My tween is on a countdown to being allowed to join our local gym - it might seem strange to discourage him but I do have my reasons for not wanting him to go, and I wonder if other parents feel the same.
From the moment my youngest child pressed his face against the glass wall of the gym to look for me while I was training, he's been desperate to join. He was around six-years-old at the time, and being able to get a membership was a long way off. But I knew his interest was well and truly piqued, because from then he's wanted the lowdown on every piece of equipment and a breakdown of my workouts whenever I returned from a training session.
He's now 10, and nearly able to achieve his dream of coming along with me and trying out the equipment he's been so desperate to get his hands on. Now the time is nearly upon us, I've come to realise his motivations for joining probably aren't the right ones, and it's made me wary of letting him go.
I'm aware this sounds strange - I joined a gym when I was 14, and have been a member ever since. Exercise was one of the only things that helped my postnatal depression, and I'm certainly not one to discourage my children to try new things, especially ones designed to help them keep fit and healthy.
With sobriety set to be the norm for Gen Z kids, the shift away from sitting in a park with mates passing around a bottle of White Lightning that filled my own teenage years, should be something I'm grateful for, as playground chatter heads towards how to make sensible health choices. But I do have my reasons for feeling trepidation about my son getting his hands on a gym membership, and aside from the ongoing cost of membership, here's what they are:
5 reasons I don't want my tween to join a gym
- His motivation is to emulate overly muscled social media influencers. This is the first, and biggest major sticking point for me. My tween isn't considering how the gym could keep him strong, improve his fitness and bone density, and all the other major benefits it can bring. His motivation is purely visual - he's seen pictures of well muscled men, and a lot of playground talk even at the tender age of 10, centres around being 'buff' as the ultimate goal. Even though neither he or his friends have any form of social media, these pictures and aspirations have made their way into their psyche and I want him not to focus on wanting to look like a bodybuilder, but to be comfortable in his own skin.
- Eating disorders in boys are on the rise. I worry that if my tween ends up trying to conform to a certain body type, it could lead to some sort of disordered eating. While it's certainly women and girls who are most affected by eating disorders, a third of sufferers are male and studies show this number is rising at a faster rate than in females. I'd definitely be concerned that chasing a body type would open up a world of body dysmorphia and potentially disordered eating that gym visits could fuel.
- He's easily influenced. Unlike his older brother who can make measured decisions and who I trust not to be the one to undertake dangerous dares in the future, my 10-year-old has already displayed a penchant for not thinking things through. Although he will need my constant supervision when he initially joins the gym, it wouldn't be long before he can go to the special sessions run just for the young new joiners, alone. I wouldn't trust unscrupulous gym lurkers not to try and push anything from protein shakes to steroids on him, despite my urgent warnings that both are dangerous and not needed.
- I'd prefer he took on more team sports. He plays rugby and football, and loves them both. As much as I enjoy going to the gym, it's quite a solitary experience - and I'm quite a solitary person, it suits me. As the polar opposite to me, my little boy is sociable and outgoing. I'd prefer him to be in a fun environment with further opportunities to make friends, rather than in the serious space of a gym that is just a far more adult pursuit with not much fun factor.
- There's the potential for it to damage his health. Admittedly, research on this is mixed. Although I wouldn't be too concerned about him using cardiovascular equipment, it's the weights he really seems to be drawn to. Most studies suggest strength training can be perfectly safe for those of tween age and from the age of seven. However, there are concerns that any attempts at lifting really heavy weights can be damaging - The Mayo Clinic warn the use of larger weights can potentially result in muscle and tendon strain, and growth plate damage. Even strength training requires good form, which would mean probably needing a personal trainer to show the correct posture, and a lot of supervision from me. I still think he can become stronger from other ways of exercising that don't need so much input or worry from my perspective.
We still have a few months until my tween can join the gym, and whether or not I'll let him go in the end will ultimately come down to how I feel about these variables at the time, and if I believe his motivations are the right ones. Doing the right thing for your children is definitely never easy.
For more from me, you can read about why I don't want the school holidays to end, and why I don't regret not following a parenting method. You can also hear about my experience with baby name mourning, and why I needed to put a name to the feelings I had about this phenomenon.
