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[quote=Anonymous]I would never say to my child

"I sacrifice so much for you.  I gave birth, I work hard to send you to school . . . " To me that's a straight up guild trip.

But, if my child asks for something that isn't a requirement to me, like a special activity, and that requires a sacrifice from me, I do talk about the ramifications of that choice.

For example, my kid likes to ski, which requires a long drive.  A few times we've gone up to the ski hill and then he decides he wants to leave after 2 or 3 hours because he gets a text asking him to come over and watch a football game or something.  So now, if he wants to go skiing I might say "If I'm going to drive that far and spend that gas money, I'd like you to commit to skiing at least 6 hours" or whatever.

Another example, my kid plays a travel sport one season a year and it's expensive, plus a huge headache for me to arrange carpools for practice, leave work early on my day to carpool, give up an entire day each weekend to travel to games, and then be there while they warm up etc . . . It's totally worth it because he loves it, but I have said "If I'm going to do this for you, then I expect you to give it your best.  By that I don't mean "be a first string player", I mean get ahead on HW so you don't need to skip practice.  Don't tell me when I left work to pick you up that you can't go because you can't find your protective cup (yes, this happened once, I still had to drive the rest of carpool so I made him come, confess to the coach and watch practice), don't ask to skip the game to go to a birthday party etc . . .

In the OP's example, I wouldn't sign my kid up for Tae Kwon Do because I wanted them to do it, and then tell them "You know what I sacrificed to have you here . . . " But if I had a kid who begged for Tae Kwon Do, and then was clearly goofing off during practice, I can totally see saying to them "Are you still interested in Tae Kwon Do, because it costs a lot of money and time.  If it's what you want to do you can show me by . . . Otherwise let's look into the rec soccer team that is more convenient, and costs less".  [/quote]

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