Hiya,

When our children stop spending time on something, it’s very easy to assume they’ve stopped being interested in it.

They were excited about getting into some new activity or hobby. Some new interest or skill or pursuit or pastime or whatever. They talked about it heaps, got stuck into it with good energy, and seemed to really enjoy it. But then it faded away faster than you expected, and now a week has gone by and they’ve barely touched it, and you’re standing there thinking...ok, I guess we’re not into that anymore.

Which can feel like a bit of a shame, right, because there was so much promise there. Not promise in terms of how good at the thing they were, or might have been, or could become (though that’s always interesting to watch play out). I mean, the promise of how this could become something they really go deep on. The promise of finding a ‘thing’.

They have all the time they need. They have all the things they need, relating to whatever it is. If they wanted to spend their entire afternoon - their entire week even - doing this thing, they absolutely could. But here we are, with the thing or the idea now gathering dust.

Where did all that early enthusiasm go?

When this happens, we often rationalise it away as children exploring things, finding they’re not actually as interested as they thought, and moving on. And sometimes that’s exactly what has happened.

But sometimes it’s not that at all, the interest is absolutely still there, and it’s up to us to help them keep the flame alive. Because wanting to do something does not always just automatically turn into actually doing it.

Let me explain by talking about…the gym 😅

Imagine you wake up one day and start thinking about how you’d really like to get fitter and stronger. Maybe you’re like me, and middle age has hit in some very unkind ways, and you’d quite like to do something about that 😂

You want to feel stronger, have more energy, get back into some of the active things you loved doing when you were younger.

You think about it for a while, then start saying it out loud. You talk to your partner about when you might be able to fit it in. You look up the gyms near you. You find one you like, buy a membership, get yourself a sparkling new outfit for your first session, and you’re ready.

Ok, we’re really doing this. We’re committed. Here we go.

And you’re excited. You really are pumped. You’ve been looking up exercises, reading about how to dial your nutrition in a bit better, imagining what it’ll feel like when you’ve been going regularly for a few months. Lots of imagining. You’re looking forward to that version of yourself.

Then you head down for your first session.

Now that you’re actually standing there it all feels a bit more intimidating than you thought it would. Everyone seems to know what they’re doing, and you’re trying to work out whether the machine in front of you is even the one you watched the video about. It’s the closest match, but it still looks different.

You find something familiar and spend a bit of time on that. Try a couple of other things, although you’re not sure you’re doing them properly. The next thing on your list is being used, and you don’t really know what to do instead, so you decide ok that’s probably enough for today.

And when you leave, you feel good that you went. You’ve started, you’re underway! But you also feel a bit...hmmm…what…underwhelmed? Overwhelmed? A weird mix of the two. You spent quite a lot of that session figuring out what you were supposed to be doing, realising you know even less than you thought, and looking around at some of the people in there thinking ok wow you must have been at this for a very long time this is going to take way more effort than I thought.

Still, you’ll go back. Definitely. You genuinely love the idea of it, and want to get into this. And you really want to be the person you envision becoming when you’ve put in enough work.

But the next time you’re planning to go, you’re a bit tired. There are other things you need to get done, and the thought of wandering around feeling unsure of yourself again doesn’t make getting out the door especially appealing. You’ll go tomorrow, yeah, tomorrow, when you have a bit more time.

And you mean that. You’re not pretending to want to go. But tomorrow comes, and somehow there’s another good reason right there in front of you to put it off again…

Now, imagine someone looks at all that and says, well, obviously you’re just not that interested. Obviously you don’t really want to explore this thing more, and get better at it, and become a more accomplished person in this area. Because if you really wanted to then you’d be doing it, no excuses. You must just not want it enough.

Would that feel like a fair description of what’s happening?

Or would you say to that person...hold on, no, that’s not right, I really DO want to. I’m just finding it harder to get into it than I thought I would. I don’t really know what I’m doing yet, and I feel a bit awkward standing there trying to figure it all out, and I’m not sure whether the things I’m doing are actually helping me make progress, and actually I kinda wish I had someone to go with so I didn’t have to work all this out on my own. And yeah, when it comes time to leave the house, sometimes I choose something easier. Something I already know how to do, where I know I’ll enjoy myself and won’t spend half the time feeling a bit useless. But that absolutely does not mean I’ve stopped wanting this.

