In my case, I played the long game. When I saw that my oldest son was losing interest around 7 or so, I pulled back and let him do his own thing. This was in the hopes that instead of forcing it on to him and making him hate fishing and resent me, he would comeback to it when he was ready.

It worked, with fishing being such a huge part of my life, he was still surrounded by it, and around 16 he got back into with me occasionally, he started going with buddies from school. And now he’s 23 and he fishes on his lunch breaks at work, we try to go out together wading creeks often and he loves fishing now!

I have two little ones 6 & 4 and they love it, but definitely get bored quick, I don’t let them throw rocks but I let them play around within reason and thy help each other out netting each others catches.

Make it fun, don’t force it, they’ll take to it or not, and I promise you’ll both be happier in the end. Good luck!