Kids after school activities

[chocolateroses]

Is it just me or do kids just do so many classes and activities these days? I'm feeling the pressure to match others but also thinking how I never did all that stuff and I'm ok?

Swimming, gymnastics, football, ballet, beavers, rainbows.... the list goes on. Parents seem to have so much ££££ and kids are busy doing something extra everyday.

I'm not judging, but am genuinely less of a good parent if I don't jump on this bandwagon?

None! DS1 (12) used to do 2, a musical instrument and a sport. It was ALWAYS a fuss to go, he never practiced, it just seemed that even though he enjoyed the actual half hour he was there, it never really impacted on the rest of his life - he didn't seem to get any enjoyment out of playing the instrument (never once picked it up outside of the lesson) and had no interest in pursuing the sport at all.
So we stopped. And we are all much, much happier.
He plays at home (limited screen time) or sees friends, and I genuinely don't think we're missing out on anything.

DS2 is almost 4 and does a sports-group thing for little ones once a week, which he really enjoys.

Oh and DS1 can rarely play with certain friends because they have literally every single afternoon booked up with various activities. I think it must impact on friendships to a certain extent.

I wish I’d put my eldest into more activities outside school now. He’s 16 now and a bit past it. Any activities he did do really gave him a lot I feel, and the discipline of doing things outside of school that are structured.

I do keep up one fitness and one music instrument class for him once a week though.

Some of my family a bit nuts, they have very little downtime at any point and go to competitions too involving 3 hour car journeys etc. One of their children at one point was in 3 different football clubs. However they are giving their kids so many opportunities and the kids are thriving.

I'd really love for my DD to do after school clubs but literally nothing exists in our area for kids with disabilities - so sad for her not to be able to join clubs as she desperately wants to.

On the other side of the coin, I don't know how some of my friends with 3 kids do it when they all learn instruments, play in sports clubs etc. It seems endless picking up and lift sharing with people to get kids from A to B - exhausting!!

Mine do a lot. Three reasons;

1. They enjoy them all
2. 6 hours (between school finish and bedtime) is a long time to fill. Plenty of time for sport plus downtime. Reduces screen time.
3. I don't think they do enough exercise at school.

Horses for courses.
My 10yo does bloody loads!
But she loves them all - mostly her suggestions, and any that were mine, were the ones enthusiastic embraced. She’s given things up along the way - she knows she can, so I’m not concerned that I’m making her do stuff.

Perhaps it’s an only child thing, but I don’t feel that she lacks unstructured time or time with me. Take a Saturday - 4 activities one after the other 08:45-15:00. All journeys between them we have fab 1:1 time, and then 15:00-21:00 is still 6 solid hours of me worrying about too much screen time, meeting friends, playing with me, movie night, reading...

She says when she doesn’t want to do something, and I always listen - it’s few and far between. She’d do more!

Each to their own though - suits us, but it’s not better than other people’s way.

Totally depends on the child. Mine does four activities a week, two sport, two music, plus often has additional rehearsals for performances. He has made some fantastic friends and this has paid off now he is off to secondary school and no one from his class is going to the same school, but several from his activities will be.
I think it's important to have interests and hobbies. He's not tired or stressed and enjoys what he does.

thedisorganisedmum, yes I agree that they need to be active, being still is not necessarily a physical thing, it is a mental thing to still the mind, to give it breathing space to learn how to be in touch with their own bodies and minds, it does not mean plonking them down in front of the TV.

Its a skill people need to be able to cope with the frantic lives we lead which will probably be even more frantic by the time these children are grown. If all we teach them is how to keep going and fill every night with organised activities then when they are adults they wont have the skills to balance life and puts them in positions ideal to encourage burn out.

They need to learn how to disengage from the world to explore their own minds rather than feeling they have to have the need to fill every second. No one is saying no after school clubs they are brilliant, there is just no need to have them every night and weekend. Its about teaching balance, giving breathing space, learning its ok to be bored and how to deal with that - how many of us experience boredom at work? we need to deal with it.

