How many and what types of extracirricular activiites ...
Moms View Message Board: Parenting Discussion: Archive July-December 2003:
How many and what types of extracirricular activiites ...
are your dk involved in. I am beginning to feel overwhelmed with all the things my kids have going on but sometimes wonder if that is just me as it seems as if other parents are just as busy if not busier and seem to handle it fine.
I have 4 dds
10 yr old Competition Cheerleading team practices 4 1/5 hours per week, violin lessons 1/2 hour a week (practice 1/2 hour daily at home)
Cheer Performances average 2/month
November, Jan and Feb have 2 -3 competitions each month
Girl Scouts Juliette so she works on this whenever she/I want
7 year old Competition Dance Team practices 3 hours a week, Plays Soccer/Basketball 1 hour practice 1 hour game per week
Girl Scouts every other Tuesday
Dance Performances average 2/month
November, Jan and Feb have 2 -3 competitions each month
6 year old Ballet class 45 min/week Performance 2 - 3 times per year. Girl Scouts 1 hour every other Tuesday
4 year old Dance class - 45 min /week Performance 2 - 3 times per year
We are at the dance studio M - Th evenings every week and on Monday nights I make two trips. The studio is close to home so it isn't like I am on the road for a long time but it is just getting everyone ready, loaded up etc.
7 year old--stories and crafts at library every Wednesday afternoon for 45 minutes. Sunday School every Sunday for one hour. (full time school, second grade)
3 year old--storyhour at library every Tuesday for 20 minutes. (full time at home, no school)
Yep, that's it!
Yikes! My head is spinning thinking of all the running you are doing! 
I have three kids, ages 7.5, 6 and 2.5.
My 7.5 and 6 year olds have a 45 minute Spanish class on Mondays. They have a one hour soccer practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays and soccer games on Saturday. The six year old also has roller hockey practice for one hour on Wednesdays and games Saturday morning.
The 2.5 year old has gymnastics for one hour on Wednesdays.
I have 3 dds, when they started going to private school, I dropped everything. I only drive a total of 8 miles a day (yeah!!)
I was tired of everyone being tired and cranky and not spending "quality" time together.
Now we do homework, homeschooling (Fridays) and we have as much time as we want. They spend more time with me and they are learning what I do at home. We swim often, play basketball and soccer, invite friends over (house is never empty). We don't have a schedule that is packed, and we're all happy I ask the girls if they would like to join anything but they remember how it used to be. Middle daughter would like to take piano lessons but I don't have a piano.
I have one son, age 9, 3rd grade. He is in no activities. That's the way he wants it. We've tried basketball, karate, piano lessons, but they were all a bomb. He says he's wasting his time doing those things.
Instead he has kids over almost all the time, we have marathon chess tournaments or marathon sessions working on Animal Crossing on GameCube or Sim City on computer or Theme Park for PS2. We go swimming at the indoor pool, go to the park, have movie nights, take bike rides, take nightly walks together, go to the bookstore, go to GameStop or Blockbuster and play the demo games, play store, etc.
It's a much better quality of life for us.
He has friends that do a lot of activities and sometimes he has to ask 2 or 3 to come over before he finds someone available to play, but he's lucky he has a lot of friends and can find someone eventually.
He has a friend, 8, who plays soccer, baseball and football and does cub scouts and Destination Imagination. He loves the activities.
He has another friend, 8, who plays baseball where practice is M-W-F 6pm to dark and then a game on Sunday. He tells me he hates it, but his parents make him. His dad is the coach.
To each their own!
It's funny you should ask, twice now i have taken my ds to a class at the wrong time, because he has a different class at that time LOL.
My dd has preschool wed, thurs, and fri
and she has swimming class at the YMCA tues. night...that ended last night though
my ds has - swimming at the Y on Tues. morning
- Storytime Wed. morning
- play type class thurs. morning.
it's not overwhelming, i just screw up the times somedays.
Tammie I think your scheduling seems pretty typical, it's just that you have it times 4! Lots of us only have it times 2 or 3.
My 2 DD's have school, church, dance, t-ball, pageant practice, oldest DD(5) has to travel all over the state of Utah (we are at one end of the state of the other at least twice a month with her) Dance recitals several times a year times 2.
