My child is sporty. What do I do?

As parents, we are naturally inclined to involve ourselves in our children’s hobbies and interests.

We want to encourage them, but not push too hard. It can be tricky to get the balance right.

Our parenting is often shaped by our own experiences and hopes. Maybe you were pushed hard by your parents, and you don’t want the same for your children. Or perhaps you dream of your children making it big, and you’ll do all you can to make that a reality.

I often think back to my own upbringing. At the age of eight, I took up the violin – a strange thing for a young boy in the Birmingham ghettos to do. I remember fondly the efforts my parents made to ensure I got to activities on time, to support me without being overbearing, to cheer from the sides and encourage me behind the scenes.

Fast forward thirty-plus years; I am parenting three young children, and I am faced with the same situation. How do I avoid being passive, but also steer well clear of becoming an aggressive parent when it comes to my children’s interests?

Football, I have to say, is my Achilles heel. My son looks, talks and acts like me, and I play football, so I just assumed he would follow suit. Why wouldn’t he? When he was three years old, an opportunity to attend a soccer camp arose. I was chuffed. I dressed him in a pristine football kit and he had a beaming smile to match. It was all set to be one of the best days of my life. However, it probably became one of the worst.

My son tried hard to follow the coach’s instructions, but just couldn’t do it, and after frustration got the better of him and me, I took him home. All the other kids seemed to be future Raheem Stirlings in the making. Not my son. I vowed to never touch a football with him again. It was a bad dad day – not because he couldn’t do it, but because I’d not followed the example I’d been set by my parents when I’d learnt to play the violin.

I still love football, and so when, three years after this incident, my son found his own interest in the beautiful game, I was delighted. He now plays for a local team, and I cheer him on from the sidelines every week.

Even now, as a more seasoned father, I don’t get the balance right between encouraging my children and becoming a tiger pop. I sometimes focus on the things that didn’t quite work for them, more than those that did – be it the slightly off gymnastics routine, or the one out of tune note in the otherwise flawless song, or the pass not made rather than the goal scored. But I’m working on it. Consistent focus on failures with young children doesn’t help them to learn, so I’m trying to focus on the good stuff.

I would encourage you to take an interest in the things that interest your child, especially if you are not an expert in it. My youngest daughter loves gymnastics, and I now feel I’m raising the next Simone Biles or Katelyn Ohashi. Or I might not be. It doesn’t matter. I’m excited anyway.

We’ll get it wrong sometimes, and that’s OK as long as we’re ready to learn. We should never be passive in their interests and always ready to encourage them. It’s fine to help them grow in weaker areas, but we need to make sure we’re investing the most time celebrating the stronger ones.

Above all, we should use the opportunity their interests give us to enhance the relationships between us and our children, because that’s what it’s ultimately about. In the future, whether my son lifts the World Cup or plays his football on mud baths in the local league, I want him to look at me in the crowd and think, ‘Thanks for being there, Dad.’