Clare Byrne

Should you force them to go or do you let them quit?

Clare Crowe is a member of the Psychological Society of Ireland and she's here with me.

Hello, Clare.

We have all been there, haven't we, with this?

It always happens after two or three lessons where you've paid for nine, you know.

That means you're going to have to push your child quite significantly if they're telling you, I absolutely hate the guitar.

I don't want to do it anymore or whatever the activity is.

So they should have their own motivation then to keep going.

What happens then if the child is older?

Let's say they're moving into their teenage years and everything is changing in their lives and they have other interests.

Sure.

And something that they've spent years, you know, being really good at, really invested in suddenly is the last thing they want to do.

OK, just by verbalising how they felt about the good times and the bad times.

Sounds like when they're younger, we have to sort of lean in.

Yeah.

And then when they're older, we have to stand back a bit.

Yeah.

What about over committing to, which is a slightly different topic, but it's related, over committing to activities?

Because I think we all tend, we made a promise, didn't we, during COVID?

Oh, this is great.