My two oldest dd have been on a competition dance team (9 year old) and competition cheer team (11 year old) for the past 3 years. It is a lot of time, practice twice a week and out of town competitions November - January. In January we were staying out of town 3 weekends in a row so it is a lot of money in travel fees as well. This next year my daughters still want to be on the team but dh and I are just feeling like the time committment and $$$ is just too much. The cheer team is going national and the travel fees for my dd to go to CA for 4 days are $1400. I think that is a little outrageous as all 7 of us could fly to CA for that amount with a good airfare rate. In addition to the $1400 for her there would be around $500 min for me to go along with them and I do think I would need to go as I don't want my 11 year old in CA without me. The total costs for both of these teams with new uniforms and travel expenses and tuition fees were are looking at around $5,000 for the whole 11 months. When we told the girls last night they were very dissapointed and my 11 year old (very dramatic) cries that she will lose all her friends because all her friends are on this team (she also goes to middle school with these kids). The other cries that she loves to dance. I feel like an awful mom :-( I hate to dissapoint my children....

By Ilovetom on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 08:47 am:

Well, just a suggestion- could you find some sponsors? Small businesses?

How about some fund raisers?

By Conni on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 09:14 am:

hmmmm, if you are an awful Mom then I must be HORRID!!! ;)

I make it a point to help them understand this... You ask to do something expensive and time consuming it affects the whole family, money has to come from somewhere.

In other words how badly do they want this? Are they willing to work in order to help cover some of these costs?

Bake sale's
Garage Sale's
Car wash
Walk dogs
Mow lawn's
Pull weeds
Pick up rocks

It can be done-- its just a matter of how hard they are willing to work for it.

By Vicki on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 09:36 am:

I was going to ask the same thing about fund raisers. Our local dance school group is going some where (can't remember where) and they recently had a really fun mom/daughter event that dd and I went to. She isn't in this school at all, but they advertised it and we went because it sounded fun. They got all donations to put on the event, so all money collected for going was profit for the school. They also do fund raisers that depending on how much the girls sell individually, they get that much taken off their trip. Do your dance or cheer teams do anything like that??

By Heaventree on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 10:02 am:

Before I became a parent I was at a dinner party listening to a mom who seemed way too busy. One child was in dance and the other was into some other activity, I can't remember what. It seemed to me at the time that this "poor" women had no time to herself and I thought of all the expense. She was busy 5 nights a week and gone almost every weekend on some sort of event. Not being a parent I didn't really understand why she sacrificed so much of her time and money on these kids. Couldn't they entertain themselves?

Anyway I made some comment about it questioning why all the time and money. Her response was that she would rather have her children involved in activities and kept busy as in her opinion the ones who were not taking part in some sort of sport or extra activity were usually the ones who got into trouble.

I'm not in anyway suggesting that you are a "bad mommy" for taking your kids out of their activities. I think some of the above suggestions are really good ones. I'm also not suggesting that if your kids are not involved they will get into trouble. I guess my point is they love their activities and it sounds like they are good kids, I hope that you can find a way to make this work for everyone. There are some children that you would have to drag kicking and screaming away from their play stations, be thankful that your kids are active and want to participate in group activities.

Perhaps you could plan a family vacation around one of the out of town activities. Five thousand dollars is a lot of money and I don't really know what I would do in your situation. I guess another suggestion would be to pull your daughter off the national team and let her know that you want her involved and active but that she has to choose another activity as you can't afford the cheer team any longer. Good luck, this must be a very difficult decision for your and your husband to make.

By Emily7 on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 10:23 am:

I don't think you are a horrible mother. That is a lot of money to spend on the activities & I don't think it would be fair to take away from family needs/wants for the activities. There is no reason the girls can't still cheer or dance is there? Maybe just on teams that do not have so much travel involved.
I really do think the cost is outrageous.

