<human>: Dad here: So my son is 9, small for his age, and not very athletic. He is however, a Jr. black belt in tae kwan do and has worked hard at it for over 3 years. He has to break a board as part of the test and is given 2 board choices. 1 board is as thin as a pencil and as big as a piece of paper. The other is about as thick as a thumb and the size of an average envelope. They have him try on the thicker one, but eventually move to the thin one and just place it up higher when breaking. Here is where the problem is. The same thing happens over and over again before every belt test. He gets very anxious about the board breaking and the night before he always screams he wants to quit.
The frustration on my part is that when we practice with a kicking pad, he nearly knocks it out of my hand with his strength. He has no problem generating enough power to break 2-3 thicker boards stacked together. However, the second I bring the board out he holds back or goes through the motion and misses intentionally. He won't give me a straight answer why and I explain I'm not mad, I just want to help.

Here is where it gets even more frustrating. The day of the test comes around and he tries it with the thin board and brakes it with ease on the first try. (seriously these boards will break if you look at them wrong). After that he loves Tae Kwan do and says he will be in it for life. Also, his masters and I have both tried this. We have the pad out and as he kicks we quickly change it to the thick board and he smashes right through it no problem. He even says it didn't hurt and he is so proud of himself. Still, if we take another thick board out he goes back to his missing on purpose and then wanting to quit.

It's frustrating and I was wondering if anyone had any advice.

Can you give me the gist of the text in a nutshell?
<bot>: My son is afraid of breaking boards in tae kwan do, yet has all the ability to easily break them and eventually does with ease, but still has a fear the next time around.