at it. He plays catcher and pitcher for his Little League team. He has been playing for four years. The team practices four days a week and plays a game once a week. Usually on the weekend we play catch or go to the batting cages. Lately, he has been saying he doesn't want to go to practice. But if he doesn't practice, the coach won't let him start in the game and he may really be missing out on some great opportunities to play ball in the future. Should I just make him go to practice?

-- -- frustrated Dad in Toledo

It sounds like both you and your son love baseball, and that you have done a lot to encourage and support him in his sport. There may be several reasons that he doesn't want to practice right now. It is important to talk to him (and to observe him) to see if you can get some clues about his underlying reason for not wanting to go. Possible reasons may be: something happened at practice that he is uncomfortable about (he had a fight with a friend or the rules changed), he is tired of his rigorous schedule of baseball-related activities, he has other interests he would like to pursue, he is feeling unsure of his skills and is pulling back rather than trying and failing, or he is wanting to make "his own decision," separate from the decision you would like to make for him.
      How you respond to Brandon's request to stop going to practice will depend on his reasons for pulling back. Here are some things to consider as you work to figure out and respond to what to the situation:
. Distinguish between his issues and your own. Many issues that come up for our children are particularly challenging to deal with because they overlap with issues that we have. Being a parent affords us the opportunity to re-experience and re-examine our own childhood, including our own unresolved issues. It can be tempting to take the unfulfilled dreams from our own childhood and encourage our children to carry the torch. While our interest, support and encouragement are necessary and valuable for our children, pressuring them to achieve a particular outcome can create problems. Whenever you and your child have a difference of opinion about your child's activities, interests or pursuits, step back and think about how invested each of you is in the activity. Sometimes a child's enthusiasm (or lack of enthusiasm) is tied directly to our level of interest, rather than their own. A child may pursue an activity primarily to please us. Conversely, they may resist one just because we want them to do it so badly.
. Communicate with an open mind. Sometimes in the midst of our own concern and worry, it is difficult to hear our kid's perspective. It can also be difficult for our children to communicate what is going on with them because they don't always know. When Brandon proclaims that he isn't going to baseball practice anymore, it can be hard not to immediately respond with all the reasons he should or to make threats as to what will happen if he doesn't go. However, if you can put your other responses on hold and ask him to tell you more, you may learn some valuable information.
      Responses which encourage dialogue include: "Tell me more about that," or "Hmm, that's a change from what you've been doing. What is your idea?" or "What's up?" "Do you think this is a temporary feeling or is it what you want to do for the rest of the season?" or "Is there something hard about practice these days?" or "What would you like to be doing instead?"
. Let him experience his own consequences. As hard as it is to let our children experience the consequences of their actions, it can provide invaluable learning opportunities for them (and maybe for us). While it is our job to protect them from dangerous or devastating consequences, allowing them to make decisions which will have future repercussions honors their emerging capacity to make thoughtful decisions. This doesn't mean that you should stay quiet and ignore what is happening with Brandon. Rather, you can be an important resource to him during his decision-making process. You can ask him questions like, "What do you think will happen if you don't go to practice?" "How will you feel about that?"
. Help him problem solve. If Brandon is not wanting to go to practice because he's scared or has a conflict with someone, it is important to help him figure out how to resolve the issue. Here's how a sample dialogue might go: