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Welcome to Round four of the Parenting
Roundabout podcast for the week of June nineteenth.

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I'm Catherine Leko, and I'm here
with Nicole Heretics, Hello, and

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Terry Morrow. Hello. As moms
of teens and young adults, we've survived

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those little kid days. Yeah,
we're still rethinking the decisions we've made all

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through our kids' lives. And I'm
worrying about what's going on right now.

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Today's Thursday, which means it's time
to give into our obsessing. And today

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we're obsessing about whether to let kids
quit an activity. And also since that's

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pretty much in the past for us, now, how did it go?

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You know, did you make your
kids stay in something and did they thank

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you later? Did they or do
they still complain about how they got stuck

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doing it? Because recently my son
actually did thank me, or he didn't

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thank me, but he did acknowledge
that an activity that he was in for

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a long time, that he complained
about quite a bit when he was doing

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it, was good for him.
Wow. Yes, actually admitted that.

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How that's nice. What does that
feel like? Yeah? Right, you

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have to you have to get a
dopaminia from that. I did, But

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you can't be like see I did
you know? You have to be like

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the cool cool Oh, I'm glad. That's that's nice. You know you

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have to play it very cool.
Yeah, I'm not sure I'm capable of

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that. Otherwise it certainly will never
happen again. I'm more like that thing

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I made you do that was okay? Right, you had a good time,

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right right, you had a good
time. That was okay? Did

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I did that that? I did
that? Right? Right? Right?

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Right right? How about now?
How about how are you glad? Now?

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I yeah, I don't you'll get
I don't get a response one way

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or the other. It's fine,
it was fine, Everything is fine.

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Right. But because I did,
I know, I did make my daughter

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stay in band, I mean the
first high school band. I had this

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in my head that under the circumstances
I mean that she was a language delayed

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teenager, I needed her to be
in the most around the most kids the

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most amount of time possible, and
marching band was an activity that it was

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very roup group activity intensive. You
know, she was on the bowling team,

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and she liked being on the bowling
team, and that would be her

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choice. But that's like for a
few months a year, so the band

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was constant. So I remember the
first day she went to band camp.

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The first day and she said,
I don't like it. I want to

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do it. And I said,
why don't you go back tomorrow and see

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it? And then tomorrow was better
and I just was, you know,

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not an option. And I heard
other parents say, oh yeah, my

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kid quit band, and I'm like, why did you let them quit?

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Why didn't you just tell them to
go back? And what they should have

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said is because my kid would not
and your kid will, and you better

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think about why that might be.
But so I guess my my son quit

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band, like not marching band,
just school, like the class. This

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was the middle school. He just
came. I was like, yeah,

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I quit. I was like what
And I mean this was a class and

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yeah, just like took you know, on his own, went to the

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councilor I was like, what else
can I do because I'm not doing this?

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They just left. Wow. Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

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I keep talk, you know,
she it doesn't mean anything to her now

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that she did that, that she
was in it. It was okay,

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it was fine, but I was
I'm still wearing the band t shirts,

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right, she's still wearing the jacket. I got my T shirts, I

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got all this stuff. It was
so it definitely meant more to me than

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it did her. So I feel
bad sometimes that maybe there would have been

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something else that we should have done
it. Maybe I shouldn't have worked her.

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It was. I was really only
forcing her the first few days,

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and then she just sort of,
you know, okay, it's important to

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mom. She then she just kept
doing it. But I think that there

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might have been things she would like
better. So I don't know. I

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haven't waiting. I'm waiting on that. You know, Mom, I'm really

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glad you did that. I have
asked her a few times. You're glad

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you did that? Right? And
I sure, but it's not very convinced.

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Fine, I'm fine. Everything was
fine. It's going to be in

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that f you discussion we have sometime, you know, sometime before I die.

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Maybe we'll get it. But in
the meantime, it's fine. They're

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fine. Everything's fine. They're fine. Which, you know, Okay,

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what was your philosophy on quoting things? Nicole m And there is some like

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non negotiables to say, um,
just because we knew that, because we

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just knew better than them. Yes, yes, we did, didn't we

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those days when you were like sure
of yourself, wasn't that cool? Yeah?

