Dear Dáithí: My husband is forcing my daughter to take part in sports, but she hates them

Dáithí Ó Sé: the answer here is we all have different skills in life, and we are working on finding hers and that’s what this is really all about.

Dear Dáithí, 

I am the mum of two fabulous girls. One of my daughters, aged eight, is very shy and quiet. She is a very bright child but struggles a bit socially. 

To be honest, she is very like me when I was a child, and I can empathise with her, especially when she says she doesn’t want to go and do sport or when she finds things like birthday parties hard. 

Her sister is a year-and-a-half younger and is the complete opposite, she is a total extrovert, loves her drama and singing and dancing, and does every sport and activity going. 

My husband keeps trying to force my eldest daughter to participate in things, he says it’s important for her and it will help her in the long run. 

I know he means well but I can see how much this upsets my daughter. Not everyone is a team player. He feels team sports are crucial for kids and he helps coach the local hockey team. 

Every time he makes my eldest daughter go, there’s tears and fights, and it really upsets me. But maybe he’s right and she needs a little push? What’s the right course of action?

‘WOULDN’T it be all very boring if we were all the same,’ a person told me one time. ‘Define boring,’ I said. 

That’s the thing about this world — we are all different, but that said, we often want the same outcomes, and in this case, you want two daughters equally as happy — and that’s all we should want when it comes to our children. 

Then the parents come in agus sin scéal eile. Your situation is a very common one and this opinion is based on anecdotal evidence and that is: it always seems that the older child is the quiet one. 

I’m not sure if this comes from the parents acting differently in their parenting styles with each one, I don’t know but it seems to be a common theme, and just because it is, it doesn’t mean it’s bad, it’s just normal and remember normal is good in parenting.

The eldest daughter is like you, and I’ll spit it straight out, you have done fine up until now and your daughter will be fine too, I’m sure your mother might have been the same when you were young, so let’s not be worrying too much. 

But it is important that we put a plan in place to make sure your daughter is happy and has all the social skills she needs going forward.

The first thing I want to do is, and I think it’s important, and that is to separate the two social outings you mentioned, sports and going to birthday parties. 

She doesn’t want to do sports and she finds birthday parties hard. She really hates sports no matter what way you look at it, she gets really upset, there are tears and fights, she is eight, why put her through this, it’s too much. 

I’ll come back to the sports in a bit, now she finds birthday parties hard, but she doesn’t say she doesn’t want to go. So, I would say, you don’t have to do sports, but you must go to birthday parties, they are very important for having the craic with her classmates outside of school. 

A bit of a trade-off that’s all that’s happening here. If both sisters get on really well, bring her along too as support, if you think she’ll take over, leave her at home.

Your husband is a coach and I’m sure he sees the benefits of sports and I know it’s especially hard to keep young girls involved in sports and I agree with him that it is very important, but at what cost? 

Where I don’t agree with him is when his says that sport is crucial, it’s not. What’s crucial is that your daughter is happy — whether she is eight or 48. That to me is number one. 

That said, I do kind-of get where your husband is coming from and I think he is a bit like me because I really wanted my son to be interested in all the things I was and still am, but that is a pipe dream as most parents will tell you. 

For example, my young fella was walking around the last day in a ‘non’ Kerry jersey.

What I am worried about is that if the pressure is still being piled on about this sport issue going forward it might cause problems in their relationship down the line. 

I think your husband needs to take his head out of his ass and think of other ways that would be good for your eldest to socialise — like a few daddy/daughter days doing things she likes to do. 

The benefits of these kind of days far outweigh any activity she hates doing. He needs to think outside the box on this one, help him out if he needs ideas.

Another thing because the youngest is all singing and all dancing this might be playing on her mind, and you should speak to her about this. She might be wondering why she isn’t like that too. 

Again, the answer here is we all have different skills in life, and we are working on finding hers and that’s what this is really all about.

Sometimes we worry too much about our children and when you have two who are very different this can amplify the differences, but children grow and mature at different paced and it’s important to remember that. Sometimes too we can overthink.

A lot of times it’s not the kids at all. I’ll go back to what I said about you when you were young, you were the same, shy and quiet and see what happened, you did fine and so will your daughter. She has great and loving parents.

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