Maine
Why it’s so hard for parents to let their kid quit
My 4-year-old dreads swimming lessons. Some nights, long past his bedtime, he calls me into his room and asks me, in a whisper, if he has to go to swim class tomorrow.
It breaks my heart. Swimming is an important safety skill, but the lessons are causing him anxiety. It made me wonder: If he wants to quit, should I let him?
It can be hard for parents to know when a kid is ready to stop taking part in an extracurricular activity. Classes and sports can encourage grit and foster belonging. But for some kids, they can also be a stress-inducing obligation.
Vanessa Lapointe, a child psychologist and parenting coach, understands this dilemma. In these situations, the best thing to do is to avoid rushing to fix the problem. Instead, “get curious, listen and provide the child the experience of being heard.”
Here’s how to have hard conversations with your kids about quitting. Apply the advice to anything from piano lessons to summer camp.
Examine why you care so much. The problem might be you.
When your child says they’re ready to put their clarinet back in its case — and leave it there — the first thing you should do is examine yourself.
If your kid wanting to quit elicits a strong reaction in you, unpack that. “A lot of times our intentions get muddied by our own desires,” says Lapointe. Are you trying to push your unrealized dream of starring in the school play onto your child? Or maybe your family couldn’t swing team sports when you were growing up, so you’re determined your child will have a different experience.
“If your intention is anything other than ‘I want to give my kid a cool experience and see how they like it,’ you’re probably in it for the wrong reasons,” says Lapointe.
Ask your kid what’s going on. You might be surprised by what you learn.
“See what they will verbalize,” says Krystal Lewis, a child psychologist and clinical researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health.
Maybe they just had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. “The rule of thumb is that we never quit on a bad day,” says Lapointe. So if you learn your kid got a smaller role than they wanted in the big school play, let their big emotions settle a bit before making any decisions.
If it’s not just defeat from a bad day, do a little more digging, says Lewis. Ask them: What do you like about the activity? What don’t you like?
Sometimes the issue turns out to be simple. They don’t like soccer because it’s at the end of a long school day and they’re hungry at practice, says Lewis. So maybe packing a few protein-rich snacks could make a difference.
Even if the issue turns out to be more complex — say, they don’t feel excited or passionate about art class — you now have valuable information to inform your troubleshooting.
Pay attention to what your child is complaining about. And observe their behavior.
The younger the child is, the less likely they are able to express their emotions or experiences verbally, says Lewis. So you may need other cues to figure out how your child feels.
Pay attention to your child when they’re complaining, says Lewis. Maybe they’re sensitive to a coach’s raised voice. Or they’re too shy to talk to the other kids. Those are issues you can help fix. Have a conversation with the coach. Encourage a friend to join the team.
If you’re present at your child’s practices or lessons, you might be able to pick up on some of the pain points, says Lewis. If they’re zoning out, maybe they’re burnt out and need more unstructured playtime. If they seem bored, it’s possible this activity just isn’t for them.
Consider your child’s temperament. Are they a dandelion or an orchid?
Every child has a different tolerance for discomfort, and that should be taken into consideration when making a decision about quitting.
Assess their willingness to thrive in a challenging environment. Are they a dandelion or an orchid? This framework was developed by Thomas Boyce, a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at University of California, San Francisco, to help identify a child’s temperament.
Dandelions are hardy and resilient. “You can plant it in a crack in the cement and forget to water it. And not only will the dandelion survive, it will probably thrive,” says Lapointe.
Orchids are sensitive. “They require just the right amount of water, humidity and temperature. If you don’t get it just right, they don’t adapt.”
One isn’t better than the other, they’re just different. See which flower your child leans toward. If your kid is more of a dandelion, they may be OK in a less-than-perfect setting even if they’re not jazzed about it. If they’re more of an orchid, and you see they’re really struggling, maybe they need a different environment.
Come up with a creative compromise. “Quit” or “tough it out” aren’t the only two options.
“What’s the gray area? What can we modify?” says Lewis. If your kid is bored, could you take a break or cut back on the amount they’re engaging in the activity? If your kid is embarrassed when they strike out, could you practice batting at home?
Then have a conversation with your child about what it means to have made a commitment. Perhaps you say, “Well, since we signed up, we are going to go, but you can sit on the sidelines and watch,” says Lewis. “That way you’re teaching the child about honoring a commitment without forcing them to do something that’s really uncomfortable.”
As for my son and his fear of swim class, my husband and I did some investigating. We asked him what was up. It turns out he was terrified of putting his head under water! So we talked to the coach and they agreed he didn’t have to go under during class.
Of course, you need to get your head wet to swim. My son eventually overcame his fear months later, when we were playing in the pool with his cousins.
Now, he routinely dunks himself during swim class. He literally takes his hand, puts it on the back of his head, and pushes himself underwater. And he loves being in the water. Turns out all he needed was a little time.
