Here's Liz Atwood with this week's Tween Tuesday

At what point do you give up, raise the white flag, tell your tween, “You win” and move on?

I feel like I reached that point this week in my battles with my 10-year-old over soccer. Last year, he loved soccer so much that he played on both outdoor and indoor teams. This year, he moved up an age bracket and seems to have hated every minute of it. He doesn’t dislike the coach or his teammates. His team has a winning record. He says he hates running laps in practice. But I think he also dislikes soccer because now that he is with older boys, he longer is one of the best players on the team.

I’ve always insisted that my kids finish the season with any sport they start. But I’m at the end of my rope. The arguments over getting ready, the struggles to put shin guards and cleats on an unwilling kid and his whining afterward have finally done me in. When he protested about going to his soccer game on Saturday, I said, “You win.” There are still two more weeks of the season, but as far as I’m concerned, his season is over.

I recently read Dr. Gordon Livingston’s book Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart, and I was struck by what he said about child rearing. “When parents are preoccupied with unimportant issues like food consumption or room cleanliness, these will be arenas for endless conflict,” he writes. The Columbia psychiatrist went on to say, “When parents, convinced of their crucial roles in shaping the futures of their children, ask me, ‘What can I do to make sure this kid turns out well?’ they are often surprise at my response: ‘Not much , but maybe cutting down on the fights and not trying to control your child’s every decision might help to make everyone happier right now.’”

It’s advice I’m going to try to remember.