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Yeah, exactly. No, but
I'm glad we did. And actually

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the kids are thankful for that.
They have, you know, some skills

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that they can use even now as
adults. Um. But yeah, I

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mean, if they were not having
it, we did not push shit like

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we you know, it was kind
of a balance, right of like is

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this really worth it? Is this
doing you more harm than good? Yeah?

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Like, you know, I can
think of my daughter's tennis experience,

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like she loved playing tennis, but
once she got on to the high school

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tennis team, her life was miserable. Yeah, you know, so she

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wasn't annoying it anymore. So her
mental health was declining, and so we

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were just like, yeah, no, you quit, We're totally behind you

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on that one. And then yeah, so so when they got older,

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they were you know, we were
able to have those conversations and like figure

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out what it is and why.
And I think for the most part,

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you know, if they came to
us and said I don't want to do

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this anymore, and we were like, we just kind of talk it through

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and yeah, you know, makes
sense kind of thing. Yeah, right,

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because they had a health Like I
said, they had a healthy balance

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of sticking with things and then and
then then there were things that just didn't

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work for them, and we could
see why they weren't working. Yeah.

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Yeah, but yeah, so we
were and it's kind of the situation dependent.

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Yeah. But yeah, Well my
daughter, you know, she quit

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skating for half a season and I
was pretty shocked, but she was a

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little burnt out. You know,
she just was like tired and she quit.

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But then she went back. You
know, she went back, you

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know, part way through the season. And at that point, her coach

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was like, yes, please,
you can come back because she needed her

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um. So that was nice,
you know, feeling to be wanted and

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needed and right. And you know, it worked out because she just she

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got to see for herself that she
missed it, yeah, rather than sticking

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with it just out of like duty
or parental enforcement. And it's a lot

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of work to just do it out
of duty, right, Yeah, It's

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a ton of time and effort.
So so yeah, that, you know,

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I was I was surprised that she
wanted to quit, but you know,

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I felt like I had to let
her and it was between seasons.

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You know. It wasn't like she
came to me on yeah the competition day,

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was like I'm not doing it,
like that would have been a problem

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or like some of her some of
her teammates, you know, you when

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you join these teams, you sign
a contract and you promise that you're going

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to pay for it. And she's
known people that then quit, they're to

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join a different team, or just
because they're decided not to do it and

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they still have to pay. Wow. Yeah, well, so I'm glad

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I haven't been put in that position. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I

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feel like maybe this is a thing
for kids with special needs. Is that

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most of the activities they did,
I sort of picked them out. I

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made the decision when to start,
and I made the decision when to quit.

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Like, oh honey, let's take
some dance classes. Yay, dance

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classes, let's go do guy.
Oh you know what, I don't like

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the way they do the recitals here. They cost mommy too much money.

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So let's know, you don't really
need to take dance lessons anymore yet.

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So and it's just there was tons
of things like that, let's take music

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lessons all, let's not take music
lessons and let's beyond the let's go to

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this camp out. We don't like
this camp so I'm the quitter. I

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guess. Let you get involved in
things and then quit them. I don't

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know, Well you were just worked
out to see what worked. They were

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always yeah, yeah, okay,
well let's go yeah, okay, I

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can stop, yeah, okay whatever. But if they would have been like,

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no, I really really want to
yeah, then yeah, you see

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that was always the thing. It
was always I was finding the thing,

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so they were like yeah, okay, And then when I didn't want to

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do it anymore, I was like, okay, good, go back watch

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screen and eat some ice cream,
so get my dopamine some other webs.

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Right. Well, fortunately nobody's talking
about quitting this podcast, right guys,

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wouldn't dare right? You know,
I make you pay pay back. Oh

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well, but we're gonna quit this
quit this topic right now, right yeah,

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and say that is it for today's
Round four. Tune in tomorrow when

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we'll share our roundabout roundup of things
we've been using or enjoying lately that we

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think we deserve, that we think
deserve a shout out. Find all our

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episodes at parenting roundabout dot com and
talk back in the comments there, on

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