Could weight lifting be the greatest one on one father and son activity of all time?

I used to play airsoft with my dad all the time. That was loads of fun, and great exercise too. It can be pricey though.

Golf, bicycling, frisbee, hiking, rock climbing, go-karts, whitewater rafting.

OMG, head butting with dad, so you get something that could potentially be a source of competition? LOL!

I see it going one of two ways, really bonding, or really bad b/c now there’s extra testosterone flowing (which is probably the cause of him challenging the father figure to begin with.

Maybe get a really cheap car (a junker) and have him and dad build it up together. . . or really, anything they can build together.

Good suggestions all. Tried some… will keep trying. Thanks.

My dad used to take me to the driving range all the time. It was great.
Then again, I’m a girl.

It can, but just make sure your son is mature enough physically before he attempts to use weights. If a boy weight trains too soon, developing muscles can have a “inhibiting” or “stunting” effect on a boy’s growing bones. That is why you see a lot of shorter than average male bodybuilders. Also, most boys are too frail to lift heavy weights, unless they are physically sound. Injury to a young boy’s body is possible.

@squidcake That is great. I love seeing father/daughter activities. My eldest son is the golf freak. My youngest is not interested. We do frequent the batting cages once a week though. We went today actually.

@MRSHINYSHOES
Yes I’m concerned about the same things. We’re keeping it light for now. But dang he’s already 6 feet tall at 14yrs. Not too worried about the growth. He’s going through a very clumsy phase with custom extra wide size 14 shoes. I think that’s one reason he’s enjoying this. Not a lot of dexterity or hand/eye coordination required with weight lifting.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies
My dad also works construction so he’d take me and my sister around some of the work sites. He’d sit us up in a bulldozer or even give us a shovel and a wheelbarrow and let us dig around and be silly.

Obviously that only works for certain occupations but those are some of the fondest memories from childhood with my dad.

But yeah, batting cages are fun too.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Your boy is 6 feet tall and he’s only 14? Geez, I’m only 5’9” and I’m 33! Argh! Your son should have no problem lifting weights. Just be careful that he doesn’t injure himself if he’s “clumsy” like you said he is. Most boys in their teens are lanky and gawky, and the clumsy phase can cause unnecessary accidents. Good luck.

Table Tennis.
Not an outdoor sport really, but certainly one-on-one. It would also help to improve his hand/eye co-ordination in a fun way.

This is a tough one for me to think about because I tended to hang out with friends (and my girlfriend) increasingly through my late teens. I now realize that I should’ve spent more time with my dad.

I also did the baseball thing for about 5 years. For some reason I grew out of it getting into junior high. Some of my most fun times with him was learning to golf, playing basketball in the driveway, learning to drive (he was great at letting me drive without totally freaking out), playing video games, and watching some of his favorite movies (I learned to love Mel Brooks this way). I think a lot of it is simply showing interest in things that he might like but also a little bit of it is showing him things that you like. A lot of the reasons I liked hanging out with my dad is that I got to learn things about him I didn’t know before.

It sucks to see your kid want to spend less time with you, but you also should understand that he’s becoming more independent at the same time and you don’t want to totally stifle that. It’s important to spend time with him, but do let him learn some things on his own too. I think it’s really cool that you’re able to share the weightlifting experience so well. I missed out on that because my dad worked construction and was always tired when he came home (plus I took weightlifting classes in school).

I remember playing paintball and manhunt with my old man. He won every time because he was a Ranger, but it was cool.

The biggest one I recommend for a lazy afternoon of philosophy is good ol’ fishin. I learned more with my line cast out than I ever did in a classroom.

OMG, paintball would be the ish…. And it isn’t too expensive to take up… but then you might lose both of them due to paintball addiction. Just a warning.

Fishing, sailing and boating are all good. Aside from being interesting in their own rights, they can get the two of you away from everyone else and into an unfamiliar environment for long periods of time where there’s sometimes not much to do except talk.

It’s funny, though—my dad never cared much for any of those things, and I never had his mechanical aptitudes or interests, and yet we had wonderful debates and discussion about all kinds of things, from music and art to literature and politics. Don’t tell anyone, but I once harbored the idea that communism could work “if it was done right”. He was the one who helped me to pull the scales from my eyes.

@CyanoticWasp : I was once part of a voluntary constitutional communism. there were 12 of us, and since none of us had power and only the consensus can change the constitution we wrote up, we got along pretty well for a while, until we lost our lease on our place. The problem with communism so far is that the superpower communisms that have been so far are just authoritarian autocracies masquerading as communism, and that, as with any other government, it is only as stable as the unity of the belief of the people it governs in that government.

And another one I forgot is survival camping. It’s like camping, only you dissapear into the woods for a few weeks or so with a flint, a combat knife or machete, and some tarp and don’t come back. The experience is usually so work-intensive, that all the bonding is done on a non-verbal level, which can be powerful amongst men.