Those two things - a real desire to learn or experience something new, and a reluctance to walk into the friction that often comes with that - can absolutely be true at the same time.

And we can see that when we change some of the inputs. In our gym example, that might be arranging to meet a friend there. Will there be an excuse this time? Way less likely. You’re way more likely to go.

Or it might be hiring a coach for a few weeks, someone who can show you what all the equipment is and how it works and how to get the best out of the time you have. Are you showing up for those sessions? Yeah, probably. Are you way more likely to keep going after them, once you’ve got a solid-feeling grip on those first few steps of the experience ladder? Yeah, probably.

Or it might be changing what you’re expecting of yourself when you go. You’ve been picturing an hour-long workout, which feels pretty massive, but what if for now you just did some shorter sessions? Or maybe you realise there are times when the gym is super busy and times when it’s much quieter, so you go during those lulls instead so you don’t feel as awkward while you’re learning the ropes.

Or it might be setting a reminder on your phone an hour before you’re supposed to leave that tells you to STAY AWAY from social media until later. Because often you want to leave at 9, but you start scrolling before you get into your gym gear and then it goes past 9:30 and oh no now you don’t have enough time to go. If someone had asked you beforehand if you wanted to spend that time getting fitter or scrolling short videos on your phone you would absolutely have said the former, obviously, but somehow the latter just…happened. Again.

All of which is to say, you won’t start going more consistently because you’re suddenly more interested in getting stronger or fitter. That’s been there the whole time. You haven’t stopped being interested. What needs to change is some help acting on that interest. Whether that’s from others, or yourself, or ideally a combination of both.

Now, obviously this is not a perfect analogy for our children and their interests, because you might want what the gym can give you without being very interested in the gym itself.

But the point is that even when we love something, we don’t necessarily always love every part of the work involved in it. And regardless of what it is, there’s always a learning curve and some challenge and some awkwardness and some frustration and maybe even some embarrassment when we start something new.

Even when we love something, we can look forward to spending time on it and still find ourselves doing something easier.

When we talk about an education built around our children’s interests, it’s easy to picture the interest doing most of the work for us. They’ll find something they seem interested in, get excited, and off they’ll go. We’ll help them get the things they need, make sure they have plenty of time available to explore it, and the rest will follow.

But - just like us - they can want to do something and still need quite a bit of help getting into it. Still find it hard, or embarrassing, or tiring, or confusing, or just…easier to put off until tomorrow.

They might want to keep working on something, keep getting better at it, but the last time they tried they couldn’t quite get it right somewhere and they don’t know what to do differently. They might have so many ideas about a project that working out where to start feels quite hard, so they get stuck on thinking about it all without ever really doing much.

They might just find it easier when another person is there with them. Someone to talk to, ask questions of, have an awkward laugh with about not being great at it yet.

Or they might fully intend to get back to it today, but get caught up in something else that’s easier to pick up and harder to put down, and without really realising it their afternoon’s gone.

So before we decide a child has ‘lost interest’ in something, it’s on us to work out whether that’s actually true. To be the coach in the gym who makes things more accessible and approachable, or the friend who gives them some built-in accountability. Sometimes that will be helping them work out a next small step that feels doable and engaging, sometimes it will mean making time and clearing distractions, sometimes it will be helping them see the progress they’ve already made, sometimes it will just be being there to do it with them.

Of course, sometimes a child really will just…move on. They might try something, maybe enjoy it for a while, but now they really would rather be doing other things. That’s totally fine, and it happens all the time. Childhood is the ultimate time for trying on what fits, and discarding what doesn’t.

What I’m saying is that we should be a little bit careful about how quickly we decide that a lack of activity means a lack of interest. Especially when we start using that to form a bigger picture of our child as someone who never follows through, who never seems to ‘stick with their interests’, who doesn’t seem to ‘have a thing’.

They may want something quite a lot. They may even be frustrated with themselves that they haven’t got any further with whatever that is.

Remember, every January gyms around the world fill up with brand new members. Within a few months, less than half of them will still be showing up.

Did all those people REALLY lose interest in what they wanted to get out of that?

Or is it just that wanting something and finding your way into doing it consistently are two very different things?

Talk soon,
Issy.

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