Am I allowing my DD to grow up lazy and unmotivated?

[happyvalleyvalley]

All my DD's friends are all doing huge numbers of extra curricular activities. Gymnastics, ballet, piano, dance, brownies, swimming, French, Spanish, recorder, etc etc

My DD (7) doesn't want do anything. I ask her regularly about starting doing brownies or gymnastics etc but she always says no. I have a friend who basically forces her DD to do things but I feel it's hard enough getting her to do the things she has to do (school and homework etc) that I don't want to force her to do extracurricular activities as well.

So AIBU? Am I allowing her to become lazy? Should she be doing more? Or is it not an issue?

I think some people are joiners, and some are not.

There's a story on the BBC news site today about the increasing level of sleep problems among children. British children are the most sleep deprived in Europe, apparently. I wonder to what extent these endless 'activities' contribute to this - children don't have enough time to relax and unwind mentally and physically if they're on the go all the time.

Story here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39162365

Its not laziness, only my dd does something after school and studies show its better to allow some unstructured hours in their day.

Why does it have to be organised activities?
Why not just take her places and do different activities yourself?
You can take her swimming, to the library, shopping, to the park, do loads of activities at home.
Not going to organised activities won't make her lazy.

As long as she is happy, not bored and gets enough fresh air and excercise, I think it's perfectly ok. However, these days where kids play out a lot less and spend their time on screens I think it is important to make sure they have an interest in something active.

Looking back, the first things I did were a gym club and art club at school when I was 7. Dance became my staple until my teenage years. Every thing else was orientated around school. Down time and entertaining yourself is important. At home, I was isolated from other children (by location) and entertained myself with reading/ playing/ drawing.

DS (6) has swimming, gymnastics and Beavers. Two are on one night. I'm happier having one busier night that frees up another, particularly as he gets lugged out with me for Brownies on another evening. He gets some free time every evening except that busy one, plus no routines at weekends which we'll tend to use towards family swimming/ parks/ National Trust at some point.

Beavers is is good all round interest. Swimming is a useful sport and of benefit for holidays/ future sporting options. Gymnastics is a good foundation in agility and coordination for any other sports that he wants to do in the future. I think he has enough on, and a fair balance between structure, extra curricular development and chance to relax by himself and do his own thing (mainly building Lego)

Back to is she lazy and unmotivated; that depends on what she does. If she's actively entertaining herself, then she isn't. Room for spontaneity is also good. There are lazy and unmotivated children ferried off to activities that can't entertain themselves and get little chance to.

I think the opposite of lazy and unmotivated is having a work ethic, and I think that has to be learned- it doesn't just happen in all children.

I'm not saying that taking kids to organised activities will teach them a work ethic, it's perfectly possible to be lazy whilst at swimming or gymnastics. However, these sorts of things do provide one vehicle where kids can learn that you reap what you sow.

I don't think it matters HOW you enable it, but I do think it's important for every child to learn perseverance and that you only get what you want if you work hard at it. If they don't learn that, you end up with the dreaded 'entitled' attitude. It's up to individual families how to foster that learning though.

Can she swim? That's a fairly essential life skill.

And brownies / cubs cover so many activities that family and school don't have time for. Depending on your work schedule it might be a good idea to encourage her to do one or two extra curricular groups.

It completely depends on what she is doing instead. If it is just coming home from school, putting the tv on and barely moving every night then yes you are being unreasonable. Part of parenting is raising healthy children. To be healthy exercise is important. So, instead of asking what organised activities people do, try asking what exercise your daughter gets.

How far can she swim?

Thanks for your comments, everyone. Food for thought. Generally she gets enough exercise because we walk to and from school (2miles) plus she comes on dog walks and helps me with my horse. Today we're going swimming so that's more exercise.

I think the main issue is shyness so I'm trying to convince her to go to an activity with a friend but I've had resistance to that so far.

I think I'll just keep plugging on and make sure she knows if there's anything she wants to do then she can.

Yes she can swim. She had lessons for about 18 months but stopped when she got a new teacher she didn't like and I've struggled to get her back to lessons.

So we just go swimming as a family at weekends- we're going today.

Don't force her top do stuff! Think of the poor (often volunteer) leaders !
She doesn't have any social problems with the other girls does she?

I kind of did the opposite with dd 3 than with the older 2. She did no out of school activities until she was 7. Then we did brownies and 1 2 1 swimming lessons. She is 9 now and has added a gym session for an hour and does trampolining for an hour on saturdays. I only let her do what she loves (apart from thr swimming). If she didnt want yo do it i wouldnt make her. She was shy as a little one and spent long enough at school and after school club. My eldest was similar. Very shy. For some reason at the time i thought that doing lots of out of school activites would cure this! Ylu live and learn

I wouldnt let my children stop swimmimg lessons because they didn't like the teacher. Firstly, id ask why they didnt like the teacher, try to address rhat. If it couldn't be addressed id find a different swimmimg class. My son didnt want to go swimming anymore. It was because he had gone up a group and was finding it far more challenging. He carried on. He was fine. You're letting her quit things on a whim. That's not a great lessln to learn. That sounds a little lazy on your part tbh too.

Also it is far more important for shy children to challenge themselves as it slowly increases their comfort circle. Find something a shy child is comfortable with and slowly build on it. Dont stop completely.

I forced mine to do swimming lessons until they could get themselves out of trouble in water, if need be.

What Talking said is very true.

My DCs haven't stopped any activity as I make them complete the term, by which time they have changed their minds and want to continue.

Never quit on a bad day.

If I've paid, your doing it

It's not an issue. My seven year old does brownies and an acting/singing/dancing class. She only just started them. Before Christmas she didn't want to do anything and just liked spending time with us. Some days she will moan she doesn't want to go. But I paid lump sums upfront for both and once she's been she said she loved it. I think she just gets anxious before them.

So unless it's a confidence thing holding her back then I'd not worry about it.

I think it's nice to be good at something. Be it roller skating or art. I also like them to have friends outside of their school friends so if something happens at school, it's not the end of their world. My dd is at a sleepover right now with a friend she met at her athletics club.

As she can swim and does lots of exercise I wouldn't care.
Get her to do BBC bite size French or some other language and take her out to museums or theatre or galleries with the money you save (this is what I do!).
I used to read excessively and didn't like activities either.

Seems a shame to drop an 18-month hobby over not liking the new teacher. That makes any activity so fragile, coaches, tutors, teammates, choir members change all the time.

Not sure I would have let her stop for that, unless the teacher was extremely unpleasant, in which case I'd see if that can be addressed.

I wanted my kids to enjoy swimming, not just learn how to swim.
They did lessons for a short time but when they no longer wanted to do them I stopped them.
We went swimming every week as a family and they learnt to swim whilst having fun. That was far more beneficial than forcing them to go to lessons that they weren't enjoying.
I got nothing out of swimming lessons as a child but learnt to swim when I went for fun with friends and family.