By Beth on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 01:11 pm:

I honestly don't know how you did it this long for that kind of money! I don't think you are horrible either. I am sure you girls are hurt now and don't understand but when they get older they will. I think some of the ideas given above are great. Except they will require time also. I would think there are dance lessons that would be cheaper then that. Or like someone said could they try out for cheerleading at school? Good luck whatever you decide I am just now signing my 4 year old up for gymnastics today and I am sure at some point we will have a similar problem.

By Mommmie on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 01:26 pm:

That's a lot of cash money for young kids! Can you put them on non-travel dance and cheer teams instead?

I am also one who does not buy the "kids in activities don't get in trouble" garbage. The worst kids are frequently the sports and cheer/drill team kids, when I was in school in the 70s and now.

By Cocoabutter on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 05:05 pm:

Heaventree had a good suggestion- plan a family vacation! If you could find cheaper airfare/accomodations on your own (Priceline, etc.) then why not take her yourself? Does she have to fly with the team? Wouldn't it be okay to meet them there?

Are the teams independent or are they school teams? Another suggestion would be to go to the school's PTO or PTA and see if they can help sponsor the kids, or the school board to see if the district can pitch in. In our area, the school boards usually approve funds for the debate teams to go to state competitions.

You have had some great fund raising suggestions. Tell them that if they want to go badly enough, you will have to work together as a TEAM to make it happen- that you and Dad can't always be expected to float the boat on your own.

By Tink on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 05:44 pm:

I think that it is pretty unfair to expect parents to fund this completely. I'd either explain that some MAJOR fundraising needs to take place or they are welcome to join the school's cheer team and take dance classes at a local school. I cheered all through high school and it is an expensive sport. We did several fundraisers but it did come down to the parents' contributions. Of course, it was about a thousand dollars, not five. I don't think that's unfair on your part. It's also a huge time commitment that you are expected to adhere to. My mother always required me to be involved in some kind of extra-curricular activity to help me socialize (I was shy) and to keep us out of trouble. It is often true that idle hands make devil's work.

By Dawnk777 on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 10:39 pm:

I have two words for you! Brat Fry! LOL! In Sheboygan, when anyone wants to raise money, they just sell bratwurst! Sarah's troop and my women's group have had several brat fries and they are good for about $400! Of course, you probably don't live somewhere, where this would work, but there must be something that people sell on a routine basis that is pretty popular.

Walmart and every grocery store in Sheboygan has a brat fry stand and they are busy EVERY weekend, even in the winter!

Tsumani brat fry raised $15,000 and post 9-11 brat fry raised $50,000.

Couldn't the whole group do fundraisers? This year alone: Women's group at church, Sarah's girl scout troop, Sarah's mission trip group, and Sarah herself has been to a few for school, possibly for her band trip and for Key Club! These were just brat fries!

By Mommyof4 on Friday, April 15, 2005 - 11:26 am:

The group does do fundraisers but they are NOT big money makers...ie sell candles for $8.00 each make $2.00...you have to sell ALOT of candles to come up with $5,000 , car wash (last time my dds did this they each made $5 and they were there for 5 hours and my dh paid $10 to have his own car washed). Maybe we will need to come up with our own fundraising ideas that we do without the group.

Dawn- Johnsonville Brats does at least two Brats fundraisers in the community a year. When I worked for a women's shelter they were the recpient one year and it did bring in a lot of money!!!!
If anyone has any fundraising ideas that we could do just our family let me know. :-)

By Jann on Friday, April 15, 2005 - 02:00 pm:

My oldest sold cooke dough for a fundraiser one year. Profit is $5 per tub (sold for $10-12). Really good cookie dough too!!
http://www.classiccookie.com/html/fund.htm

Have you looked into your organizations setting up an account with your grocery store? We have numbers that we put in every time we shop and a % is sent to our school. Target has one too. That's sort of a no brainer way to fund raise.

Tupperware also does fundraiser sales. I know that Sally Foster gift wrap gives high profits.