M.M.
I have a 13 y/o and I found 2 approaches working well:
1. I sign him up for an activity that I think he will enjoy – and after he completes a short course he can decide whether he wants to do it or not. We tried many things over the years and he loves fencing and drawing now. I never have to remind or nag about these classes – he gathers the supplies – and he is out. He wants to do tennis as well but it simply doesn’t fit in his current schedule – he may come back to it later. Through these activities he also gets to meet kids other than his classmates and appreciate people of different walks of life with different interests.
2. I enjoy an activity with him. Makes both of us disciplined, also helps me to practice what I preach. We do judo together and he is very sad and upset if I have to miss a class for any reason. Martial arts are great because participants are of different ages and skills and it gives one a place to fit in a class regardless of your skill level. One can work on his/her own skills and at the same time be a part of the group. We also do nature walks and occasional jogging together and use this time for talking.
Please get a limit on videogames and TV. You need time to do sports and activities. Child cannot have time or interest if his time and brain is occupied with TV/games. My son played videogame twice this year in his friend’s house (because we refused to buy any for years and he is already got used to comments “your parents are weird”). He is never watching TV on the weekends because he has sports and catches up on the work he did not completed during the week and he is lucky if can catch some “appropriate channel” like Discovery or History Channel during one-two nights a week depending how busy he is. He is allowed to watch CNN in the morning if he has time before school bus arrives.
You didn’t mention if your son is overweight. Mine was caring a small spare tire around his waist which was becoming quite bothersome at about the age of 10 – we enrolled him in swimming lessons 2xweek, he was really good, was offered a place on a team in less than one year but he did not wanted to continue because of the pressure he felt but he lost all the fat :)) during that time and got used to being active and it is easier now in other sports because he is lean, fast and agile. With the swimming – we had to push- because he did not liked it all that much after he mastered the skills-I had to make sure we left on practice on time, sometimes my husband called and threatened him to go if didn’t wanted to, I had to sit and watch him the whole practice so he followed the instructions, etc. We told him we will relent only if he picked up a sport instead of swimming, which is how he chose fencing. With judo, the first month was really hard, both of us were tired, sometimes bored but we pressed on and now we both love it. So, my advice is make sure your son knows you expect him to do something and to put a real effort into it and be a bit flexible about what that something may be. Good luck.
