I was a total clutz at age 7, so bad that my mom wouldn't let me carry the eggs when we unloaded the groceries. At age 9 my mom signed me up for football. As we were not a football-watching family, the only thing I knew about it was that I could get hurt. But I did it anyway, and that was basically the turning point for me and athletics.

Your DS's response sounds like something I'd expect from my DD9, who is always telling herself she's no good at things, because of unrealistic expectations, which lead to task-avoidant perfectionism behavior. We have to PUSH her to get through that. We put her in situations where she has to try, and then, having success, we celebrate those successes, and remind her how her attitude was to start. It's a very long journey, and she's still capable of extraordinarily negative self-talk, but there are a number of domains where we've been able to tackle them in this manner, one by one, and seen our DD develop self-confidence and a growth mindset within those specific areas. As the breadth and scope of those successes increases, we're hoping she can stitch that patchwork together into an overall quilt of confidence (how's that for bad metaphors!).

So my advice would be, one, figure out how important this is to you and your DS. If it's the case that he really WANTS to participate and is holding himself back due to perfectionism and self-confidence issues, then I'd suggest it's time for a push. So, rather than saying, "Would you like to play sport X?", you could approach him with, "I want you to play a team sport this year. Which one will it be?"

And if it's not that he really wants it but is holding himself back... I'd let it go.

Another one who could have written that post for her DS7.

while i'm hoping for the constant soccer playing craze at recess to fade at some point by upper elementary, not playing soccer in Europe can hurt you socially way beyond school age. But I am expecting another 10 years or so worth of PE teachers to shove it down his throat, so no need to force him into soccer club now. He would just sink. So,he'll have to play with the girls (which he prefers anyway) for a while longer.

DS actually really got into the spectator aspects of soccer during the World Cup, and his way of sort of participating in the recess games was crafting the red and yellow (and green and black) cards for refereeing, making up elaborate fair play rules over and beyond the official ones,learning stats about teams by heart, drawing the intricate design of the Brazuca ball, and (according to what he told me) occasionally jumping into the fray and scoring 3 or 4 goals for his team, the last one I am sure being pure wishful thinking but he seemed to enjoy the fantasy.

I make him do martial arts too (he is reluctant to do any sport, I finally gave up on making him swim, but even though he does not want to go to judo training he enjoys it once he's there and it helps his coordination no end) and I am hoping for it to become "cool" among his classmates soon.

Maybe at age 9 it was touch football. But NYT headlines such as Brain Trauma to Affect One in Three Players, N.F.L. Agrees causes me to doubt that we would allow our sons to play tackle football, not that they have expressed the desire to do so. I'll admit to not knowing if the results for the NFL can be generalized to college and high school football. Soccer with heading may also be disallowed -- there have been studies on that too.

Thank you for the responses everyone. It seems I am not the only going through this- I think we will continue to try (in a low maintenance, non pressure kind of way) some sports that use a ball. It's a bit about finding commonality with the other kids, but I also think DS could benefit from learning a bit of this kind of coordination.

Interestingly, I was watching "Endeavor" on Masterpiece Mystery the other night. It's set in the UK and naturally most of the men are obsessed with "football." Endeavor feigned interest (or at least cultivated a polity expression) when one of the "blokes" tried to converse with him about an upcoming match.

It was humorous because Endeavor has no interest in sports (prefers opera and books) and doesn't spend time on things he doesn't care about. He is also a determined, brilliant, and compassionate character- not a "guy's guy" but manly in his own thoughtful way.

I'd guess that I am at the 5th-10th percentile or lower (worse than almost all guys) at baseball, basketball, and football but may be at the 50th percentile at tennis. I think tennis, racquetball, and squash are worth trying. Tennis is a lifetime sport -- my dad played with me until his 70s. I enjoy playing with my children now. If you consider sports with Ivy admissions in mind, a relatively obscure sport like squash may be a good bet. It's tough to compete with the mass of talent chasing professional dreams in football, basketball, and baseball.

Regarding popularity, I'll note that I became more popular in high school when the advantages of befriending someone who can help you with math and physics became apparent.

Hey I like to think that I am manly in my own thoughtful AND sometimes thoughtless way LOL

And don't forget the oboe, the instrument of choice for the hothousing parent. But in this particular situation, the parent is trying to help the child win friends, and being good at squash has the same social currency as an oboe solo.

There are other reasons to play team sports besides multimillion-dollar contracts or a golden ticket to Yale.

Please save us from all bad oboe players (that would be somewhere in the upper 90%s of oboe players)!

Oboe? Based on the screechy, scratchy noises I hear on walks through our overachieving, golden-ticket obsessed, false-modesty-as-the-norm neighborhood, I always thought the hothousing parent's instrument of choice was violin coupled to dire threats.

I could really shake some people up if I start mentioning the violin versus oboe mistake.

Try violin vs viola. Our babysitter wanted to do a strings instrument but she felt that violin was overdone so she went with viola. Not that I can tell the difference between violin and viola.