is this way too much for an 8 year old??

[hugsarealwaysneededhere1]

Son is learning guitar and vilion at school with some practise (not enough I'm sure) at home.
He goes to Cubs once a week
Fencing once a week.
Life Guarding once a week

At the weekend he has a swimming lesson and tennis.

He loves guitar, cubs and fencing. He is a good swimmer but now needs to stop lessons and either join the squad (train 3 times a week) or just swim once a week as part of a fun junior team. He would rather just play than swim seriously.

It all feels quite a lot! With homework too.......or is this just the norm??

[sofato5miles]

My DD9: swims 3x a week, 2 rehearsals for schoolplay a week, art class, tennis class and 2 instruments. We only live 20 mins from school, which helps.

She is becoming a much more confident and happy child this year and so bloody enthusiastic. Something will have to give next year, for increased homework but this year she is on top of everthing.

[my2bundles]

Nat, Music can just be for the enjoyment of it, in fact at this age that is far more important.

[Fleurdelise]

My DD is 8 and she does piano twice a week split into 2 half an hour lessons because she is serious about it and loves it, practises 20-30 min every day. I do think that instrument lessons are quite expensive and if you don't practice than it is a bit of a waste of money and brings along frustration for the child as the progress is slow without practice.

She also does ice skating once a week, dancing once a week and swimming at school.

In total her activities add up to two and a half hours a week as swimming is during school time which leaves her plenty of free time.

I think it depends on the child and how much they like it. Personally I want DD to show commitment, no matter how talented she is, otherwise I can't see the point of doing it.

[Stillwishihadabs]

Dd is 9 she does gymnastics, 11+ tutor,horse riding and swimming. I don't understand this full school day stuff. They do 8:45-3:15 did goes to bed at 8:30 and is up shortly after 6, that leaves an awful lot of hours, we often run or swim before school (once a week we go to the supermarket). Even with an hour a night of activities, that still leaves 4 hours "free".

[HPsauciness]

The head of the school two of my DC go to did an experiment, where he gave every pupil a point for each co-curricular activity they did. The students with most points also tended to be the ones with the highest exam scores.So, rather than detracting from school work, co-curricular activities seem to help it

Perhaps the head should go on a scientific basics refresher! Of course some parents put their children in everything and also push them to do extremely well academically through tutoring. This may well be correlation, not causation.

Whether this is always to the benefit of the children psychologically and in terms of needing structure, I think it is good for most children to do activities out of school, but you have to be attuned to the needs of the individual child, and I do have quite a few over-achieving mainly female students at university who are having difficulties due to their need to excel at everything and their inability to have down time (I mean mental health difficulties, eating disorders). I think a well-known headteacher of a girls school said she wanted to stop her girls getting on the treadmill of perfection and this may apply here.

[pourmeanotherglass]

Mine are 13 and 11 and have picked up and dropped a few activities over the years. Now they don't really 'play' any more, it is good for them to have some activities that don't involve looking at a screen.
Its probably best to stick to 1 instrument unless they are really keen, and maybe join a band or orchestra so they get a chance to play with other people.
My 2 are not very sporty so tend to choose social stuff (drama, scouts, youth club) as well as playing 1 instument each. Its difficult to know what is too much, that depends on the child. I don't push mine to do anything, the activities they do are things they have chosen and that they enjoy. Neither of them gets much homework at the moment, so they get plenty of time to chill.

[Twinklestein]

OneMillionScovilles'is absolutely right.

People with no musical training are incredibly naive about what's involved in learning an instrument. The standard of teaching and playing in England is low compared to other countries other than at professional level - and there's a general lack of understanding of what's involved.

BertrandRussell Unless children decide by the time they're around 7 that they want to commit and practice every single day, they cannot reach their potential.

Your children may play but they will not be anything like as good as they could have been if they had practiced daily.

All the people I did music with since the age of 3 are still playing, some are professionals, so I find idea that daily practice makes children give up bizarre.

Children generally give up either because their heart's not in it, or because they don't progress fast enough.

[Keeptrudging]

DD ( 12 ) does a lot - competitive gymnastics, swimming, rugby, dance and 3 different bands. She's a very focused child, really organised re school work/music practice (I never have to remind her). It's just the way she is, she's been like that all her life. She even played in an organised/focused way when she was tiny! I wonder who her mother is sometimes because I'm a bit/lot scatty. She thrives on being busy, loves everything she does and has come to her own decision to drop dance soon in order to give her more time to herself.

