Extra-Curicular Activities

[illudium_phosdex]

I said before my kids started school that I'd only let them do 3 activities each so as not to overwhelm them. Unfortunately it seems that they aren't the ones getting overwhelmed. It's me. Right now here's our week, Monday and Friday- Ice skating lessons til Nov 21, Tuesday- AWANA, Wednesday- DS has Gymnastics, For now I have Thursdays off but DS may have Cub Scouts on that day starting in Nov, every other Friday DD has Girl Scouts and Saturday is Ballet for her and, of course we do church on Sunday. I know this is too much but I'm not really sure what to drop. Ice skating will end anyway in a month.

Believe it or not, my two also wanted to take Taekwondo and music lessons. I was like, you know, when you drop something else, we will talk about it. I guess I should be glad that for their current activities, I can take the bus to all of them except Gymnastics or else I'd have to take out a second mortgage at the local Tesoro.

Anyway, I was just wondering how many extracurricular activities you guys' kids are in. How many is too much?

 

[BereanTodd]

My 14 year old (Freshman)
- plays soccer for a travelling select team, and for his high school. He has select practices 2-3 nights a week, and 1-2 games on weekends. 3-5 weekends a year we travel to away tournaments.
- practices guitar (lessons on Tuesday)
- plays guitar in the youth band at church (practices on Sunday)
- is a member of the youth council at church (group of more spiritually mature youth put into leadership roles by the youth pastor) This only meets 1-2 times a month.
- works as a referee for soccer matches. He will work as many games a weekend as his schedule allows.

My 9 year old
- plays soccer (2-3 practices a week, 1-2 games a weekend)
- sings in the children's choir at church (practices on Sunday)

My 7 year old
- plays soccer (2-3 practices a week, 1 game a weekend)

Of course then we also are involved in our church - Church and Sunday School each Sunday, my wife and I teach an 11th grade Sunday School class and volunteer in many other activities. My wife helps with the children's choir, I serve on our missions board and we both are involved in much of the planning and activities for the youth (7-12th graders).

We have activities every night of the week most weeks. Sat evenings are usually free, and Friday evenings sometimes are. Not all of these activities are year round. For the yougner 2 they play soccer for 6-7 months out of the year, my oldest plays for 9-10 months.

 

[Neenie1]

Personally I would said 1 each is more than enough. Even have some terms where they don't do anything extra, apart from church/youth activites.

My 6 year old isn't doing anything this term. His school runs all sorts of co-curricular activities, and mostly he does participate in a sporting one after school (the sport changes every term) but this term he doesn't want to do any. He says he wants to just relax after school. That suits me just fine.

 

[JayCeeGirl]

My DSD8 is in dance one night a week and she also has an after school magnet program where she has dance, gymnastics, and a science class. I LOVE it because there is no running around.

 

[GolfingMom]

I said one and it had to be AWANA.
I had to say no to cubscouts and no to science club. I told him we'd revisit the idea in Jan.
There was a great article online a few months back about overwhelming our kiddo's and ourselves. I'll see if I can dig it up

 

[GolfingMom]

Here's a clip of what I was trying to find. It's the Today Show 5 (Hals segment).

http://www.screamfree.com/media_events/the_today_show.php

 

[Linnis]

If I have more than 1 child I would limit each child to one activity at a time until they are old enough to get to and from the meetings/practices on their own.

 

[jgonz]

My kids have no extracurricular activities, except for my teens, who go to a youth group on Wednesday evening. They get there only because my 24 yr old drives them.

 

[illudium_phosdex]

Thanks so much for the input, everyone. I guess one of the reasons my kids do so much too is because that's how it was when I was a kid. When I was their age, it was Girl Scouts, piano lessons once a week, softball, and AWANA. And in the summer, I had swimming camp for 8 weeks. In middle school it was 4-H, AWANA, piano lessons twice a week, softball, church youth choir, and church youth activities; swimming camp still for 8 weeks in the summer. And then in high school I was in 4-H, an AWANA helper, FCA, America's Pride, the band and I lettered in softball, basketball and track and still did church youth choir and youth activities. During high school, I don't think I was ever home for more than an hour or two a day other than to sleep. I had so much fun doing all these things that I guess in a lot of ways, I don't want to think my kids are missing out on something.

