To much extra curricular?

[Error011]

Just talking with DC on what they'd like to do for extra curricular next year and am interested in others thoughts. She plans on doing musical theatre and competitive dance. It will likely be 3-5 nights, and between 6-8 hours a week (I'm not 100% sure as it depends on timetables and where we go for lessons.) Do you think this is to much?

how old is your dc/what school year? I think that would make a difference (eg, if they are year 10 then that might be too much as they are going to have to start prepping for exams etc)

It depends on so much...
It depends on her age.
It depends on how well organised she is.
It depends on whether she’s got a real talent for it and if you/she thinks she make a successful career out of it in the future.
It depends on her prospects for her academic school work. If she’s struggling academically, perhaps she needs to focus her time and energy into passing the core subjects like maths and English. On the other hand, if she’s struggling academically, she might need to excel in some extra-curricular activities to build her self confidence and add more strings to her bow, so to speak.

That's fine. My three year old does 2 hours of dance, 2 hours of ice-skating, 1 hour of horse riding, 1 hour swimming and 1 hour of off-ice training a week. 16 year old does around 38 hours of training and conditioning. 6-8 hours is nothing. Sport is so important, it keeps kids out of trouble.

I run a kids extra curricular activity. I would def not count on them all being available tbh. There are complicated social distancing rules to adhere to and many clubs just aren’t going to be viable. I am pressing of for now but unless things get a lot easier for us by Christmas I’ll be packing it in unfortunately and lots of other clubs are in a similar position.

Is she already an experienced dancer?
At the dance school DD was at the serious competitive dancers were in for 10-15 hours a week. Not to mention full weekend festivals and competitions.

It can be a very, very expensive hobby with shoes, new leotards, outfits for each dance easily costing more than £200.

You might want to balance dance activities which can be fairly critical with another activity that helps build resilience.
Ofcourse every dance school is different though.

As a comparison, Dd is now a competitive swimmer, 1 hr up to 5 x a week (minimum if 3) + 1 session of dryland training. We are still junior squad so this will increase. Galas roughly once a month, some local and a couple of hours, some 2 full days and the other end of the county requiring overnight stays.

She also does 1 outward bound club which is less structured and allows her to play with friends whilst learning a new skill.

I hope for her that they're running those clubs/activities. There are no drama/music/dance extracurricular clubs allowed at our school from September and not sure when they'll return

The competitive dancers I mention above were from age 6 the older kids were easily on twice that number.

@lukasiak

That's fine. My three year old does 2 hours of dance, 2 hours of ice-skating, 1 hour of horse riding, 1 hour swimming and 1 hour of off-ice training a week. 16 year old does around 38 hours of training and conditioning. 6-8 hours is nothing. Sport is so important, it keeps kids out of trouble.

Your 16 year old does 38 hours of sport a week? On top of school? Bloody hell. That's an awful lot.

3 year olds do off-ice training?! Blimey that is hardcore.

I agree that that amount of time is fine though. My DS does a sport that often takes up the whole of Saturday and Sunday (early til late) and full weeks at a time in the holidays. He also does a second hobby one night a week and boards once a week through choice, which I count as an extra-curricular.

He still seems to have swathes of time to game and faff about at home. All his prep is done at school though (school policy) so we don't have that to fit in.

8yo does an hour of athletics twice a week after school, chess club 1 hour at lunchtime once a week at school, 1 hour swimming lesson once a week. Thinking of putting him into French classes next term, but we'll see.

It completely depends on the age and commitment of your child. I'm assuming that she already has a good amount of dance experience as she wants to do competitions? Have you checked with the school that you plan to join that they will accept your daughter straight onto the competitive squad (from the way you have worded it, it sounds as though you are joining somewhere new)? Depending on the style of dance and the dance school itself - some have a strict audition process for their comp teams you can't just turn up and decide to do competitions with them. You know your daughter's ability and your local schools better than me, it may not be an issue at the dance school(s) that you are joining.

Forgot to add, my comp team dancers do 8-10 hrs a week usually over 3-4 evenings, so 6-8 hrs isn't an unusual amount of training

She will be 6 and has been dancing since she was 2, it will be first year of competitive dance. We will be staying at the same dance studio. I'm unsure on if a choir and acting lessons separate are better suited or if she should do theatre. Also aware they may not be running lessons but have my fingers crossed.

She will be 6 and has been dancing since she was 2, it will be first year of competitive dance. We will be staying at the same dance studio. I'm unsure on if a choir and acting lessons separate are better suited or if she should do theatre. Also aware they may not be running lessons but have my fingers crossed.

We do Beavers/Cubs and swimming. 3 year old does "gymnastics." That's more than enough for us, but there are SN involved. I couldn't imagine my 3 year old doing 7 hours a week of activities They're too busy playing and being a kid.

Minikiev He attends a specialist boarding school after three years training in Germany. It's not the sport that I had picked out for him (I wanted him to do ballet ), but I learned very quickly with Ds16 and DD14 that despite my desire to be a crazy sports mum, you can't force them into sports they don't like. Well, you can, but they'll hate you for it, so I don't. Dd1 refused to ice-skate after the age of 7 or dance after 12. She now just focuses on her ponies, but damn it, I'll make a figure skater out of one of my younger three yet!

My 4year old will be doing 2hrs of dancing and 1hr gymnastics. Then when she's 5 at Christmas also doing rainbows and swimming lessons. That's more than enough. Never mind the price. 5hrs total extra curricular. On top of school. I'd like her to have chill time to relax and do nothing. Being able to entertain yourself without structure is an important skill.

@Error011 It really depends on the child. Like your Dd mine started dancing at 2 in the toddler groups. When she turned 6 more classes were opened up to her and she did them, ballet, tap, modern, singing and drama etc. They were low pressure groups, she was never interested in comp groups and they were definitely higher pressure with a great demand for perfection.

Only you know what your child is like or what they can handle. Children tend to be exhausted in the first term back at school, particularly little ones. Some children will do lots of hours of extracurricular and others will do none. Looking back I regret all of the hours we spent during Dds younger years at the dance school. If you have other children know that competitive level activities in any sport can really takeover the rest of the family. There is no harm in trying it out though if she wants to do it

Thank you all, I just don't want to over do it and have her burn herself out.