Tough Love!

I'm taking my children to athletics tonight, they both went down to the local track last week and loved it so it may become a weekly or twice weekly event. My eldest daughter Issy has for the last five and a half years been training and competing in gymnastics. More recently she has been going five nights a week, for three and a half hours each session. For an eight year old girl this is a gruelling routine, which she reminded me of constantly when I mentioned my training schedule! The dedication she has shown and the love of doing it has been immense.
This constant training has pretty much tired her out though and has caused a lot of tears in the process, especially recently.

So the decision was a break, but she still wanted to be active, hence the visit to the local track. Her footballing mad brother accompanied her last week and they both really enjoyed it. There was a choice of events including long jump, high jump, javelin, and sprinting. Now instead of five nights a week for Issy it's two, and for the boy his football dominated week has a break in it.
I don't want to be a pushy dad, I will quite happily settle for a future Olympian and England international.
Not forgetting the baby, I reckon she has a great chance of becoming the Devon and Cornwall cream tea eating champion.
CH