Even if we ended up needing to take a break from swimming for a while, I think I would have been OK with that, too. Lapointe says that we as parents shouldn’t put too much pressure on ourselves in situations like these. “In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t actually a big thing.”
The digital story was edited by Malaka Gharib. The visual editor is Becky Harlan. We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.
Listen to Life Kit on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or sign up for our newsletter.
Copyright 2024 NPR
TOPSFIELD, Maine — Jenna Stoddard is not sure where her son will spend his days when he starts preschool next fall.
Sending him to East Range II School would be convenient and continue a legacy. Stoddard lives just down the street and her husband graduated eighth grade there in 2007, one in a class of three. Topsfield’s population has dropped since then. The school now has five students, two teachers, few extracurricular activities and nobody trained to teach music, art, gym or health.
Stoddard’s son is too young for her to worry about that now. But the school may not be open by the time he is ready to go. Topsfield, a town of just 175 residents, will vote on whether to close the school on April 30. If it closes, the boy would likely be sent to preschool up to 30 minutes away in Princeton or Baileyville.
“That’s a pretty fair distance for a kid, a 4-year-old, who is now on a bus all by himself,” she said. “[If] school starts at [7:45 a.m.], what time is the bus picking 4-year-olds up here? And what time is he going to get home at?”
Topsfield is an extreme example of how an aging, shrinking population and rising property taxes are forcing Maine towns to make difficult choices about their community institutions. Just over a dozen people came to a Wednesday hearing on the idea of closing the school. The crowd was mostly in favor of it.
“It is emotional to close the school in a town,” Superintendent Amanda Belanger of the sprawling Eastern Maine Area School System said then. “But we do feel it’s in the best interest of the students in the town.”
Teacher Paula Johnson walked a reporter through the building, which is small by Maine standards but cavernous for its five students. It has four classrooms, a small library, and a gymnasium. There is also a cook and a custodian for the tiny school.
A hallway trophy case serves as a reminder of when the school was big enough to field basketball teams. Topsfield’s student population has never been large, but the school’s population has dropped dramatically over the past few years. It had 25 students in 2023, with many coming from nearby Vanceboro, which closed its own school in 2015.
As the student population dwindled, the cost of sending students to Topsfield climbed. With fewer students to defray the costs, Vanceboro officials realized they would be paying $23,000 per student by the last school year. So they opted to direct students to nearby Danforth, where tuition was only $11,000 per student.
East Range lost seven students from Vanceboro, bringing its enrollment below 10. Under Maine law, that means the district may offer students the option to go elsewhere. Parents of the remaining students in grades 5 through 8 took the option and sent their kids to Baileyville. This school began the year with eight students; three have since pulled out.
In Topsfield, Johnson teaches four of the remaining five, holding lessons for pre-K through second grade in one classroom. Another one down the short hallway is home base for the other teacher. She focuses on the school’s lone fourth grader and occasionally teaches one of Johnson’s first graders, who is learning at an advanced level.
The other teacher, who holds a special education certificate despite having no students with those needs, plans to leave at the end of the school year. If the school stays open, that will leave Johnson responsible for educating Topsfield’s youngest students, though the school will need to budget for a part-time special education teacher just in case.
After 11 years at the school, Johnson is not sure what she will do if voters shut it down.
“We’ll see what happens here,” she said.
Topsfield’s school board, which operates as a part of the Eastern Maine Area School System, is offering its residents a choice: continue funding the school only for students between preschool and second grade at an estimated cost of $434,000 next year or send all students elsewhere, which would cost less than $200,000.
At Wednesday’s hearing, the attendees leaned heavily toward the latter option. Deborah Mello said she moved from Rhode Island to Topsfield years ago to escape high taxes.
“It’s not feasible for the town of Topsfield,” she said. “We cannot afford it and it’s not like the children don’t have a school to go to.”
Others bemoaned the burden of legal requirements for the small district, including the need to provide special education teachers even if they don’t need one. Board members also mentioned that in 2028, the district will become responsible for educating 3-year-olds under a new state law. That adds another layer of uncertainty to future budgeting.
“It sounds like we’ve been burdened something severely by this program and that program by the Department of Education, to the point where a small school can’t even exist,” resident Alan Harriman said.
“And that’s been happening for a long time,” East Range board chair Peggy White responded.
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural government as part of the partnership between the Bangor Daily News and The Maine Monitor, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.
BANGOR, Maine (WABI) – Good morning and Happy Sunday everyone. Skies are cloudy with fog across much of Maine this morning. Rain has entered locations along the interstate and to the northwest. Temperatures vary from the upper 30s to mid 40s. Winds are out of the SE between about 5-15 mph.
Today will be a wet and impactful day with rain and even snow anticipated as a large cold front passes through Maine. Skies will be cloudy with plenty of fog lasting through the morning. Rain will expand across the interstate by the late morning hours, reaching Downeast locations by midday/the early afternoon.
