Do anyones kids not do any extra curricular activities for now?

[heartbroken22]

My daughter did football and swimming last year. One activity once a week per term. Honestly it was so exhausting with a baby. She learns a language for half an hour after school. I just feel so guilty like I should be doing SOMETHING with her. Did a trial of karate today and although good...it's a bit late and she'd have to go to sleep later on than usual. Not sure how other people manage it. But it's just so hard. We do lots of other things at home including cooking,baking, dancing, lots of playing and spending time as a family. My husband works nights so it's hard for me to take her places at the moment.

How old is she? I'm sure that's perfectly normal in some areas. Most kids near me do something though. Some even do 2 a day which is nuts.

We organise it so weekday evenings are for homework & relaxing.

Extra activities are early Saturday mornings and late Sunday afternoon.

How old is she? I wouldn’t worry too much, we only did swimming with ours (and church kids club) until around 8, then added Brownies and Gymnastics for a while but neither stuck. The only long term activities my kids did were at secondary age, when they asked to do singing (dd) and martial arts (ds). As they were motivated, they kept going with them.

DD is in year 2, and aside from swimming she doesn’t do any extra curricular activities outside of school. She does an activity club at school twice a week, but that finishes at 4.30, so it’s kind of wraparound care. TBH with us both working, it’s not really practical to have every weekend taken up with activities, or fair on other DC.

She's 5 years old. She's quite creative and active so I'm not scared about development. We tried swimming but she was frightened of the water. I'll try it again with her when she's 7.

If I were you I'd sack off everything else and prioritise swimming. It is an absolutely vital skill. Doesn't matter if she's scared. She's scared because she can't swim.

I have a 4 year old who's not interested in anything. We have tried a few tasters but she lost doesn't like socialising to be honest, even if she enjoys the actual activity. They get taught swimming at school anyway so I'm not that bothered about pushing anything. I have another one who does two different sports over three days and that's plenty for us!

Oh she's so small. I wouldn't really do anything aside from swimming unless you want her to be a pro at something like gymnastics or ballet. Swimming was a non negotiable but like you DD was petrified age 5. She was equally petrified age 7 so I'm not sure it was worth the wait.

Personally I’d try and stick with the swimming. You’ll only prolong the agony and it’s a really important life skill. I wouldn’t worry too much about other clubs at the moment if she’s not showing much interest.

Yeah you guys are right I'm just going to leave everything for now (swimming will be re done next year). My nearly 2 year old had a huge tantrum because her big sister fell asleep instead of playing with her. It's not fair on them. Especially during the weekdays.

Yup. DS started school doing football and swimming too, and we ended up dropping both.

He learned to swim just fine - and much more quickly I think - when he was a little bit older.

Allstars cricket is fun in the summer, good for general hand eye coordination and not an all-year commitment.

At 5 my DC liked being with me and playing with their toys or in the garden.

Now they are 9, 10 and 12 they do 2 activities a week each.

Mine don’t. They don’t want to and we can’t really afford it. I do offer them the opportunity every so often but other than swimming lessons (which we’ve yet to pick up again since lockdown) they’re not bothered.

My 8yo only does school clubs twice a week. He’s not bothered about anything else and it’s his life.

My 5 year DD does 2 after school clubs every day as i can't pick her up til 6.

Are there no school clubs? That makes logistics easier.

My year 1 child does quite a few but half are school ones and he would otherwise be in after school club so that doesn't feel like a biggie

I purposely chose to only do limited activity clubs when my kids were young because I think they provide superficial development opportunities and limited satisfaction. It is just FOMO on the parents' part in many cases. Mine were encouraged to do creative/scientific/other activities at home and of course as they got older they did more outside the home.

I'd prioritise swimming and encourage them to make the most of school itself - really enjoy the play, the carol concert etc.

I think a lot of extra curricular activities are a bit pointless - e.g. the middle class obsession with musical instruments - but I do think physical activity is important for children and sets them up for a healthy lifestyle and swimming in particular is a life skill.

Obviously you can get physical activity without organised activities but it is easier for us to do some

Do you swim as a family? If you’re waiting for the lessons it might be worth taking her regularly just for a fun play around in the pool - not teaching her yourself if you don’t feel confident but just so she is confident to get in the water etc when lessons begin.

Reading just reading and hugs and talking about feelings

I think lots of activities end up in too firm a commitment too early on. It’s great to have a wide range of experiences at that age, but the best way to get that isn’t by being signed up to a different club/class every day of the week.
Free play and learning to make their own choices is so important and it doesn’t work well with a crammed schedule.

I think a lot depends on age.
When they were younger
School didn't offer any clubs for yrR. My kids did swimming from 3 and scouts from about 6 plus wrap around care - which was sometimes just after school care and some days sports/ music activity at school.

Now, Y6 still does multi-sport, rugby, science and band after school. We don't need the child care but he chooses them and means he's not first home.

Y9 does a lot - youth club, dance, theatre plus all school performances and cadets. She appears to be making up for the COVID years by doing 3yrs worth of activity in 1!

Both do scouts too.

DS2 (4) hasn't done any as he does loads of activities at nursery and is too tired in the afternoons. Weekends are busy as it is. Actually no I did a swimming course with him when he was about one but it was totally pointless!

DS1 (14) has previously done swimming (that he hated) and dance because some friends from school were doing it. Then he went to a parkour club for a while but there have been long stretches with nothing including now.

I think it's a very middle class idea that children must be doing activities.

Also, I can't drive (no licence) so it would be down to DH to drive all the kids everywhere or drag all of them around town on public trasport constantly.

My 9 y old only does swimming and cubs. She hates all other sports, tried and hated music lessons, did a craft club for a while but it got a bit samey. She’s perfectly happy - she reads and plays in her room. Sees friends after school sometimes. Children don’t need to be scheduled, relaxing and learning how to entertain themselves is really important.