We live in the middle of nowhere, no children nearby so this way she's also socialising with friends. For my DS, all this stuff would have been way too much and he would have been miserable. I'm not a pushy parent, I've just got a 'pushy' (but lovely) daughter!

[Partron]

Drop an instrument and keep up the swimming with the twice a week option.

I think guitar, cubs, fencing and swimming sounds totally doable.

[Partron]

FWIW dd3 (9) does swimming twice a week, athletics club, trumpet lessons and practice and two other sports clubs. She finishes school at 3 and is full of energy so it isn't a problem.

[Partron]

And she is not really serious about the trumpet - ie we are not even thinking grades at this stage. My dd2 learnt violin and the emphasis on grades put her off at grade 4. I really wish I had encouraged her to play for fun only in which case she would probably still be doing it.

[ComeonSummer1]

Is he happy? Are you happy to pay/Getty to all these activities. Is he ok st school or tired?

Only you and he can answer these and the answers should decide you.

[LaContessaDiPlump]

This is a really interesting thread - both DH and I grew up doing few or no extracurricular activities. I would have liked to do more but my parents weren't interested, DH didn't care as he was off playing with mates and his parents weren't interested either.

The interesting thing is that DH's brother has gone mad on activities with his own DC, whilst DH gets very very twitchy and accuses me of being 'sharp-elbowed middle class' if I suggest that DS1 does more than one activity a week

This thread is a useful guide to what constitutes 'normal'!

[starry0ne]

My Ds does guitar and wasn't practising... I gave him till half term to start practising or I would cancel his lessons... He did actually start practising and then improved immensely...

My DS (8)does a lot he does swimming lessons, I think will be finished in 6 months. lifesaving, choir ( just finishing ) cubs and cricket when season starts Easter..

If I was you I would drop on instrument and swimming...He is swimming regularly at life saving..Our local pool do fun sessions with inflatables for 8+ ..He can go in them with his mates..

One thing I have learnt is my DS needs more time to just be a boy and do things for fun rather than so he gets better.. Lifeguarding is that for him..He is not very good at cricket but loves it..He went to a drama thing over half term he loved..I said he could do the drama group or cricket no more...

[Schwabischeweihnachtskanne]

My 8 yo does football and taekwando - football is 3 times a week in summer but only once a week in winter (I know that sounds counter intuitive but that's how it is here), and he only goes once a week to taekwando.

He wants to learn the guitar but DH thinks it would be too much to have 3 activities esp in summer when football training is 3 times a week... and I can't make up my mid 100% but tend to broadly agree, plus logistics will be hard and when he is home he mostly plays football with his friends, so its not as though he's bored!

DD is learning the trumpet and does Taekwando - she used to do football for 4 years, but gave it up when she started secondary as it was too much on top of homework (her matches tended to be up to an hour's drive away which would wipe out most of ever Saturday, as well as training twice a week)

So I think your list sounds like too much :o

However my 8 yo is one of 3 children and logistics would also be impossible with seven different activities, some of which are multiple times a week, especially if we tried to be "fair" - it'd be insane logistically unless we somehow insisted they all do the same activities regardless of interest and age... as well as prohibitively expensive!

[wheelofapps]

Only MN 'normal' though, Contessa!

My dd would do something every night if she could.

My ds finds it all very hard and currently does one thing (started last week).

They both have huge imaginations and can 'free play' for hours, inventing whole worlds and writing stories about them / making films.

Many Victorian children who had stultifying 'nursery' lives grew up to be some of our greatest writers of Literature due to their amazing imaginations.

they need time to 'be bored' too.

[BertrandRussell]

"BertrandRussell Unless children decide by the time they're around 7 that they want to commit and practice every single day, they cannot reach their potential."

I suppose it depends what you mean by "potential" Does grade 8 in two instruments and singing sound all right to you? Bearing in mind that she was never intending to be a professional musician and had lots of other interests?