As long as your kids are happy that is what really matters. If ever they are complaining of feeling overworked then maybe I would look at cutting something out. Good luck!
14yo DD
Girl Scouts - in high school now and girls are busy. Meeting once a month for 2 hours. Head Start once a month for an hour.
Life - Confirmation classes at church. 1-1/2 hours most Wednesday evenings (tonight teachers are meeting, so no class - also has retreat this weekend)
Debate team, meets once a week after school. Meets pretty much every weekend. She hasn't made it to every meet.
DD11
Not in any groups. Won't start confirmation until next year. Needs to practice flute and do homework. Just never got into Girl Scouts.
1 per semester (for each child) and only if grades are good.
My dh and ex and I all agreed on this rule. Because we want them to have plenty of time for family/homework/studying/playtime and REST ...
I have 1 in football right now (its over in 1 more week) and 1 in piano until January, then he is choosing to quit he thinks. ( we made him commit to 1 yr and January will be 1 yr)
Our 3 yr old is not in any activities.
Lexi does dance, horseback and swimming. She also usually does what ever sport it's time for just got done soccer and we'll have a month or so til skiing starts. I feel like that's a lot for age 5 but for her school isn't hard at all and she actually asked to do more and we said no. If she were tired or stressed we'd cut it back.
We have an established rule. They can do scouts (both are Cub Scouts) and 1 sport at a time. When they sign up for scouts they commit for a year at the time. With a sport they commit for the whole season.
They each have 2 den meetings a month (different days and times, just to make life more hectic) and 1 pack meeting (same date/time) each month. The sport they have chosen for now is bowling. Yep, they are in a bowling league every Saturday for about 2.5 hours. When we signed up it was for like a 10 month committment which we didn't realize. We did tell them that they could drop bowling to play basketball in the winter though.
I totally agree with Conni that kids need time to rest and even get bored and kick around rocks in the backyard. Kids are so overscheduled these days--moms too
I have 5 girls - 7,8,9,10 and 20.
Nicole 10 - riding Monday am, Guides Tues pm and swimming Sat am
Chrissy 9 - Guides Tues pm
Meghan 8 - Brownies Mon pm, riding Fri aft, swimming Sat am
Kayla 7 - Brownies Mon pm, swimming Sat am
Sonja, 20, spends 26 hrs a week with a worker, and they do lots of activities. She spends 2 days in a day program. It's a half hour from here, and I have to take her there and pick her up.
It's busy, but not really a big deal.
I have found for us, it is so much the number of activities but how they fit into the schedule. My 5 year ds, he goes to school...LOL. In the spring we will do a sport of some sort, not sure what. We in general don't do fall sports because there are too many changes going on with our schedule. Second grade ds, he has scouts on Monday evenings 3 times a month. He too will play a sport in spring (baseball I think). My 4th grade dd is my busy one. She does scouts twice a month, choir mondays after school, I just pick her up an hour later. And then she will do a sport in the spring. So you see our spring is a little nutso, but we know that we can't handle all this when school starts. Our general rule is one social/service (scouts), 1 sport and one arts thing and it has to fit into our schedule. Mostly my kids just ride their bikes in a circle out front..LOL. I am not sure how they enjoy that so much, but for hours they ride. We live on a culdesac with a green space in the middle, so they ride around this, all the neighborhood kids, so sometimes there are 10-12 kids riding in the circle.
Wow! Lots of dancers! I was in a performing company at a studio and at school, so I know how your schedules are! Just wait until they get older. I can't wait until Kolby is old enough to start doing sports/activities(if he wants). I'm guessing he'll want to at least try football, basketball and baseball. He's only 2.5 but he already LOVES all three! He begs us to take him outside to play basketball. He'd play all day if we'd let him.
My 13 yr old has ballet & pointe class 1x a week, and on the same night my 8 yr old has tap & ballet. They both are in 4-H one night per month, and the 8 yr old has piano 1x per week. That's it and that's plenty! Oh, the 13 yr old will be in volleyball, but that's her only school sport. I am a true believer in unscheduled time, both for me and my kids! I'd go bonkers with much more!
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