There is on the other hand no need for sport, they can be active by running around playing at break time (my DS spends about an hour playing outside at school every day - tag etc), walks to school, walks the dog cycling places etc, and arguably learning at an early age to build activity into daily lives rather than having to have it organised is better long term.

Go for a family walk in the countryside or on the beach, practice mindfulness with them, slow the world down for them rather than dashing from one activity to another, one learning goal to another, one exam to another.

My DS 9 does lots of clubs at the moment, a few at school and then a sport and swimming other days,
his only free day is one day at the weekend, but he enjoys them and knows if he wants to stop he can (apart from the swimming, I encourage him to stick with that)
I know he won’t do half as much once he hits senior school so I’m happy for him to try all these different activities while he still has the energy for them.
We also don’t have a garden so exercise at home can be limited unless we all get out for a walk etc.
At the moment the only club we have to pay for is swimming, his after school clubs at school are free and the sport is free apart from the odd small donation towards new kit/equipment.

None.

My son does swimming, scouts, Pokémon twice a week and school clubs twice a week. He is busy but it’s all things he really enjoys and gets benefit from so I don’t mind. I think if I was having to drag him to them it would be a different story.

Tbh, the majority of classes are half an hour or an hour. School finishes at 3ish in a lot of places so that leaves plenty of time to do an activity if they want to and still leave loads of time for hanging out in the garden etc.

And the paltry amount of movement they get at school, even with PE and break times is not enough for an active child.

Mine do a lot in the week; we have one completely clear night if I include that they tend to get lugged out to my Brownies as DH often isn't back, but they can dip in and out of that as they wish.

We still have plenty of time for dossing around the house and denying requests for tech time . It helps that most of the activities are within a 400m walk so minimal travel time. One child has a Sat 9am class which is the only weekend commitment, but they often choose to do jnr parkrun which needs no prior commitment. No team fixtures, competitions etc.

School tend to have free sports clubs for a term at a time before school which DS2 is keen on, DS1 is losing interest and begining to opt out.

Play dates are a pain to organise around friends' parents' working hours, so playing out isn't going to happen anyway.

I did dancing a couple of times a week through junior/ secondary school. That led me on to things like aerobics and yoga in adulthood. For someone who despised PE, I've always been an active adult. DS1 is more enthused about his martial art than team sports like football. I got a lot out of my hobbies and they still strongly influence me now. I wanted my DCs to experience more than school life, yet we still have a decent amount of unstructured, spontaneous time.

Mine don;t do much compared to many of our friends but we do seem to have something every night (though often just for one of them).

8yo dd does swimming one night a week and brownies one night plus some terms an after school club like gardening or gymnastics or drama, run by teachers.

6yo ds does karate one night and beavers one night and also a club at school some terms.

3 yo does nothing.

The big two both do piano at school.

We don't do any clubs or structured activities on weekends.

DS is 5 and he does multisports one day after school and football another. They are both after school clubs run by the school.

The multisports is perfect as it actually saves me £11 afterschool club fee because I can pick him up from the sports club. I like that there is no effort involved on my part in him attending these!

He also does swimming at the weekend. He’s not so bothered about this but I think it’s important that he’s able to swim to reasonable standard

I’d like to take him to try karate but we often don’t get home until 545 Monday to Wednesday so don’t want to take what little time he has at home before bed away from him as he’s in bed for 8pm

DD is in Y2 and just does Rainbows and ballet. She was doing cookery club at school but it's so popular they only get half a term each. I think two evenings is enough for her at the moment as she gets so tired. She does some of the lunchtime clubs at school, which works well for her because she doesn't cope very well with all the noise in the playground, and works well for me because they're free.

I agree about swimming being a vital skill and we need to fit that in somewhere. When we tried swimming lessons before she behaved so badly we were asked to remove her so we thought we'd leave it a bit.

