Some of these posts are getting me anxious. When do your kids run around the backyard pretending to be a one-man baseball team or inventing dance routines with their sisters or collecting specimens for their rock collections? Or making blanket forts inside?
Or just sitting at the kitchen table doing homework while a parent cooks dinner? Or even watching TV together as a family before bed?
Some of these posts are getting me anxious. When do your kids run around the backyard pretending to be a one-man baseball team or inventing dance routines with their sisters or collecting specimens for their rock collections? Or making blanket forts inside?
Or just sitting at the kitchen table doing homework while a parent cooks dinner? Or even watching TV together as a family before bed?
It makes me anxious too.
Where I live kids are seriously over scheduled, and not even in fun stuff like dance, but in extra math and language lessons. There are like 7 tutoring centers on my block. Kids even take classes in Legos! I guess they aren't just a toy anymore, you need instruction to optimize your Lego building abilities.
Anyway, I am really not looking forward to that stage of B's life. It just seems like a lot of pressure.
Post by indianchica on Jul 23, 2014 7:28:12 GMT -5
DS has karate twice a week. Every two months there is a belt test. DD1 has dance once a week. Twice a year there is a show. We can't handle any more with two FT jobs and a ton of animals.
We started out with one at a time, however as DS1 is getting older and he is involved in high school extras, I am seeing that things are starting to overlap. Football runs into hockey, hockey runs into track, so there are times that he actually has two practices a night. That doesn't last long though, and I wouldn't allow it to happen if it wasn't wrapping up one season and heading into the next. That poor kid was so exhausted when he would have 2 hours of track practice and then an of hour skating in one night, after a full day of school. Factor homework in, and the next day he was just spent.
DS2 is still in community programs, (hockey and soccer so he is one at a time and he doesn't overlap like that.
I couldn't do more than that.
Please note that I don't consider band in there...that is a class during school and requires practice on their own at night, but if they miss a night the sky isn't going to fall and they can make that time up on the weekend.
Two is enough right now, time wise and financially.
Years ago I nannied for a family with young girls (4 and 6) who did seven or eight activities at a time which met multiple times a week. There were nights they had three in a row. They are high school aged now and are the most well rounded and talented kids I know but damn.
Right now my daughter does swim and dance on weekends. When she starts K in the fall she can do one of those in her after school program. I've signed her up for Sunday school and she'll continue with dancing fall most likely. I won't add anything else on a regular for a while because it would just be too much. I may do the drop in yoga or cooking classes from time to time.
Also over the summer Jack is in summer camp, which is the best thing ever. Swimming, playground, themed acitvities etc. It takes a ton of pressure off of us to feel like we should enrich his life. When he comes home it is veg or free play time. Also on the weekends I feel zero guilt for throwing him in the backyard and telling him to find something to do. He spends enough of his week already in activities.
I am like missubee, because I work I feel very strongly about giving my kids free time to play. Enough of their day is already spent away from home doing stuff.
Some of these posts are getting me anxious. When do your kids run around the backyard pretending to be a one-man baseball team or inventing dance routines with their sisters or collecting specimens for their rock collections? Or making blanket forts inside?
Or just sitting at the kitchen table doing homework while a parent cooks dinner? Or even watching TV together as a family before bed?
I'm wondering when people have time for themselves. I have my own interests and activities.
I can't speak for anyone here, but I do have friends whose kids are scheduled to the minute, multiple activities a day.
The parents don't have time for themselves. Their lives are centered on the kid's activities.
Some of these posts are getting me anxious. When do your kids run around the backyard pretending to be a one-man baseball team or inventing dance routines with their sisters or collecting specimens for their rock collections? Or making blanket forts inside?
Or just sitting at the kitchen table doing homework while a parent cooks dinner? Or even watching TV together as a family before bed?
I'm wondering when people have time for themselves. I have my own interests and activities.
Anecdote time. Multiple times a week after dinner when I was 4,5,6 years old, my dad and I would go fishing for sunnies at a local lake until dark. Its what he wanted to do, so I tagged along. I have such fond memories of that.
I can't imagine trading that for lessons of any kind.
Also, I wanted so desperately to take piano lessons as a kid, and my brother wanted ice hockey SO badly. But both were $$$, and the ice rink was too far away for my mom to drive. I did school band and learned clarinet instead and my brother did local roller hockey which was affordable and easy for mom. We learned that money isn't an infinite resource and that mom's time is important too. This whole conversation has a "check your privilege" element to it for me, which is prob why I get so hot on it.
We generally stick with one sport a season per kid. There have been times where they have had activities overlap some or where they REALLY want to do a second, but I try to limit it as much as I can. It's getting harder now that they're all getting older (middle and high school age).
M (4) will be starting her first dance class in the fall and has taken swimming lessons.
Post by racegrrl714 on Jul 23, 2014 8:48:41 GMT -5
My DD is going to be 4 in August. She did two combo dance/tumbling classes last school year (one hour on Tuesday, one hour on Thursday). This fall she's going to do a 1 1/2 hour combo tap/jazz/pom class on Tuesdays and a 1 hr tumbling class on Thursdays. She loves it, and I'd rather be active than do her other favorite activity: sitting in front of the tv watching cartoons. LOL
my boys are in DC full time so I restrict them to 1 extramural activity at a time. But, they're still quite young so we'll see how it goes as they get older and have more interests. Both have done swimming, music and my older guy has done soccer and skiing, depending on the season.
Some of these posts are getting me anxious. When do your kids run around the backyard pretending to be a one-man baseball team or inventing dance routines with their sisters or collecting specimens for their rock collections? Or making blanket forts inside?
Or just sitting at the kitchen table doing homework while a parent cooks dinner? Or even watching TV together as a family before bed?
my boys do A LOT of this. We live in a fantastic family neighbourhood, right across the street from a park. So, there's a lot of playground/backyard/neighbour's yard craziness going on.
Some of these posts are getting me anxious. When do your kids run around the backyard pretending to be a one-man baseball team or inventing dance routines with their sisters or collecting specimens for their rock collections? Or making blanket forts inside?
Or just sitting at the kitchen table doing homework while a parent cooks dinner? Or even watching TV together as a family before bed?
When I was a SAHM they still had time to do that AND go to activities. Now that they are in school & before/after care for 10 hours per day they really miss the unstructured home time. I'm limiting their activities for the next school year but still feel gouty they're missing out on it.
We try to stick to one at a time, although Anna has two because she does piano year round. But piano is at home, so it barely counts, right? So we do: Spring and summer: swimming Fall: indoor skating Winter: skiing But at some point if they get into figure skating or competitive swimming, it will switch to year round and therefore will overlap with other activities. But it works for now, especially having them both in the same activities.
With us both working full time and not getting home until 6, we are currently at 1 activity. Right now is swimming which is 2 nights a week. Spring was TBall which was 1 to 3 nights. She will switch to gymnastics when school starts which is 1 night a week.