Do we REALLY need to enroll in all the extra activities? - Page 2

[aelf]

Originally Posted by JL83

Some kids get bored.

<snip>

I think it's worth remembering that kids are different. We certainly have friends who's kids are happy to spend all day at home. Mine isn't. So we do things.

I don't even think it's so much an issue of boredom, necessarily. My daughter's 6, and she is a go-go-go kid. She loves being out and about, and she really enjoys being around other children. Unfortunately, our neighborhood doesn't have children for her to play with. How do we meet this need? We offer her activities. She absolutely adores them. I've insisted she have one weekday where there isn't an activity, and she regularly asks "Can I do X? I could do it on Thursday. I don't do anything on Thursday!"

She's not bored. We have fun at home (she and her daddy are painting in the basement right now!). But mom and dad are not other kids. Mom and dad don't know everything. She swims better than I do; I never could have taught her how to swim butterfly! She loves soccer and gymnastics, my husband and I aren't the slightest bit athletic. She loves her art classes, and everything else she explores. My husband and I both have tons of interests, so I suppose we should expect our child to, as well. I'm not going to tell her she can't do gymnastics because she's swimming or playing soccer or learning softball. If she wants to do it, we can afford it, and we can schedule it, it seems arbitrary to limit her.

[JL83]

Originally Posted by aelf

I don't even think it's so much an issue of boredom, necessarily. My daughter's 6, and she is a go-go-go kid. She loves being out and about, and she really enjoys being around other children. Unfortunately, our neighborhood doesn't have children for her to play with. How do we meet this need? We offer her activities. She absolutely adores them. I've insisted she have one weekday where there isn't an activity, and she regularly asks "Can I do X? I could do it on Thursday. I don't do anything on Thursday!"

She's not bored. We have fun at home (she and her daddy are painting in the basement right now!). But mom and dad are not other kids. Mom and dad don't know everything. She swims better than I do; I never could have taught her how to swim butterfly! She loves soccer and gymnastics, my husband and I aren't the slightest bit athletic. She loves her art classes, and everything else she explores. My husband and I both have tons of interests, so I suppose we should expect our child to, as well. I'm not going to tell her she can't do gymnastics because she's swimming or playing soccer or learning softball. If she wants to do it, we can afford it, and we can schedule it, it seems arbitrary to limit her.

That's very true too. We do playgroups and library time as well as dance class. We go somewhere basically every single day. It's not because we're pushing DD, it's because she likes it.

My sister's kids might do one thing, but more often they aren't in any kind of activities. They'd much rather play with their toys at home and have friends over every couple of weeks.

[snoopy5386]

we are also out and about every day, but my DD isn't in school yet. We do music class one morning a week, a preschool homeschool co-op class 2 days a week and a drop off nature preschool class once a week. The other day almost always has a playdate or field trip scheduled as well. In addition we'll usually have a one on one playdate one afternoon a week and will be starting 6 weeks of swim lessons one afternoon a week this week. We are just coming off a week of being stuck home due to two blizzards and OMG were we bored!!! Can't wait to get back to our busy life! We're having #2 in 2 months and I know we will slow down majorly then, so I feel the need to cram it all in now - hence the swim lessons.
I'm sure we'll do less when DD is in kindy and elementary school.

[pigpokey]

A friend of mine has a theory that if you are not going to train in an activity 2 or more times a week at the ages you're talking about, it's worthwhile to consider if the child's skill gains are worth the cost.

The things we are only going to do once a week or less, I prefer to be parent (amateur) led thus cheaper. Unless they are really, really cheap to begin with.

[LynnS6]

Originally Posted by JL83

Some kids get bored.

My DD is 3. We do spend the entire day at home sometimes and it's always a disaster. It doesn't matter how much stuff we do (like baking, cooking, crafts, games) we both lose our minds if we don't get out of the house.

I think the age and the temperament of your child has a lot to do with it, together with whether you homeschool. Our dd is in full day K because she would be climbing the walls at home. But, because she's in school all day, we limit other activities.

