How to help your child stick with a new hobby or skill

Most children are excited to learn a skill or hobby, but some will struggle to stay the course. It’s all part of the learning process

Testing the waters: It takes grit to become competent at a new sport or activity, so parents should encourage children to persevere and not give up unless it’s a real struggle. Picture: iStock 

YOUR child is starting swimming lessons next week, or guitar classes, or joining a sports club. They can’t wait. Neither can you: You’re so looking forward to seeing them master a skill and make friends.

And then, a few weeks in, the gloss is gone, disillusionment has set in, they’re not so keen anymore, they want to give up. For many parents, it seems, their child gives up too easily. Why does it happen? And what can you do to help them stay the course?

Psychotherapist and member of the Irish Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy, Linda Breathnach, says the ‘trying’ stage — “where they haven’t done it before and they don’t know anybody” — is when they are susceptible to giving up.

“They may have a fear of failure, of looking silly,” Breathnach says. “There may be a sense of overwhelm and perfectionism, trying to learn it all on the first day, and it looks too much. This can cause them to freeze and stall.”

Breathnach, a mother of four children ranging in age from 10 to 20, tells children, “they’re not meant to know” when starting something new.

“This is what learning is. You’re meant to make mistakes. Learning to ride a bike, do a cartwheel, you have to start from a place of not knowing, which is really uncomfortable.”

Dr Ray O’Neill, assistant professor in psychotherapy at Dublin City University, says we need to be honest with children that “something getting tough” is part of the learning process.

Not knowing is a great place for parents and children to meet, he says. “A parent saying, ‘I actually don’t know that’ is much more helpful than a parent pretending to know.

“We aren’t honest about the steps of learning, so when we hit the first difficulty, which we have to hit, we just give up. Yet contained within the first half of learning is not knowing.

“Adults and children usually fall down at the second stage of learning, when they realise they can’t do it. So the child, who all along has been saying they’d really love to play the guitar, isn’t releasing their first album three minutes after starting, and they want to give up.

“The fantasy around doing something and the reality are very different. There’s labour involved in the reality, and people stumble when the fantasy doesn’t become reality straightaway.”

O’Neill says that parents need to be honest with children and explain that learning is going to take work and commitment, that they have to learn very slowly, make lots of mistakes, and spend hours practising. He believes having too much choice — ‘I didn’t like horse-riding, now I’m going to do rugby’ — is unhelpful for developing the grit to persevere. “We give up easily because another distraction comes along really quickly.”

He recommends telling children to pick an activity, and that they don’t get an automatic second option if they don’t like the first one. “It’s really good to encourage children to commit. Something is valuable when we invest time, energy, and emotionality in it.”

Linda Breathnach: Mistakes and anxiety are inevitable. Picture: Marcela Hernoux

Comfortable being uncomfortable

Breathnach suggests additional reasons why children give up. “Maybe there’s been a change of leadership. The coach they had was a champion for that child; their style or sense of inclusiveness might have been a good fit. And now the child’s finding it hard to adapt to somebody new, who mightn’t be a good fit.”

The child may give up because they don’t like the activity or lack interest in it. Or low self-esteem may be at play, or the child doesn’t have the confidence to try, or they don’t believe in themselves, or they have social anxiety around walking into a group they don’t know. And 45% of girls drop out of sport by age 14, twice the rate of boys, according to Sport Ireland.

“Some reasons are schoolwork, body changes, and body image, confidence, and responsibilities at home,” Breathnach says.

It is very possible, says Breathnach, to develop a stay-the-course mindset in children. “Communicate a positive understanding of mistakes, experience, and learning. Say, ‘The more shots you take at goal, the more chance you have of scoring; if you take 10, hopefully two will go in’. Teach acceptance that you can’t have it perfect all the time, that mistakes have to happen as part of the process, that things do go wrong and that’s not failure.

“Encourage children to keep their head up after an uncomfortable experience or mistake. Encourage gentle self-talk, the kinds of words they might use to help somebody else. And normalise anxious, cringe, or uncomfortable feelings — say, ‘Of course you’re going to feel anxious going into a new group, of course some of these new things are cringe. That’s normal’ — don’t let it be a reason you give up’.”

Visualisation is also good, but with the caveat that focusing on the end goal may be way too big, and therefore overwhelming. “Sometimes, one step at a time is better. Say, ‘Let’s try this for half an hour and see where we are then’,” says Breathnach, who recommends parents check in with themselves, too. Could they inadvertently be influencing the child to give up quickly?

“What has been your experience of dropping out or staying with something? What supports did you get or not? What might have helped you? Sometimes, children’s giving up is learned behaviour. If everyone around them is dropping out and making excuses, they may not feel motivated.”

Another question for parents to ask is why they want this activity for their child. “Is it your want or need? Or the child’s? Are there differences between you and your child? What’s your child’s perspective?”

Ray O’Neill: Children should keep trying despite embarrassment.

Consistency is the key

Inconsistent parental support may also be contributing to your child dropping out. “Consistency is important. Having a routine — the child knowing Wednesday’s the day they need to come home and get ready, having the sports gear all laid out — there’s a pattern and everybody knows what’s happening.

“Whereas, if one week you’re saying, ‘We’ll skip it today, we’ll go next week’, it’s going to be very hard to follow through the next week, because you’ve given a message that they mightn’t go.

“And consistency is very important in the beginning stages and at those moments when they’re having a wobble.”

Breathnach urges focus on the positive, as well as the small wins, and congratulating them on feeling the fear and doing it anyway. “Celebrate showing up — it doesn’t matter how they did.”

Is there ever a time when you should let your child give up? Yes, says O’Neill, if the learning process is causing pain, or shame that is becoming humiliation.

“We can learn through a certain amount of shame. For example, ‘Everyone laughed at me at swimming today’. That’s part of the process; we can move through it. But if the child is mortified, that’s not helpful — it’s becoming hurtful to the child, and it’s time to give up.”

If your child prefers music to football and they’re both scheduled the same day, if they have genuinely tried and just can’t get the hang of the activity, and, of course, if bullying is happening and the surrounding adults are not handling it well, certainly it is then time to give up, says Breathnach.

“And if you do decide to change direction, encourage your child not to see it as failure, but, instead, to bring the learning with them.”