Mine all have music lessons (the youngest two have two instruments) and attend ensembles/orchestra, the middle and eldest do a musical theatre group - but we're dropping this soon as I don't really like it (mega cliquey!), youngest does football and swimming and the middle one also does Brownies.
Apart from Brownies, all of the activities take place on two week days or a Sat morning, which means we have Sunday free, as well as three weekdays. I will sometimes drag myself out of bed to go to Jnr Parkrun - the kids will run or they'll volunteer as marshalls with me if they fancy coming at all.
This works well for us. The kids have a good range of activities that they enjoy, they're learning musical skills and they have plenty of downtime to play outside, read, or chill in front of the TV etc.
When I was a child, I did Brownies/Guides and outward bound activities with a youth group. I also had my pony that I rode as much as possible.

I think there's always been plenty of things for kids to do but it's more in your face these days because of social media. Schools do seem to offer more extra curricular activities than they used to though.

I have 3 children and I've just counted 14 activities a week between them, plus the after school sports clubs which change termly.
I think unless you are privately educating your child you have to do all the extra curricular activities to ensure they have had the opportunity to try different clubs/activities. Privately educated children get these opportunities in school - just a longer day.

The reason I fully plan to do this when I have kids is just that it keeps them out of mischief especially once in their teens. I would not want my kids hanging around carparks/park benches etc. This is one way to ensure they are not causing trouble and also being productive while teaching them that especially exercise is an important part live.

The reason I fully plan to do this when I have kids is just that it keeps them out of mischief especially once in their teens.

Good luck getting a teenager to take part in an activity s/he doesn't want to do.

I would not want my kids hanging around carparks/park benches etc.

Why does it have to be one or the other? I didn't do a lot of structured activity when I was in my teens. I managed not to hang around car parks and park benches. Oh, we did go to the park sometimes. In the summer, to walk and sit in the sun and talk.

I think the danger is, if young people grow up accustomed to having all their time planned out for them, they won't know how to manage their own time when they go to university and suddenly have loads of unstructured time to fill.

And everything Lifeover said.

@AnnaComnena I grew up and with a Taiwanese mother it 'No' was just not an option. They can have some choice over the activity but it will be a structured activity. Plus we see over and over again kids in a structured environment tend to perform better academically. They finish school by 3:30 nothing wrong with a choice of sport, extra math, extra english, choice of instrument, and guides/scouts. Also it looks good once applying for university if you are seen to have diverse interests and school activities

my 3 can do whatever they want, provided it falls on a day that we can accomodate. They do activities mon/th/sa/su - I won't be adding anything additional onto the free days unless it's something they have a burning desire for.
The kids are sporty, they are fun- while they want to do this we are happy to support this. It's not an angsty issue, nor a competitive one. It just is what it is.

@RebeccaWrongDaily 4-5 days of activity sounds completely reasonable to me nothing wrong with that.

I think the danger is, if young people grow up accustomed to having all their time planned out for them, they won't know how to manage their own time when they go to university and suddenly have loads of unstructured time to fill

Quite - When did we become such slaves to the wants and whims of our children? An activity every night ? No way in hell would I be doing that. For a start both DH and I work with a commute so my DD6 doesn’t get picked up from after school club til 5.30pm. ( we then have reading & spellings to do) She has done a number of different clubs within school including street dance, illustration club and Spanish over the last years ( at varying times). At the moment she does ballet and swimming at the weekend and this in addition to any birthday parties she might be invited to means we don’t get a free day for other things at all. That’s a sacrifice we make because it’s not her fault that we both work but it tends to set a precedent that her needs / interests are always prioritised over anyone else’s which is not a great lesson IMO. It’s also incredibly expensive to keep paying for multiple classes in addition to the wrap around care costs. She does get a lot of opportunity to go to events like the ballet at Sadlers wells etc etc which would not have happened to me growing up. We’ve just been to see Aladdin at the West End and although she enjoyed herself I don’t think she was as excited as I would have been as a child with that kind of outing. I think there are definite dangers with so much entertainment laid on if you’re not careful.