This year (he's 8 and in 3rd grade) is the first time our ds has expressed an interest in organized activities after school. At age 3, he was perfectly content to stay home all day, every day. He hated organized activities.

[MissNo]

My two go to soccer tots 1x a week. They love it, and come the summer, we'll do swimming lessons for safety reasons. Otherwise they are unstructured and we take each day as it comes. But, they need some sort of active play, especially during the winter, when the weather sometimes prohibits outside time. To each his own, I suppose. When they are older, they can choose a sport and an instrument/chorus, but for now, easy peasy!

[EFmom]

I also think there's a happy medium, but a great deal depends on the child.

My 12yo would like to be busy every minute of the day. She will read or do some things to keep herself entertained at home, but given her druthers, she'd rather be on the go. She's musical, and a number of her extracurriculars are music related. It has been such a great thing for her making the transition to junior high that I'm happy to support it all I can, but I'd also be happy if she wanted to slow down. She actually said to me on Sunday night that she wished she wasn't on vacation this week because she misses school and her music groups.

My 9yo does dance and gymnastics. She may take flute lessons at some point. While she loves school, she's perfectly happy to ditz around the house for long periods of time.

I have a friend who overschedules her kids to the max. If an activity exists, they do it, and the kids often have multiple activities on school nights. Her kids are exhausted and drained all the time. I feel sad for them. When she asks me what I think (and she often does), I tell her, but she doesn't want to hear it and has justifications for why each activity is vital.

[Girlprof]

Originally Posted by pigpokey

A friend of mine has a theory that if you are not going to train in an activity 2 or more times a week at the ages you're talking about, it's worthwhile to consider if the child's skill gains are worth the cost.

The things we are only going to do once a week or less, I prefer to be parent (amateur) led thus cheaper. Unless they are really, really cheap to begin with.

I guess for us, it's not really about skill gains. Except for swimming lessons - they are not beloved by DS but I insist on them about once a year because I think swimming is a safety issue.

He also does dance, 1x/week. I don't particularly care about whether he learns to dance (though he is learning a ton) and I have zero knowledge of dance myself. But he adores it, so that's what counts.

We did soccer in the fall and that was a lot of time. Thank God it rained. I would have preferred a program that met less frequently but there wasn't one.

DS is also doing violin right now. That is an experiment. He wanted to try it and we would love for him to get into playing music. He turns out to be really good at it, but he doesn't like to practice. However, I think most young musicians don't like to practice. So, violin does sometimes feel like overscheduling to me, but we are trying it out and we'll revisit it over the summer. I do think there is such a thing as too much activity, but what exactly that is surely depends on the particular family.

[kittygrrl523]

DS is 4.5 and goes to preschool twice per week. His class is from 9am to 1:30pm and he LOVES it. The morning is totally playtime and after lunch they do a bit of structured curriculum.

In the afternoon we tend to do some activities, but just drop-in stuff such as library visits, museum trips, and playdates. Sometimes we go rollerskating in the mornings which does have a lesson involved but if the kids don't want to do the lesson that's ok.

I tried DS in soccertots a while back and he didn't like it and we quit. He likes to do a lot of things but doesn't like the class atmosphere.

Now I work in the mornings so he is either at school or with his Papa (grandpa) so doing fun things in the afternoons is nice.

I think it's important to remember that even simple things like a trip to the grocery store can be an activity for a young child. It's not all about signing up for expensive classes, it's what you make of daily life too.

That being said, I've considered signing DS up for Tae Kwon Do...but mostly just b/c I think he'd be adorable in the uniform, LOL.

I don't have an idea of what I'll do when he gets older, I guess I'll just see what feels right.

[RoundAbout]

The activity level seems to wax and wane in our house. When my DH was deployed we did a TON of activities mostly because I needed the social outlet and it made the days go by fast. Now it seems like too much and we are cutting back on almost everything that is structured or scheduled. I like the drop-in stuff a lot better because we can gauge our mood that day and not feel like we are wasting money. Right now my 3 yo mostly wants to run and play.