to cancel all DS's evening activities except Fridays

[coolcazzieuk]

My eleven year old DS is creative and active. He also has Asperger's and seems to need more sleep than other boys his age. He goes to a mainstream independent boy's school that is adapted for boys with dyslexia, dyspraxia and Asperger's.

DS's music teacher has discovered he is a talented musician and he is studying for Grade 5. He is a member of the school brass group, orchestra, intermediate jazz group and steel pan band. Two of these groups meet after school 4.30-5.30pm. One meets at lunchtime, one meets twice a week before school. He has decided to join these groups, there has been no pressure at home.

He also gets 20 minutes homework a week four times a week.
Swimming lessons on Saturday 10.30-11am.

On top of this he does: Uniformed Group Fridays 7.45-9.30pm.

Water sports Wednesdays once a fortnight half an hours drive away 7.30pm-8pm excluding travelling,

Wednesdays once a fortnight Uniformed Group Band 7-9pm (which has been leading to much stress regarding losing instrument parts and swapping instruments etc),

Sundays he is going to his Sunday School Youth Group 6.30-8pm as he is too old for the morning Sunday School.

He loves all the activities, but he is exhausted! On these nights he sometimes doesn't get to bed before 10pm. And his body clock wakes him about 6.30pm every morning, even on weekends.

Something has to give.

Us and the grandparents held a council of war. Grandparents are keen for him to continue water sports. We suggested he do water sports on Saturdays instead, perhaps miss swimming once a month to do it as it is on Saturday morning.

We decided he would need to give up Wednesday and Sunday activities, keep Fridays Uniformed Group as they do chess, compass work, God and life skills / outdoor activities, plus no school next day. We wrote a nice letter to the water sports teacher explaining the situation. The teacher is disappointed as he feels DS is on the way to getting a stage 1 certificate in water sports and this is not taught on Saturdays.

If he continues with the water sports, he will still end up having a late night in the middle of a school week, and we would need to give up Uniformed Group instead to get some sanity back in his life.

Am I being unreasonable to continue with our original plan to cut all evening activities except Friday nights?

What does your DS say?

Why are you giving gps any input? Surely it is down to you and ds to agree. For most children it would be a demanding schedule.

And he can do watersports qualifications as intensive courses in school holidays.

Agree he has a lot on.
Can you help him choose some to keep going.
I wouldn't involve grandparents in this decision? But appreciate everyones circumstances are different.

wow, dd1 is super active and your ds does way more.

I think you need to talk to ds.
Something has to give, but he needs ot have input into what.
For example, my dd does brass band, band academy, junior orchestra, senior orchestra and choir.
Then she does scouts (that is a lot at the moment)

I know that she would choose to keep band and scouts and rop out of orchestra. Her school music teacher would wring her hands and be all upset, but to be honest, she is not heading for life as a professional musician, and she loves band and is indifferent to orchestra.

So ask ds, would he rather keep water sports, or drop one/two of the music groups, or drop uniform band etc.

Give him some choice, but also give him some boundaries, only x number of weekday evening etc.

and ignore water sports teacher.
Life is not about certificates, if he likes the sport and can do it once a month at weekends, then do that, it is for fun,

That does sound like too many activities, but why are you and the GPs choosing? DS is plenty old enough to understand that he has taken on so much and he needs to choose which of the x activities he wants to carry on with.

What does he want though? Have you asked him? Why have his grandparents got a say?

Does he have faith and want to go to a church group? Does he want to do watersports? What is the Uniformed Group - is it like scouts / a military style group?

Are GPS paying for his activities?

Maybe OP wanted some other views - eg from GPs and now mumsnet.

Though I agree - what does DS think?

Hi, thanks for input so far.

Grandparents have input because they have bought him the watersports subscription as a gift so expect him to go (no stipulation as to the times or number of sessions though). I like the idea of a course over the holidays. (Grandparents are also atheists and are demanding he stops going to evening Sunday School).

Perhaps we could try and ask him what he would want to do, but he can get very stressed out by decision making.

Regarding choices, I personally am challenged by the grumpy man who runs the Uniform Band is who is getting increasingly testy over the lost and swapped instruments and because of this I would be happy if DS didn't go any more! (Perhaps not a good enough reason to stop the activity though if DS enjoys it).

So I have some personal pressures from grandparents and the grumpy man but admit my choices shouldn't come into it.

