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!)

DD7 does piano (at school and privately) and recorder (at school); ballet; swimming; horseriding; tennis; usually random afterschool club (keep changing every half term); online art class (mostly because schools art lessons are just terrible and non existent).

We've somehow always kept weekend free, which is a win! Dc11 does 4 extra curricular activities, dc8 does 5. This includes an instrument each, a sport each, and a scouts type club each.

When our 2 were in the primary school DS did football 1x week, swimming lessons, parkrun, cubs and DD had swimming lessons, football 1x week, parkrun and Guides. Now they are teenagers and in secondary they both do a sport competitively and train 4x week, 8 hours. DS also goes 4x week to the gym. Not much time left for anything else.

DS7 does Beavers on Weds, Film Club or Dodgeball after school on Thurs (changes each term) and Swimming on Saturdays. I don’t have time to facilitate any more around also having a FT job plus a toddler

When DD2 was at private school, they ran free clubs after school and she joined 2 sessions a week. She also did dancing classes - tap, modern and ballet not in school. Swimming lessons when younger.

DD1 at state school in y6 did Brownies, strings orchestra at the local music centre as well as singing club there on a Saturday. Orchestra at school. Netball in the winter. Piano lessons. Swimming club. Loved being busy.

My 7 year old does football Tuesdays, rugby Wednesday and game Sunday and basketball on a Saturday. He was swimming but he started to dislike it so we are having a break from that.

None

DS does two things a week and he's happy with that. He's always only done two things
(Although he does have a tutor on top of that, for fun rather than because he needs one)

DD does a club every day except Friday and Sunday at the moment and she's trying to persuade me to let her sign up for football that takes place on Fridays and Sundays!

Be guided by your child and what feels right for them

Both DC do swimming on a Saturday morning, and gymnastics one evening a week.
Eldest does a music lesson at school once a week.

Apart from Fridays when I collect them and they chill at home, they are in wraparound every other evening til 6pm, so it would seem a lot to then take them to an activity afterwards, as they are still young enough (and have to get up early enough) to be 7.30pm bedtimes!

How does everyone fit all these clubs around work? It's hard enough to get a decent meal in them before bed!

17 year old - just football.
4 year old - ballet, football and swimming. Won’t make her do anything else unless she wants to.
1 year old - nothing because she’s 1

Infant DC prefers having no clubs at the weekend. They used to do one on a Saturday but started asking not to go and have since declined any club that involves weekends. They are quite introverted though.

In the week they have swimming, a sport and an after school 45 minute tech club which they only do because the person that leads it appears to just let them run feral in the hall which is apparently the best thing ever.

May I ask how you get your kids wild swimming in winter? We live on the coast so I swim (in just a cossie) all year round but at the moment we’re in for about 5-6 mins as it’s so cold. I can’t imagine my kids even wanting to put a toe in! They do swim in summer. Are yours in wetsuits?

What's ckub

DD (8) does swimming, piano (Sundays) and dance (Friday night - recreational not competition) at the weekend. Saturdays are free. Midweek she does after school clubs on three days as we need childcare - mainly just free playing with friends but French club one day. She also has a tutor an hour a week.

I also wonder if she’s missing out - on doing a sport mainly - but she will do little league netball from next year. She does sporty clubs in the holidays. Her friends do more - Brownies and gymnastics too, or a sport like hockey or rugby.

DS is 4 and starts school in September- we have resisted over scheduling weekends whilst we have a smaller child but I think we’re going to sign him up for football now. Otherwise he just does swimming.

DS7 does kickboxing, football (training one weekday evening, matches on Sundays), golf and swimming lessons. Feels like a lot to me sometimes, particularly as he also gets daily homework from school. He’s much happier when he’s busy though so for now we’re going with it.

Presumably ‘club’

@ByAmusedBiscuit absolutely agree about the need for boredom without screen time.
My DC are older now but at primary school they had weekly swimming lessons, a music lesson and Brownies/ Guides plus one other thing. The other thing was sometimes an after-school club or another thing that they wanted to do. We tried to keep weekends free but eventually DD2 wanted to do a Saturday sport as well.
They made friends at their activities and it was good for them to have friends outside of school. Neither showed any interest in dance thankfully, despite that being very popular locally. From what I could see dance was a massive time and money cost which would have been difficult to afford.

DD is six and does ballet, swimming, piano and Chinese (Chinese is twice a week and she hates it but as DH is Chinese we feel it's important for her to learn). She also does another after school activity that she changes each term - this term is Lego building, last term was art. This is all during the week - weekends are kept free for rest/family time/socialising.

DS is four and does swimming and Chinese.

My daughter dances. It’s a lot. At the moment, she’s there 6 days out of 7.

On the day that she’s not there, she has a piano lesson and football training.

I am not quite sure how things will work when she goes to senior school next year, as they have Saturday sport, but this will clash with her main dance style.

I’m also don’t know how she will fit her homework in. She will just have to be very disciplined and maybe drop one of the ‘just for fun’ classes.

I have one daughter and she does football (training twice a week) and a game on a Saturday, brownies, gymnastics and tennis. Far too much.
hoping to drop the gymnastics when football starts again in September

See, one of my children would agree with you, and would have tons of fun. For the other one, this is his idea of hell and make him thoroughly miserable.
There is no general right or wrong, just right or young for a specific child :)
Apologies, tagged the wrong post! meant to reply to @mindutopia

You dont mention your DC ages in the OP, which i think makes quite a big difference to the answers you will get.

DD1 is 4y, in reception (state not indy) and we are also in London. She does swimming, rainbows and ballet (one of which is on the weekend). She goes to after school twice a week, but that is just free play - school clubs dont start until y1 for us.

She'll also probably start a musical instrument at some point but the offer through school is for piano so im holding off until she's a little older as I think she'll struggle if we started now.

DS13, with SEN
Monday Youth group 5-6
Tuesday Football training 7-8
Sat AM Football match 10-12
Sat PM Drama group 2-5

Drama has been a long standing club to help with confidence and social interaction and he just did this for about 4 years with no other activities. We added in Youth group about a year ago which came from a referral from the social prescriber/care navigator when on the CAMHS waiting list.

Football was a complete surprise for us all. He’d never played or watched it, and suddenly it became a ‘special interest’. When he went to secondary he noticed that the boys talked about football a lot so he figured out this would help him. He’s really good at it and is in a team playing in a local league. He’s also studied history of football and many, many details of football teams across uk and the rest of the world so we all know much more about football than ever before, lol

DD11 has done so many over the years. Swimming, squash, aikido, gymnastics, chess, singing, guitar. Now she only does drama, which I think is a shame.

DS4 goes to swimming lessons and Squirrels.

DS3 only goes to swimming lessons so far. I'd really like to get him into gymnastics as I think he'd love it, but I'm struggling to find a class for his age group locally that we can get to.

@FallingIsLearning My DD only did dance classes that were working towards exams. Tap dropped at 11 although she had done exams. She carried on with ballet and modern at secondary. That could streamline what your DD does.