Whiny Players

I have a dilemma and I need some advice. What do you do with kids who whine about attending practices or activities that they begged to sign up for?

Right now the boys are playing soccer. We signed Porter up in the fall and at that time Hudson was not interested so he didn't play this fall. We skipped winter session since Porter wanted to play basketball. Now it is spring session, Hudson wanted to play do we signed him up, and we are back to the norm- every time we mention practice/getting ready for practice etc, Porter is complaining and whining he doesn't want to go. It's rubbing off on Hudson too which is incredibly annoying.

This happened with basketball (although after watching one practice I could understand his hatred of practice), and for that reason we didn't sign him up for coach-pitch baseball even though he talked about it all the one and was really wanting to play.

They do this when we go to church and Awanas, too. They complain and whine about going. But, just like every other activity, thy have a great time once they are there and involved.

What do I do? I'm not forcing them to play these sports (though Church is non negotiable to me and Awanas as well though we are trying to find a program on a different night so our Sundays aren't so busy). Though, when they are a little older both Ryan and I agree they MUST be active in some sort of activity (whether it be a sport, music, scouts, church youth group etc). Teenagers with idle time = trouble. :-). But for now, it's not something we are pushing them by signing them up. The only reason we have signed them up is by their (well, at this point it has been mostly P playing sports) request. Once he commits we want to hold him to it because for one it costs $ here to play sports and second we want to instill a finish-what-you-start attitude.

I'm just not sure how to handle this. I've talked with Porter about these activities being his choice and that when he is part of a team he needs to be there for them. We have talked about how it costs us money to sign him up and that we expect if he asks to play and we allow him to, that e needs to follow through. I've explained that the reason we didn't do baseball was because of the whining and that we are tired of him wanting to play something and then it being a fight every time there is practice to go to.

I need suggestions. I'm not sure how to handle this. Should we refuse to let him play anything at all? Are we wrong in forcing him to follow through with commitments? Like I said before, he does this with Church (which has an awesome youth program so it's not like he is sitting in the adult service and is bored) and Awanas (which he has a lot of fun at as well).

Help!!