Son not joining in football class

We take our 3yr old to a football class each week and it's not going well. He does other classes where he is quite wild and runs round the whole time. But this is the only class where the parents sit at the side and they are expected to listen to the coach and join in on their own. The first couple of sessions he was fine, a bit crazy maybe, loses concentration after a while. Then we've had two sessions where he would not join in at all. Sat on the bench with us and refused to do any of the football. This week my partner went up with him several times and played the games until he seemed settled and then walked back to the bench. As soon as my son noticed dad was gone he'd come running back to us. I don't know what to do. Do we stop attending the class? Do we stick it out and hope he gets better? Do we continue to join in the games? Or let him sit on the bench for the whole session? None of the other kids are struggling to settle.

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I had took mine to football from 18 months and was constantly doing their own thing. I started gymnastics from they turned 3 and they fully participate. I don’t know what to advise you but I did take my son out of football because I was due to give birth and haven’t even thought about making him go back. He would have been 2 years 2 months when we stopped going.

Why not take him out for a while and wait until he’s a bit older. If it’s not bringing joy to either him or you as his parents. I had this was a class that my daughter just wasn’t ready for. She now does gymnastics but the parents are more involved and that makes her happier for now.

Maybe he just does like it? We had exactly the same with football with our 3 year old. He just use to lie in the goal not doing anything 🤦‍♀️. At the same time as Football we noticed there was a dance class on in another room and they let us have a trial at that. He LOVES it. He listens and tries really hard for the full 30mins. We came to the conclusion he just didn’t like football! I also think it depends on the teacher too at this age. The dance teacher is like a goddess and somehow she just manages to hold their attention and have a group of 10 3 year olds doing everything she asks!

I'd take him out, it doesn't sound like he's enjoying it and it sounds like a waste of money going and sitting on the bench, I wouldn't force it they're still young

There's no way we'd take our three year old to a class where we had to be away from us, purely because he's like you describe. He's glued to us and extremely cautious. Our son is miles away from being ready for any groups like that.

Thank you everyone. I just wasn't sure how I should be reacting, I don't want to make it worse for him, but I don't want to jump in and pull him out. I remember when I was a kid I told my mum I didn't like ballet once and she pulled me out, I always wish she'd encouraged me to stick with it. But perhaps he's too young for that at the moment.

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