Randy (USAWKS1,
I also do not believe that a child needs to finish an activity that they signed up for 100% of the time. I would follow that rule if they had signed up for a sport that requires more than one participant playing at the same time (football, basketball, etc.). I would encourage the child to at least finish the season if his teammates are depending on his or her participation.

I do agree that you could do the child potential harm by forcing them to participate in a sport. When I took my son to his first wrestling practice as a first grader, I had no idea if he would make it. I was hopeful he would like it, but I knew he was not in for something easy and that he might not be ready. Fortunately he did like it and thru his five years of participation he has never complained about either going to practice or meets. I think your examples of how they would show rebellion were pretty good.

I think that they need individual enthusiam for the sport to be successful in the long run, no matter what the sport is. I think it is especially true for contact sports like wrestling and football. I was a football player not a wrestler. My son tried football a couple of years ago. He did not show the same enthusiam for it as he has for wrestling. He likes to watch football just not play it right now. I have not pushed for him to play it again. If he does play football again it will be because he has told me that he would like to try it again.

Nigel, this is an interesting topic.