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?

A lot of the people against activities, are suggesting that the alternative is child led/imagination type play - whereas for many it would be a screen.

I have found activities actually increase the amount of time dd plays. Eg on a day with an activity, she will come home after it and disappear in to her room to play. On a day where we come straight home from school, the tv goes straight on, then there's the debate/battle/argument/negotiation to get her away.

@YTho
I think swimming should start by 5 or 6, or earlier if they enjoy it.
My experience with my own 2 dds was that anything they do up till about 7 is just for fun, but imo after 8, they should be doing daily exercise outside of school. Whether that be playing in the park or a structured activity.

If your kids know that screen time is a set amount of time that is non negotiable - 30 mins after tea for eg then there is no arguing ime. If arguing leads to the parent putting the tv on for a quiet life then yes they’ll argue.

Even assuming that weekdays all have 2hours a night, that still leaves 9hours over the weekend

?

2x5 = 10

16 - 10 = 6?

I have 3 kids and each has 1 mid week activity and 1 weekend activity (kickboxing, brownies, rainbows, stage school). Plus I teach a club 2 mid week evenings and 1 weekend morning so we are always on the go for one of us.

Coming from a person who didn't do anything really as a child I am grateful that my kids can do their activities and they enjoy them and yet we still have plenty of family time.

Personally I judge parents who don't have their kids do some kind of extra curricular activity with so much on offer these days and after school sports clubs and things.

Besides the health benefits of after school sports I also think children learn good social skills. I know a few children who are very shy and uncomfortable being around people, I think sports builds children's confidence. is it a coincidence that none of these shy kids do any after school hobbies....maybe there's a connection??

No-one’s saying don’t do any activities but if nearly all of your free time is full of them and you have no downtime at all that isn’t good for kids.
How many adults would like to go straight from work to an activity then home, eat tea and go to bed every day? I think adults forget that they have a few hours after the kids are in before to relax whereas their children get no time to do that.

I teach some over-scheduled kids like that, albeit at secondary level. Frankly they are a nightmare to teach! They don’t concentrate, they don’t know how to prioritise independently, and simply have no idea how to organise themselves. I’m not talking about lack of time for homework, I mean in class when they are given something to do by themselves they can’t manage because they are so used to having their time organised for them! God forbid if I give them more than one lesson to do something!! These are Y10 and older btw. So actually, based on 20+ years of teaching teenagers, I think over organising their time when they’re young does them no favours at all.

I wouldn’t care but I must admit I am a bit perplexed at the trend these days for some kids to spend every waking moment doing some form of structured activity. When I was a kid people did at most a couple of things along the lines of dancing/football/brownies/music lessons and now it’s all horse-riding/skiing/drama and shizz.

Primary schools kids are done by 3pm! Plenty of time to do something.

Not if their parents are working full time and not able to collect them from childcare til 6.

Dd does a lot of related music and performing activities, plus the requisite practice at home. She also does a sport because I think it is healthy and she enjoys it(swimming). She has plenty of down time, and as pp have said it will be a blessing if she continues her activities as a teenager

I would also imagine that if they’re doing 9 separate activities chances are they aren’t very good at any of them.

dont go round judging other people.
my dd3 does brownies, rockclimbing , dancing and trampolining. because at the moment i am not working and she can. before she did brownies.
friends of older kids did hours of danci ng or sports. theyve all grown up to be nice kids

I wouldn't judge. Certainly not if the child is enjoying it. But it
Must be knackering for whoever has to organise and Taxi. And is this figure
Multiplied because
There are other siblings doing similar hours?

Not if their parents are working full time and not able to collect them from childcare til 6.

true ,but child minders around here are the ones who taxi the kids back and forth if parents are not available.

true ,but child minders around here are the ones who taxi the kids back and forth if parents are not available.

Ah double whammy paying childminder and activities!

Mine go to an after school club who are really quite good they will pick kids up from school if they are doing the after school clubs the school put on.

that's one of the reasons many mothers work, to pay for all the "extra"!

Ha no doubt! I have had people say to me with a straight face they don’t know how I can work the hours I do, they wouldn’t have time due to the kids’ activities