What do you think about making a list and asking DS to number the activities in order of preference and do the top 1 or 2?

Please prioritise what DS wants. At his age, the activities are interchangable in terms of 'looking good on his CV' and similar bullshit - let him pick the ones he enjoys the most, and shelve a couple of the others.

Also, he's 11 so at primary school - cut down on the homework time because most primary school homework is fairly pointless.

Sit down with him rather than his Granparents and see what he thinks he should do
Agree he’s doing too much at the moment though, once dd started at High School she found some of her evening clubs too much and had given up a couple by mid year 8

Don’t understand why GP are involved.

And like everyone else - what does your son say?

All th school band stuff is well within the hours of someone in 07:30-18:00 wraparound care, so tbh I don’t see those as extra and tiring - just an activity. He’s at school anyway.

So what you’re really looking at is:
Wed, Fri & Sun night activities and a Saturday morning swim. What else is he going to be doing on a Saturday morning?!

Why is he not getting to bed until 10pm on any night other than the Friday night which is a 9:30pm finish?

Youth club til 8pm on Sunday - straight to bed after for the week ahead.

Ask him what he wants to do.

And is he really exhausted or just very tired by the end of each day but fine at the start of each new day? Because there’s nothing wrong with doing loads and ending up tired on a day to day basis.

First thing to go should be Sunday school. If the man in charge of the band is as bad as you say I'd also drop that but I really don't think a few school hours clubs and a fortnightly watersports session is too much to do midweek.

I did a list thing with my daughter last year. She wasn’t tired, but she was angling to drop something.

I wrote each activity on a piece of card, abc instead of picking favourites (to reduce dcision making) we split them into 3 piles:

• I love this! It’s among my best things
• yeah, I like it but don’t mind when I miss it sometimes
• honestly, I do this because I think mummy won’t let me drop it (school French club, and violin!)

Well, straight away that was 2 gone, and a reminder that clubs are for fun and I won’t force her!

If decision making stresses him, that might be a softer way to go about it? You’re getting an initial ranking without making him actually choose yet.

With Band, can you just sort out the swapping and losing once and for all? Why does he need to swap instruments? It doesn’t sound like his tiredness is the issue there.

You’re giving your parents way too much input here!

Hi,

The discussion about my parents is definitely something I need to have, perhaps I'll get an additional log in name, not so easily attributed, and open a conversation about it somewhere else on mumsnet ;-)

I love the idea of the card piles, I do feel some activities he does because he feels Mummy wants him to do them. So we certainly need to get over that.

First thing to go should be Sunday school.
why??
if ds likes it, and wants to go, why is it automatically the thing that should be dropped?
Don't project your feelings!
And GPs don't get to project their atheism either.
If this is something Op and ds find important, respect that.

If it is top of ds list to be dropped, hmm, think again.

I am guessing that this is Boys Brigade and Boys brigade band. Unless the band is fulfilling something that his other music isn't, it is an obvious one to drop.
My only hesitation may be that he gets lead parts etc in this band if it is smaller and less skilled that school music ensembles?

I think Ellisandra's idea is great.
Also the idea of giving each thing a rating out of 10 for how much he enjoys it. Or maybe 2 ratings, one for how much he enjoys it, and one for how much he wants to keep doing it.

It was a good session with us. I knew violin would go onto the pile - but I was surprised about French club, it was her choice to go, I’d never pushed it.

I guess though she saw it as “learning” and knows that I value school.

Because I came out with the “mummy wants me to” category, she didn’t have to articulate that - so it was quite a giggly session, no stress.

Good luck with your parents

I'd drop the Wednesday activities & think about watersports another time. Plus he gets plenty of music stuff anyway.
I'd keep the Friday night thing because it sounds varied, keep the Saturday swimming (healthy & a good skill to have, plus can inter-change with watersports) & keep Sunday Youth Club because it winds down the weekend nicely, has interaction with other youngsters & in what should be a supportive environment which is a bonus with Asperger's (and I think keeping a religious bit is good for him whatever he goes on to believe - he'll learn good values which never go amiss & it can be a peaceful feeling which is a big bonus when you're autistic - though I admit I'm biased because I find church really beneficial to me).
Maybe cut down one of the other musical things.
But let him decide. Definitely not the GPs!

Yy to the card piles.

And yy to not involving the grandparents.