 

[peace in the vally]

My Dd Is 4 And During The Summer Every Tuesday And Thurday She Has Swim Lessons For An Hour And It Lasts About 4 Weeks. She Wants To Do Ballet But I Don't Get Off Work In Time To Take Her So She Really Has No Extra Activities

 

[ShannonMcCatholic]

We homeschool, so activities are a little more important to us than they would be if the kids were in school. My 11yo is in Taiji ( a sword form of martial arts) once a week, and violin twice a week, my 8 yo does gymnastics 2 x a week and girl scouts every other week, and though not right now because the horse just had a baby- rides 1x a week, my 5 yo does gymnastics 1x a week and girl scouts every other week, my 3 yo goes to gymnastics 1x a week, and my 1 yo does nothing.

I relinquished my 2 activity limit a little this year and let the girls do girl scouts for several reasons- but it's only a few minutes from our house, and I don't have to stay, and it's only every other week. My oldest daughter has really loved it and I don't think she'd have made it through her forced break from riding if she hadn't been doing it.

We do things like swimming, etc. altogether as a family on a regulaar basis--but no as a class or a commitment we have to get to. We make sure that we have no commitments on at least 2-3 days a week.

 

[CarrieAg93]

I have 3 boys ages 8, 6, and 2. The older 2 are allowed one sport at a time Right now that means soccer practice on Mon. & Thurs and a game on Sat. and baseball practice on Wed with games on Thur and Sat. Of course that schedule changes with each season. They both also participate in Wed activities at church. That actually helps me out a little because the church picks them up at school and takes them to church. My oldest is also in cub scouts. They meet twice a month and then have other activities. With cub scouts we just do what we can and don't stress over missing things.

 

[illudium_phosdex]

We homeschool, so activities are a little more important to us than they would be if the kids were in school.

This, I understand since I homeschool too. You have so many people screaming, "Socialization, socialization, socialization!" that you almost feel obligated to get them involved in umpteen activites. Or at least that's how I've felt. And then DS is autistic so I have people all the time telling me that he especially needs socialization because of the autism. So I do what I can to get him out "into the world."

 

[ShannonMcCatholic]

I tend to look at the socialisation question a little differently--I figure out in the world, as you put it, happens every time we go anywhere or do anything. I like that they are not in a group of all same aged children for 8 hours a day. They are around lots of adults, all different aged kids-and they are very comfortable in nearly every kind of scial setting there is. I figure we go to the grocery store, we're out n the wrold. We got to the farmer's market- we're out in the world. Anywhere where they are interacting with people, we're out in the world.

It sounds like I grew up a lot like you did. I actually have made the choice to limit my kids' activities. I do want them to be doing something....but I do also remind myself that we're homeschooling--home being the operative part of that word for me. I don't want to be running around all crazy everyday. I don't want to be shoving them in and out of the car. I don't want them to think they their worth lies in what they do.

 

[HeatherJay]

We also began homeschooling this year, and activities are important to us, too. But we've always been actively involved in activities as a family, even before homeschool.

My daughters both play softball in the spring/summer. They both play basketball in the fall/winter. And they're both doing taekwondo year round.

I'm considering voice lessons for my oldest...dance for my youngest. And I would love to see them both involved in drama. Maybe in the next year or two if they're still interested.

 

[PolarBear3]

My son is involved in one or two activities at a time. I think it really depends on what the kids enjoy and what the parents can handle. My son would get overwhelmed (and so would I) if he did more than that. We both need some downtime during the week.

But your kids are enjoying their activities and that's what you did when you were growing up and you enjoyed it too. So are there other parents that you can carpool with? Can your husband help out? If you can just save yourself a trip or two a week, that may help. Or can you leave your kids at an activity and run some errands or do something for yourself? When my son has his piano lesson, I drop him off and either go exercise or read a book - things I rarely have a chance to do. If those aren't options, I see nothing wrong with telling your kids that you need to cut back. As parents, we spend so much time taking care of our kids, but we need to take care of ourselves too.

Kathy

 

[HeatherJay]

I take the girls to basketball practice (the youngest) and taekwondo (the oldest) on Monday nights.

My husband takes my oldest daughter to basketball on Tuesday nights (to give me a break).

We all go to taekwondo on Thursday nights...we all participate.

Saturday morning, both girls have basketball games.

It's not so terrible right now.


It gets REALLY crazy during softball season, though.