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  This past week we took the kids on a little mini vacation. We spent two nights in Sandusky, Ohio at the Great Wolf Lodge.  The GWL is an indoor waterpark, perfect for cold November weather.  The boys love water and we were all so excited to take the trip.

I found, though, that during the trip Mike and I disagreed on one point over and over again…how much to 'force' our kids to try new things, like bigger waterslides and swimming solo in the pool.

I bet you're thinking that he's the one trying to force them and I'm the sweet mom trying to protect them, right?

Wrong.

I found myself begging, pleading and even gently forcing my kids to try new things. Things that I knew they'd love if they just tried.  Case in point was the biggest waterslide in the place.  It was a tube-based slide and you could go down with two people. I watched other families come down and they never really went "in" the water, the tube just glided on top. I thought surely the boys would LOVE this slide -(it's the exact slide in the picture to the right). 

Ben was being very shy about the water on the trip (and had a cold, so he wasn't quite himself) so I didn't really try with him, but I did "encourage" Matthew do it with me.

It took two days of me begging him and Mike yelling at me to "not make him do it if he doesn't want to do it". I saw his point and felt bad about being so pushy, but I really thought he'd like it.

I eventually got him up on it by telling him it was like new food (we're working on trying new foods too)…if he doesn't like it he doesn't ever have to do it again, but he just needs to TRY.

And guess what?

He absolutely LOVED it! He ran over to Mike screaming a mile a minute about going "Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoa!! Whoosh, Whoa!!" appropriately acting out all the curves and dips.  He begged me to go again right away, and so we did, with pleasure.

So I gloated just a *tiny* bit that I was indeed right and I knew if he just tried it he'd love it.

But it doesn't always end that way. Sometimes they don't love it so much and then I feel guilty about prodding them to try something when they didn't want to.

Mike always falls on the other side of the argument, he wears "kid gloves" much more and never even suggests they try newer, bigger things. 

So what's your take on this? Do you push your kids to try things when they're a bit scared knowing if they'd just try it they'd like it? Or do you let them come to the decision to try new things completely on their own?

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