By the early to midafternoon, temperatures will start to drop across northwestern locations as the cold front passes through Maine. This will result in rain turning over to mixed precipitation and eventually snow across the Western Mountains, Moosehead region, and Northern Maine. Rain will continue steadily and at times heavily across the foothills, Interstate, Coast, and Downeast. A few thunderstorms are even possible closer to the coast.
Snow will expand across areas to the northwest of the interstate this evening, reaching all the way down to Interior Midcoast communities, the Bangor region, and Interior Downeast areas by sunset and into the start of the night. Precipitation will taper off across Western Maine shortly after sunset, before exiting the entire state around midnight tonight. High temps today will vary from the low 40s to low 50s with SSE to NW gusts reaching 20-25 mph.
Snowfall totals will vary under 2 inches across Western, Northern, and Interior Downeast locations. However, a few pockets of 2-4 inches are possible, mostly in higher elevations across the mountains. Rainfall totals will accumulate around a half inch to three quarters of an inch when all is said and done.
Precipitation will be out of Maine by midnight tonight, with cloudy conditions giving way to mostly clear skies by sunrise. Lows overnight will dip back below freezing across much of the state, from the low 20s to mid 30s tonight, so cover up any plants or flowers outside. WNW gusts will reach 20-25 mph. A Small Craft Advisory is expected offshore.
Skies will be partly to mostly sunny across the interstate and coast on Monday morning. However, by the late morning to midday hours, clouds will build with a few scattered rain and snow showers in spots. Conditions will remain on the cloudier side in the afternoon before clearing up around sunset into the start of Monday night. Highs will be chilly on Monday, from the low 30s to upper 40s. WNW to SW gusts will be a bit breezy, reaching 20-25 mph, which will add to the wind chill factor.
High pressure will build on Monday night, remaining overhead on Tuesday. Skies will be sunny in the morning, becoming partly to mostly sunny in the afternoon. Highs will remain cool, in the 40s across the board with North to SW gusts only reaching 15-20 mph.
A weaker low-pressure system could bring showers across Maine on Wednesday and Thursday. There is a bit of model uncertainty on exactly when it will impact Maine. The GFS has impacts on Wednesday, while the EURO, GRAF, and GDPS models have most of the impacts on Thursday. We will continue to monitor this system and potential impacts. All it looks to provide as of now are cloudier skies and rain showers, with some snow shower chances farther to the North.
By Friday and Saturday, conditions are trending on the drier side with sunshine and average temperatures returning to the forecast.
SUNDAY: Highs from low 40s to low 50s. Cloudy with AM fog. Rain becoming widespread throughout the day, turning over to snow to the north & west during PM. SSE to NW gusts reach 20-25 mph.
MONDAY: Highs from low 30s to upper 40s. Partly to mostly sunny early. Developing clouds with scattered rain/snow showers by midday/afternoon. WNW to SW gusts reach 20-25 mph.
TUESDAY: Highs throughout the 40s. Sunnier AM. Partly to mostly sunny PM. North to SW gusts reach 15-20 mph.
WEDNESDAY: Highs from low 40s to low 50s. Mostly cloudy with a few rain showers. Few AM snow showers possible North. SSE to SSW gusts reach 20-25 mph.
THURSDAY: Highs from mid 40s to mid 50s. Cloudier skies with rain showers possible. Some AM snow showers possible North. NW gusts reach 20-25 mph.
FRIDAY: Highs from upper 40s to mid 50s. Partly cloudy. NNW gusts reach 20 mph.
Copyright 2026 WABI. All rights reserved.
Editor’s note: This story was originally published in September 2022.
When it comes to Maine hiking, summiting Katahdin is the ultimate achievement.
Maine’s tallest mountain stands at 5,269 feet, and there are a number of different trails hikers can take to get up and down Katahdin. And while some are harder than others, none are easy.
But the views are incredible.
Whether it’s the rugged terrain of the Knife Edge or the vast landscape of the 200,000 acres that compose Baxter State Park below, here’s a look at what it’s like to climb Katahdin.
Hunt Trail
Abol Trail
Chimney Pond Trail
Cathedral Trail
Saddle Trail
Northwest Basin Trail
Knife Edge
Tablelands
South Peak
Hamlin Peak
-
Culture16 minutes agoWhat America’s Main Characters Tell Us
-
Lifestyle22 minutes agoWe beef with the Pope and admire the Stanley Cup : Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!
-
Technology34 minutes agoThis pasta sauce wants to record your family
-
World40 minutes agoMassive 7.5-magnitude earthquake hits off Japanese coast, tsunami alert issued
-
Politics46 minutes agoUS military announces another deadly strike against ‘narco-terrorists’
-
Health52 minutes agoCancer tied to woman’s vaping habit since age 15 as she’s now given just months to live
-
Sports58 minutes agoPolice report details Zachariah Branch’s arrest days before NFL Draft over sidewalk incident
-
Technology1 hour agoBMW puts humanoid robots to work building EVs