Too many after-school activities?

[Notapushymum1]

Would you judge if you found out that an 8 year old classmate of your child is doing 9 activities per week, which add up to approximately 16 hours per week?

I personally think children left to play with their friends (when they have friends over) is very different to being at organised activities. Child led time to play is very important!

Curious - yes, they do do the daily mile apparently which I also think is a marvellous idea. (Although I think their teachers, none of whom are remotely sporty, bless them, do come up with various ways of getting out of it; too rainy, too hot, too snowy, too windy, practise for plays etc)

Child led play is important, but I don't think many of these children who do activities don't have any child led play. My child got two hours a night at the childminder, playing with his friends, then some time at home, doing whatever he wanted either play with kids in Street or play on his own at home, then an hour and a half at sports activities. Plenty time for activities and his own play.

Yes it really does require commitment from all the staff to keep it up. But it’s so important in these days when natural activity is limited. The classroom results speak for themselves so I’m always sad that the commitment isn’t so enthusiastic. I’m constantly asking about it at school to keep up the momentum - if you claim to do it, you have to do it every day come rain or shine. I’d bloody love to join in if I was a teacher but that’s not the impression I get as a parent.

Tabby - yes playing at child minder and in street would be child led play I agree.

A different poster was claiming that as they were at activities they didn't need any other time with children.

Curious - the daily mile is ace. I wish our school did it! Our school used to do optional "laps" before school with certificates for equivalent distances travelled. It was brilliant. Lots of sports clubs... until he left:(

I might judge if it was lots of different unrelated activities. But not if it was to facilitate a particular interest/talent

For example Dd used to do

3 x 45 min dance classes
1 x 30 min piano lesson
1x 30 min LAMDA lesson
3 hours drama/musical theatre lesson
1hour dance performance group
All day Sunday theatre rehearsals.

I would think it odd and wonder if the parents had trouble spending time with their child or whether their child had trouble with unstructured time (in which case I would be working on that rather than avoiding it).
Even if a child really wants to do all those activities it will do them absolutely no favours to structure their time so much that they never learn how to deal with free time.
As I’m not the parent though I would keep these thoughts to myself and say absolutely nothing.

Stick - lobby your school! Get your kids to. Get your mates’ kids to. Get your kids class to! Write to the SMT and governors. It took many such approaches to get it semi introduced at our school, get a few like minded kids and parents to write to the school and spell out benefits. Parent pressure is king but the teachers ultimately will benefit in classroom behaviour, health and academic achievement. You don’t need space- you can do it running back and forth on playground beep test style or going round playground in laps. Walk jog run. Sell it’s inclusivity. It’s as important to me as maths to be honest, perhaps more so.

My 6yr old does similar. She loves it. It’s different dance classes-balletx2, LAMDA, musical theatre, tap and Irish dancing. Plus tennis and swimming. She won’t give up any, she cries when I suggest cutting back!!!I don’t care if people judge us, it’s our lives. Absolutely none of your business!!!

Porkflute....I'm curious, why would you think it was odd that a child does lots of activities? And why would you consider that the parent had trouble spending time with their child? I would think the opposite. The parent would spend their time ferrying their child about, and hours watching then do something they enjoy, rather than sat inside the house whilst their child is outside unsupervised.

Sounds like alot!

"I silently judge the parents of kids who don't get taken anywhere and don't do any activities."
It can be very difficult to get some children to leave the house. Some children need more supervision than is available. Sometimes there are no suitable activities.

Well generally I go for structure when I’m uncomfortable with something. If you’re putting your child in the care of others basically all evening and weekend but for lifts I’d think that there was a high chance that you were trying to avoid spending time with your child or that your child is difficult if not constantly occupied. Equally if you shove them in front of the tv.
A mixture of family time and free play with limited structured activities is the ideal imo. But like I said not my child, not my problem!

