Welcome to Round four of the Parenting Roundabout podcast for the week of June nineteenth.
I'm Catherine Leko, and I'm here with Nicole Heretics, Hello, and
Terry Morrow. Hello. As moms of teens and young adults, we've survived
those little kid days. Yeah, we're still rethinking the decisions we've made all
through our kids' lives. And I'm worrying about what's going on right now.
Today's Thursday, which means it's time to give into our obsessing. And today
we're obsessing about whether to let kids quit an activity. And also since that's
pretty much in the past for us, now, how did it go?
You know, did you make your kids stay in something and did they thank
you later? Did they or do they still complain about how they got stuck
doing it? Because recently my son actually did thank me, or he didn't
thank me, but he did acknowledge that an activity that he was in for
a long time, that he complained about quite a bit when he was doing
it, was good for him. Wow. Yes, actually admitted that.
How that's nice. What does that feel like? Yeah? Right, you
have to you have to get a dopaminia from that. I did, But
you can't be like see I did you know? You have to be like
the cool cool Oh, I'm glad. That's that's nice. You know you
have to play it very cool. Yeah, I'm not sure I'm capable of
that. Otherwise it certainly will never happen again. I'm more like that thing
I made you do that was okay? Right, you had a good time,
right right, you had a good time. That was okay? Did
I did that that? I did that? Right? Right? Right?
Right right? How about now? How about how are you glad? Now?
I yeah, I don't you'll get I don't get a response one way
or the other. It's fine, it was fine, Everything is fine.
Right. But because I did, I know, I did make my daughter
stay in band, I mean the first high school band. I had this
in my head that under the circumstances I mean that she was a language delayed
teenager, I needed her to be in the most around the most kids the
most amount of time possible, and marching band was an activity that it was
very roup group activity intensive. You know, she was on the bowling team,
and she liked being on the bowling team, and that would be her
choice. But that's like for a few months a year, so the band
was constant. So I remember the first day she went to band camp.
The first day and she said, I don't like it. I want to
do it. And I said, why don't you go back tomorrow and see
it? And then tomorrow was better and I just was, you know,
not an option. And I heard other parents say, oh yeah, my
kid quit band, and I'm like, why did you let them quit?
Why didn't you just tell them to go back? And what they should have
said is because my kid would not and your kid will, and you better
think about why that might be. But so I guess my my son quit
band, like not marching band, just school, like the class. This
was the middle school. He just came. I was like, yeah,
I quit. I was like what And I mean this was a class and
yeah, just like took you know, on his own, went to the
councilor I was like, what else can I do because I'm not doing this?
They just left. Wow. Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
I keep talk, you know, she it doesn't mean anything to her now
that she did that, that she was in it. It was okay,
it was fine, but I was I'm still wearing the band t shirts,
right, she's still wearing the jacket. I got my T shirts, I
got all this stuff. It was so it definitely meant more to me than
it did her. So I feel bad sometimes that maybe there would have been
something else that we should have done it. Maybe I shouldn't have worked her.
It was. I was really only forcing her the first few days,
and then she just sort of, you know, okay, it's important to
mom. She then she just kept doing it. But I think that there
might have been things she would like better. So I don't know. I
haven't waiting. I'm waiting on that. You know, Mom, I'm really
glad you did that. I have asked her a few times. You're glad
you did that? Right? And I sure, but it's not very convinced.
Fine, I'm fine. Everything was fine. It's going to be in
that f you discussion we have sometime, you know, sometime before I die.
Maybe we'll get it. But in the meantime, it's fine. They're
fine. Everything's fine. They're fine. Which, you know, Okay,
what was your philosophy on quoting things? Nicole m And there is some like
non negotiables to say, um, just because we knew that, because we
just knew better than them. Yes, yes, we did, didn't we
those days when you were like sure of yourself, wasn't that cool? Yeah?
Yeah, exactly. No, but I'm glad we did. And actually
the kids are thankful for that. They have, you know, some skills
that they can use even now as adults. Um. But yeah, I
mean, if they were not having it, we did not push shit like
we you know, it was kind of a balance, right of like is
this really worth it? Is this doing you more harm than good? Yeah?
Like, you know, I can think of my daughter's tennis experience,
like she loved playing tennis, but once she got on to the high school
tennis team, her life was miserable. Yeah, you know, so she
wasn't annoying it anymore. So her mental health was declining, and so we
were just like, yeah, no, you quit, We're totally behind you
on that one. And then yeah, so so when they got older,
they were you know, we were able to have those conversations and like figure
out what it is and why. And I think for the most part,
you know, if they came to us and said I don't want to do
this anymore, and we were like, we just kind of talk it through
and yeah, you know, makes sense kind of thing. Yeah, right,
because they had a health Like I said, they had a healthy balance
of sticking with things and then and then then there were things that just didn't
work for them, and we could see why they weren't working. Yeah.
Yeah, but yeah, so we were and it's kind of the situation dependent.
Yeah. But yeah, Well my daughter, you know, she quit
skating for half a season and I was pretty shocked, but she was a
little burnt out. You know, she just was like tired and she quit.
But then she went back. You know, she went back, you
know, part way through the season. And at that point, her coach
was like, yes, please, you can come back because she needed her
um. So that was nice, you know, feeling to be wanted and
needed and right. And you know, it worked out because she just she
got to see for herself that she missed it, yeah, rather than sticking
with it just out of like duty or parental enforcement. And it's a lot
of work to just do it out of duty, right, Yeah, It's
a ton of time and effort. So so yeah, that, you know,
I was I was surprised that she wanted to quit, but you know,
I felt like I had to let her and it was between seasons.
You know. It wasn't like she came to me on yeah the competition day,
was like I'm not doing it, like that would have been a problem
or like some of her some of her teammates, you know, you when
you join these teams, you sign a contract and you promise that you're going
to pay for it. And she's known people that then quit, they're to
join a different team, or just because they're decided not to do it and
they still have to pay. Wow. Yeah, well, so I'm glad
I haven't been put in that position. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I
feel like maybe this is a thing for kids with special needs. Is that
most of the activities they did, I sort of picked them out. I
made the decision when to start, and I made the decision when to quit.
Like, oh honey, let's take some dance classes. Yay, dance
classes, let's go do guy. Oh you know what, I don't like
the way they do the recitals here. They cost mommy too much money.
So let's know, you don't really need to take dance lessons anymore yet.
So and it's just there was tons of things like that, let's take music
lessons all, let's not take music lessons and let's beyond the let's go to
this camp out. We don't like this camp so I'm the quitter. I
guess. Let you get involved in things and then quit them. I don't
know, Well you were just worked out to see what worked. They were
always yeah, yeah, okay, well let's go yeah, okay, I
can stop, yeah, okay whatever. But if they would have been like,
no, I really really want to yeah, then yeah, you see
that was always the thing. It was always I was finding the thing,
so they were like yeah, okay, And then when I didn't want to
do it anymore, I was like, okay, good, go back watch
screen and eat some ice cream, so get my dopamine some other webs.
Right. Well, fortunately nobody's talking about quitting this podcast, right guys,
wouldn't dare right? You know, I make you pay pay back. Oh
well, but we're gonna quit this quit this topic right now, right yeah,
and say that is it for today's Round four. Tune in tomorrow when
we'll share our roundabout roundup of things we've been using or enjoying lately that we
think we deserve, that we think deserve a shout out. Find all our
episodes at parenting roundabout dot com and talk back in the comments there, on
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