David Johnston

Hi Gwenn. I just came across your story and it resonated a lot with me. The thing is I had the same problem with my son. My wife and I had a baby quite late. We took care of him and tried to give him everything he wanted. I even think we might have spoiled him. He had the best toys, bicycles, skate, skis, the most modern gadgets, but my Bob was completely uninterested in learning. At school, he had poor grades, teachers could not encourage him to study. It felt like there was no thing that interested him.My wife and I tried to talk to him – we were really careful and gentle, but he seemed completely indifferent to everything. Of course, this problem upset us, and it began to annoy that he was absolutely not striving for anything. We tried a reward system: for each good mark we bought him a new toy. But it soon stopped working. Then, my wife and I decided to try a different strategy: we started taking him to different sports sections, and I began to spend more time with him as a father and son. Gradually, he began to show interest in tennis. This sport trained discipline, the coach became an example for him and this was the beginning of a new period. Sport has helped my son to become an energetic, enthusiastic and hardworking person.I believe that we should build a connection with our children through common useful activities. Toys and gadgets are great, but they do not make the child feel the emotional connection with their parents, which can help him to start trusting the parents. I noticed that as soon as we began to spend time with my son together doing sports sections, we became closer, and from that moment improvements appeared. Now, 4 years have passed, and my son continues to play tennis regularly, he has good grades at school, and he began to get involved in programming.I understand that sometimes it is not easy to solve the problem with your child. If I hadn’t been able to solve a problem by myself, I would have asked a family or a child psychologist for help.