If you’re putting your child in the care of others basically all evening and weekend but for lifts I’d think that there was a high chance that you were trying to avoid spending time with your child or that your child is difficult if not constantly occupied.

Let's just think about this logically.

Amount of time out of school in the evening - say 4 hours a day (assuming say a 3.15 pm school finish, and a 7.15 bedtime / wind down to bedtime). Then, say, up from 9 am to 7 pm both days at weekends.

That's 40 hours a week available.

If a child spends 16 of those at structured activities, there are still 24 (at least, as it is quite likely that a child of 8 will be up longer than i have indicated at the weekends) that you can spend with your child, and that they can have unstructured time / playdates etc.

I would also say that, IME, many working parents spend less long with their children in the week than someone who takes their child to activities for an hour or so after school.

Even if the child does 2 hours after school every day (and the OP says it is less than this), the child still sees their parent for 2 hours a night at least before bedtime.

The child in childcare until 6 pm sees their parent less. The child who is picked up from after school club by the au pair / nanny even less.

16 hrs activity time could likely be doubled if you take into account ferrying them there and back. If my dc do an activity after school it is a struggle to fit in the basics of homework, eating and bathing before bed never mind having time for them to play or relax.

I personally found adter school activities stressful as hell. It ruined the whole day knowing I’d have to go and whatever instead of just being home to recharge.
I needed the downtime - not an hour before bed after an activity, a proper time with nothing planned. And just for the inevitable ‘oh but my kid loves it’ - well it’s funny but that exactly what my parents said when I told them this a few years back - oh but you loved x!
No I didn’t.,I felt I had to do it.

Every kid is different. Some children and adults struggle with any unstructured time, others desperately need it for their mental wellbeing.

It depends - the P doesn't say if they are local or far afield?

DD's main activity is 15 mins walk from my house. So even when she did 15 hours a week at one point, travel (usually the 5 min drive if late at night) added very little to it.

OTOH, DS's football did take up much more travel time as he was with a local club's Academy and got ferried off to matches all over the country.

40 free hours and 16 per activity assumes no travel time, and no household admin (food, bathing.) if you do an activity on an evening then that’s the evening gone by the time you’re home and sorted
I personally think seven would have been unbearable for me. Obviously all kids are different and like adults some need to have every moment accounted for, or busy, or occupied in some way. Each to their own.

Would I judge? Possibly silently, people are judgey buggers ;) but each to their own. I’d accept they were probably judging me right back and be ok with that too.

Dd would have liked to do more activities. Unfortunately as they only were after school between the hours of 4pm and 9pm trying to fit in everything she wanted to do was never going to happen.

Dd even now can work from 9am till 4 am at least once per week sometimes twice.

She has 4 jobs she can be found at each week and another 5 jobs that she does occassionly although one part of her business she has just started to do looks very promising. 3 jobs in 24 hours and 2 more the next day.
All this is around her eca. She definitely couldn't have done what she is doing now if she had stayed in and done her homework

Dd wasn't the most academic child so I had to find something she could be good at and she enjoyed

Even assuming that weekdays all have 2hours a night, that still leaves 9hours over the weekend, which for my children, would have been too much.
My children love activities after school and generally have done at the upper end of their peers, but I think the most any have done is dd2 when she was coaching gym 2 evenings got to 14 hours. She decided after a year of that she needed to cut back and now does 8.

It sounds like a lot of activities but maybe that isn’t such a big deal. The only thing I ordered judge is when the oldest child starts off doing LOADS of activities and then younger siblings do far fewer, mainly because it isn’t possible to fit in as many activities for them as for the oldest child.

I knew a few kids like this when I was growing up and their siblings always had to be dragged to a load of events.

I wouldn't judge because to be honest I don't really care.

At what age do you generally start these activities for your kids? My eldest is 4 and doesn't do any real hobby style regular activities. I'm thinking of starting something for him now but full time work, commute and costs will limit what we can do. He does a free lego club at the library occasionally. He's starting swimming lessons next month.