Younger one's obviously a proper failure. Only grade 6 so far. Oh, well, he can spend the money he earns busking on therapy later if the sudden realization that he hasn't reached his potential hits,,,,,,,,,,,,

[PandasRock]

For all those who are saying that not practising an instrument means it isn't worthwhile learning - I rarely practised as a child/teen.

I played 3 instruments, 2 to grade 7 (third I didn't take exams, but was certainly competent enough). I just didn't practise. I got by perfectly fine with my weekly lessons plus orchestra playing. It was only ever 'for fun', as I never wanted to take it further.

[Twinklestein]

Grade 8 may sound impressive to you, but it's not a particularly high standard. I did grade 8 on two instruments when I was 13.

A 15 year old should be much further on than grade 6. If he enjoys it, it would be much more fun and fulfilling for him if he could play more advanced repertoire with a better technique.

[steppemum]

ds - (now 13) - over the years - did swimming (I insisted until he could swim well)
tried cubs for a year and then stopped.
did drums for a year.

Didn't want to do anything else at all, all through primary.
Then in year 6 joined football club.
Football is now all he does.
He loves to have chill/unstructured time.

dd1 (10) does brass band on Mondays, guitar lessons on tuesdays, football club on wednesdays, newspaper club on thursdays, swimming and scouts on fridays.
Yesterday she was really pushing for me to find time for her to join martial arts class.
She thrives on group activities of any kind.

dd2 (8) does (out of school) Brownies, drama club and swimming, and finds that too many evening activities, and wants to drop one.
She has just started music lessons at school.

To me, so much depends on the personality of the child, if they are enjoying it (and I am happy for them to do eg music and not practice much as long as they enjoy it)
It also depends on the rest of the family. Dh works from home, and most of ours are walking distance, so easy, but on the weeks he is away, and I have to drag siblings round to drop off and pick up it is a nightmare.

[starry0ne]

My DS isn't learning the guitar ( in my mind) to be a rock star...I want him to be able to strum a guitar when he is older..

Also as for down time.. My DS has a diagnosis which makes school work mentally exhausting but at the same time is like the Duracell bunny physically... So sometimes he just sit and watch TV sometimes he needs to balance his energy out....

They are all different and whats right for one child is not for another.

I do believe that when they are in school they have to follow instructions all day so an element of choice should be involved.

[BertrandRussell]

"Grade 8 may sound impressive to you, but it's not a particularly high standard. I did grade 8 on two instruments when I was 13"

Good. Well done.

[SansaClegane]

I am at most of the replies here. They are children - do they really need to do an 'activity' every single day of the week?!
My oldest DS (just turned 7) only does two things a week, one is a musical instrument and one a sport. I honestly think that's enough for him. It leaves a ouch time for homework and, you know, play time. He loves to curl up with a book, or do some Lego, or play with his brothers after school. Or what about stuff like going to the playground after school, or meeting with friends? I suppose all the other children have scheduled activities as well then??
It just seems crazy to me. Let them be little for a bit. Let them do what they enjoy - does it have to be competitive?

[Schwabischeweihnachtskanne]

Twinkelstein -"A 15 year old should be much further on than grade 6" really? Who cares?

Should kids only go to football if they are dedicated enough to get spotted and play for a premier league youth team? Playing for that 2nd division youth team may sound impressive to you but its really not a very high standard...

If your DD doesn't do 4 hours of ballet a day he or she'll never get into the Royal Ballet school - doing shows at the shopping centre and not being at a world renowned school is positively embarrassing ...

No point sending your kid to that drama group, he's rubbish and will never have a career as an actor... Gymnastics club is wasted on the 6 year old who only goes twice a week, she'll never have an Olympic career...

In fact best your kid drops out of school at 16 and gives up on any kind of further education plans, given he didn't get all A*s at GCSE, that collection of As and Bs is not very impressive and a 16 year old should have done better for study to be worth while...

[Keeptrudging]

I've stopped worrying about grades now. I do agree they need to practice a lot to get the best out of music. DD plays in 3 different bands, all v different repertoire. She's in first flutes in the main (biggest) one. Loves flute, practices every day, half an hour at least on busy days, over an hour on quieter days. Plays all her practice pieces plus her own choices. Composes her own music. Teaching herself 2nd instrument (double keyboard organ). She's about to sit Grade 2 through school. They're a bit slow about doing exams! The main thing is practice and loving playing.