Separation of Character

Jack has always been a physical kid, he has always been strong and has a tendency to deal with disputes in a physical way. As he has grown i have come to terms with it and realised that "it to will pass". The other day while thinking about things that Jack might like to do i thought about martial arts, i wondered seeing that Jack loves to rumble and fight if a martial art might not help him learn how to deal with feeling aggressive and also give him an outlet.

We called the local Taekwondo school and they run a program called little dragons for 3-5 year olds and invited us to come and have a free class to see what it was all about. Needless to say Jack loved it, he was great at listening to the directions and following what the bigger kids were doing BUT i didn't love it, in fact it really pushed a lot of my buttons.

I hadn't anticipated the authoritarian nature of the class and the praise if you conformed. It got me thinking .... this was one of those moments, what direction was Jack going to take in his life, who was he going to be, what would putting this activity and these people and rules going to do to who he is going to become. I don't just think that it is martial arts, if i was looking at putting him into ballet classes or soccer the resulting issues would be similar, he is getting older and classes are no longer just about having fun they are about playing my the rules.

I haven't made any decisions yet, i need to talk to Andrew and figure out if we think that Jack is ready, but the question is now do we want a taekwondo kid or a soccer kid or a horse riding kid, and am i ready to be the martial arts version of a soccer mum