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AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)
Giving Up on Quitting
By J’AMY PACHECO
How do you encourage a child to try new things without risking them turning into quitters?
When my daughter was three or four, I enrolled her in a combination tap and ballet class for toddlers. She loved to dance at home, and was delighted to have the opportunity to prance around the community center with other leotard-clad girls.
Unfortunately, one of her classmates was a super-sized, aggressive girl who delighted in bumping into my tiny dancer and often knocked her down. A few weeks into the lessons, it was obvious my little girl was miserable. I offered her an escape.
“Do I get to keep my tap-tap shoes?” she asked. I assured her she could, and she was out of there faster than a bad vaudevillian with a cane around his neck.
It was a quick and uncomplicated resolution, but I fear it may have set the stage for future events.
When she was five, I signed her up for swim lessons. Her tiny toes could not touch the bottom of the pool, and she spent most of each class hanging on the side trying to avoid drowning. She hated the class, and at the end of the first two-week session, received a failing mark for refusing to jump into the water from the pool deck.
I bribed her with “Little Mermaid” goggles. After one requisite jump from the deck, she received her goggles —and refused to jump again. Finally, I asked the question: “Do you want to quit?” She did, and never looked back.
Soccer was next. When she was six, she begged to join her best buddy on a soccer team — which I somehow ended up coaching.
My daughter loved practices, and raced around the field chasing, kicking and laughing. Game days, however, were a different story, and my mellow little girl had to be coaxed onto the field to face aggressive opponents who had cleats and weren’t afraid to use them.
She finished the season, but only because her coach wouldn’t let her quit. She never expressed the desire to play soccer again.
This year, it was tennis lessons. Her parents used to play a lot of tennis, and it seemed natural that she would enjoy the sport. She loved her first class, and spent the next week batting tennis balls around inside the house with surprising accuracy.
But it soon became apparent that her elderly tennis teacher wasn’t connecting with her class of 8- and 9-year-old girls. During one session, for example, the girls were to hit a tennis ball straight down with their rackets 10 times, and shout “10!” when they made it without missing.
My daughter did it, but the teacher didn’t notice. She shouted “10!” again and again, shooting a “What do I do now?” look to me on the sidelines. She gave up, and went back to bouncing.
When the time was up, the teacher asked, “Didn’t anybody get 10?” I thought my daughter was going to hit herself over the head with her racket in frustration. Fortunately, she settled for raising her hand.
Now, for a variety of reasons, she wants to quit. I don’t know if I should let her.
I enjoy seeing my daughter try new things, whether it’s a sport, food or a new ride at a theme park. Sometimes, things go well and become favorites. Other times, new things are rejected almost as quickly as they’ve been tried.
I want her to have fun. But she needs to know that not everything is fun, and that some things take work — and time — before they become enjoyable and rewarding.
As she has grown, I have noticed in her a tendency to reject new ideas and activities more quickly. Her immediate reaction to something new is often a vehement “No!” But given time to consider, she will usually talk herself into giving whatever it is a shot. I have seen her experience deep regret for this rejection when it happens that the moment of opportunity passes before she reconsiders.
She’s a smart, capable kid to whom many things come easily. I worry that she will start to give up on things if they don’t prove satisfying quickly enough.
Somehow, it has to be possible to find a balance between the two — to help her investigate and pursue the things she finds enjoyable without conveying the message that if you don’t like something, you can simply quit.
At the moment, I’m looking for a new tennis teacher — and some answers to this perplexing dilemma. I’m not sure how quickly I’ll find either but one thing’s for certain — I won’t give up.
Because that, I think, would be a mistake.
Copyright 2005, Metropolitan News Company