How many clubs do your kids do?

[Franny1]

How many extra-curricular clubs do your kids do? Especially at the weekends? My kids do a fair bit but I'm quite a big believer in the benefits of boredom and I try to keep quite a few afternoons free (and at the moment my ten year old doesn't do any weekend clubs at all). But I feel like they are missing out!

(Bear in mind they are at an independent London school, so it may be that I'm surrounded by rat racey people and they're all doing too much!)

Youngest (who has SEN) does just 2 clubs.

DC1 does 4 clubs.

DC2 does something 5 or 6 days out of 7 (the same sport appears several times a week)

State schools x2 (SEN child is in mainstream)

Cubs, football and guitar lessons. Football is both training and matches so take two days a week. I’m sure he will see something else as he gets older but this feels like plenty to be honest!

Every week, Dd (7) does 1 after school club and 1 sports club at weekend. Once a month she does a second after school club.

Both DC do 1 sports club at the weekend (Saturday morning).

10yo DD also does two paid clubs at her school; a music lesson (during the day) and French (after school).

7yo DS does swimming lessons plus 2 paid sports clubs at school.

I like our weekends fairly free.

Just one ‘ckub’ each but it’s five days a week so not really a lot of time for much else.

At the age of ten they did footie, cubs and then swimming. They were and are busy children .

DS8 does football training on a Tuesday, and then a match on a Saturday morning. If he wanted to try something additional then we would. But I’m not forcing anything. He finds school tiring and is happy to chill after school.

I have 3 kids.

1 does 2 after school clubs, scouts, 2 musical instruments

2 do musical instruments plus gymnastics at the weekend.

My 13 year old trains at a competitive sport, which is roughly 4 hours a day 3 nights a week.

My 8 year old does Cubs one night a week.

We do no organised activities on the weekends.

3 after school activity clubs, beavers, swimming lessons.

ETA - she’s 6, in yr 2

Dd12 does football x 2 a week and guides plus afterschool dancing, football and athletics.
dd5 does swimming, ballet and guides. She couldn’t manage any more just yet. I’d like to get her into cheer and musical theatre but not yet

Only parkrun and sometimes swimming (not lessons) at the weekend. Gymnastics and swimming lessons during the week, both immediately after school. 6yo.

Rugby x2 (touch and contact), Scouts, cricket, lifeguard lessons and drumming. Then usually one after school club a term. He’s in yr 6 so I except something to give once he starts secondary school and can maybe pick some of it up in school. They’ve all been great for him one way or another. His sibling turns 5 soon so he’ll probably ramp up once the eldest drops off

As for weekends, we don’t do anything because I don’t want to be tied to anything that limits what we can do as a family.

On weekends, we often go swimming (at the pool) one day, but otherwise spend a lot of time outdoors, walking, at the beach, wild swimming (even in winter). We do a lot of wild camping. Dh and dd do bike packing trips or walking trips with camps on the weekends. We go away. Dd does have competitions a few weekends a year, but that’s about it.

I think children benefit more from life experiences and developing deep passions for activities they’ll want to carry into adulthood, rather than playing 6 different sports, learning 2 instruments, swimming lessons, judo and chess club.

At weekends we've only ever had swimming lessons (and very occasional cub/brownie etc camp). With those and parties, that was quite enough of the weekend "scheduled".

The private school children I know do a lot of clubs, so I think your observation may be correct that you are looking at this from a skewed point of view.
And remember during Covid when everyone said how great it was that they were not running from one thing to another?

Ds(5) does swimming on Saturday mornings and a Lego club in the afternoon. He also does rugby Sunday mornings and sport after school on a Tuesday run by an external provider to the school. The sport changes every half term; he’s done archery, fencing, football and basketball so far.

My two year old does swimming and a little dance class.

My 6 year old does - 2x martial arts classes, swimming, beavers and cookery club

9 year old does - one martial art, orchestra, swimming, cubs and tennis

At the weekend, we keep one weekend day completely clear

Mine are allowed to do one sport and one instrument each, as well as one thing I make them do for life skills (swimming). Each individual child is not that busy, but I have four kids and they all chose different sports and instruments, so my schedule is ridiculous (as is the cost). There is only one evening a week that is reliably free. The saving grace is that none of the activities continue in the school holidays.

Kids need a lot of downtime/time to be bored - this is perfectly possible even with a lot of activities, but it depends how the activities impact family life. For example, do you have to take both/all your kids to everything, or can they be at home with their other parent if it's not their activity? Do the activities involve huge amounts of driving or take up an entire weekend day? Do they have a seasonal break or a break in the school holidays? Because clubs are a big time commitment and cost, I only let my kids do things they really, really, really want to do and we don't sign up for anything on a whim.

I also think that if they are busy with a lot of clubs, it is more important that the smaller amount of free time they have is proper 'boredom'/playing time and not just absorbed by screens.

IME the doing of clubs varies a lot by family and social class, but also kids themselves. I know (and envy) several families where the parents are willing but the kids just don't want to. This is makes for a much more chilled life.

Two each, any more and we'd have no time to do anything else.

Mine have all gone through every hobby known to man. Thankfully having navigated the dreaded swimming class, followed by football, netball, horse riding, brownies, guides they’ve all now outgrown them all with only one dd now doing cheerleading which is expensive and requires 3 training sessions a week and up and down the country for competitions

We’ve only just started our 5yo in clubs and I have a set limit of 3 per week. Swimming Mondays after school with his younger brother, Football on a Friday which is an after school club and Rugby on a Sunday morning. He’s keen to learn guitar but I’m going to explore that in a year or two. I remember doing tonnes of clubs as a kid and tbh I was knackered! Brownies, Tennis, Netball, choir at school, drama school for a half day every Saturday, I think Sunday was the only day I didn’t do anything so was keen not to do the same with my own kids.

Only one each. They did more during the week but Saturdays is match day so that’s what was Saturday morning taken care of. After age 11 my son played for an out of school rugby club so that’s was Sunday morning taken care of too! My DD would help me make teas and coffees and bacon sandwiches for the parents. Saturday late afternoon I often took them swimming. For a while they did a Stage Coach thing which was three hours on Sundays.

Quite a lot: 2 kids, they both do swimming lessons, music lessons, 2 after school clubs (different activities), Brownies/Rainbows, plus a weekend theatre club. One also does gymnastics and the other does choir (at school). They are sociable children though and love all of their clubs and activities, and we both work, so why not. They get downtime too.

Outside of school DD8 does tennis and brownies. DS5 does rugby and swimming. Through school they do fucking everything- LAMDA, photography, pottery, lego, cookery, mindfulness etc. etc. etc. because we need the wrap around care. (Also at a London Indy and the fees don’t pay themselves 🤣)

I have ds11 and ds8. They just do swimming lessons atm and aren’t not interested in anything else currently