We recently put our four-year-old in a martial arts class. It's not because he has an interest in it, it's more for extra socialisation outside of kindergarten and physical activity. Even at his young age, our son knows what he likes and what he wants to do when he's older. Most of his interests include minimal physical activity.
As parents, our job is to provide the world on a silver platter for our kids so that they have exposure and choices. For instance, swimming is a basic skill, whether they like it or not kids must learn how to swim. So it is our job to ensure that they get this skill. We have to live through dragging them to swim classes when they don't want to because we understand that it is for their benefit.
This is what is happening to us with martial arts. Our son is somewhat excited by the idea of it but once he is in class for 10 minutes, he is over the whole thing. He will lie down on the mat and do his own thing, or he'll get distracted by other things or try to engage with other kids by getting physical with them.
I must stress that the class is carried out in a language that is not my son's first language. So the attention span varies because he cannot keep up with the dialogue. He also gets physical with other children as a way of communicating because they do not speak the same language.
My husband gets very frustrated with him when he does this and immediately resorts to pulling him out of the class. Meanwhile, when I took him to the class, I saw all that transpired but opened my mind to understand the deeper meaning to all the small incidents.
For starters, the class is tailored for the age group 3-5 years. So all the kids have their own disruptive ways. A thing that is understood by the teachers because they know what they signed up for.
Secondly, at this age, when kids are disruptive and unattentive, it is a normal phenomenon. We start teaching them how to concentrate longer and how to redirect their attention back to the sport.
I told my husband, it’s almost considered cute that he is acting this way because he is only four years old. If he was seven or eight years old, it would have been a problem because he wasn't taught much earlier.
Which is why we are scrambling to teach him new things and expose him as much as he can when he is still wet clay that can be moulded. Wahenga walisema udingo upatilize ungali maji…
