To be fed up with comments on DDs activity level

[Jensai]

So my DD is 8, she's in Y4. As far as kids go she has a never ending supply of energy. Right now we channel that into sports mostly. She does Tennis competitively and for fun does snowboarding once a week at the indoor ski centre (1hr15 min away so an absolute PITA, but she loves it) 2 hours recreational gymnastics on the weekend which she mainly does as she likes being with her friends and she's just been accepted onto the local harriers junior team.
Now I know it's a lot, tennis is about 5/6 hours a week, harriers is 2, snowboarding 1 and gymnastics is 2.
She is also aware that competing in tennis and harriers will be hard.
She just snowboards for fun, doesn't want to compete and I'm really keen to keep a love of sport just because and not to win anything so let it happen.

Now I'm constantly getting comments about when does she just be, when does she just play.
DD doesn't just play ever. Today she has tennis in the afternoon but nothing else. So far she's been out on the trampoline since 7.30 (we have no immediate neighbours for about 50m). DH is going to have to take her out to do something as we won't get to 2pm for tennis without her losing her mind.
She gets 1 hour of TV Friday-Sunday and never uses it. She reads before bed and her definition of playing is occasionally playing with her teddy bears but it never lasts long before she is back on the trampoline or her bike.
She is an only child so for us the constant activities feels like a must. I'm fed up of people saying she has to learn to be bored. She just jumps on the trampoline for hours or rides her bike up and down the path while listening to music. She's a good kid and not really one to misbehave but she is definitely easier after an activity.
School always comment on how much energy she has and don't seem concerned but every friends parent, my parents, my sister, the in-laws etc. seem to think she is more or less being abused.

AIBU to think they all need to shut up!!

My DD does stacks of activities. Stacks! She’d bored silly at home and if she’s not doing an activity she’s planning a shopping trip with my money (is a teen). I’d rather this way than her not want to do anything. She’s always been on the go, right from being a baby. My son is the opposite and loves his downtime and makes it very clear when he has been overscheduled. One approach is not always best for all children so ignore your friends/family and be choosier about what you tell them.

I think this is exactly what the OP is talking about! Clearly they can manage it otherwise they wouldn't be able to fit it in. No way our family could cope, but people and families are all different

Ive got 3DC who were all like this in varying degrees. My youngest needs to be exercised a lot every day or he is climbing the walls and he really deosnt enjoy just being - he always has to be doing something. He doesnt like colouring, drawing, writing etc and is the most happiest when doing something active as he always has to be moving. Like your DD he is doing brilliantly at school, above expectations in reading but needs to run off a lot of steam at playtime and lunch.

Your DD is perfectly normal and other people should keep their opinions to themselves. You parent the child you've got, not the one you want and you are doing a fantastic job of raising your DD in the way she needs to be.

I often think those that comment about how much my DC when theirs do nothing are just incredibly selfish and lazy as they cant be bothered to do anything that their child might enjoy.

I feel like you want a medal or something. She’s clearly an active child but there are lots of active kids, many of whom just do much cheaper, more ordinary activities. As you’ve said, you’ve channelled her towards expensive hobbies that reflect your own. That’s fine. Just tell the concerned relatives that if she wasn’t doing that she’d probably be burning energy off in different ways instead like most other kids.

they all have very different energy levels, one of mine does a lot of extra curricular, the other I struggle to get out of his room; I’d love it if he was more active but he’s just just not wired that way

I have a friend who takes her DS to about 10 out of school activities each week and I admit I do judge her a bit just because I know that it’s her, not him. Poor lad just wants to chill and I don’t think he knows how to. in your case you know she wants to and you are happy to put the effort and money in so ignore the annoying comments.

Will she sit and watch a film with you? I think I’d encourage that: I have to rely on my kids watching a film when they are ill and I’m wfh!

Put it this way 50 years ago people wouldn't be complaining that a child was playing in the garden for hours and entertaining themselves.

She sounds extremely active and hopefully she will still be once she hits her teens when many girls stop sports. My eldest is 5 and if I let her she would live outside. She is very content spending the morning in a kids playground, quick lunch at home and then a power walk around our national trust in the afternoon. On occasion she has wanted to go for an evening walk also before bedtime. She is academically bright, always told she is very attentive / sits still (no ADHD concerns). She just looks to burn off energy on a weekend outside.

If it works for you then you just need to shut down the passive aggressive comments from your circle and be confident in your family choices.

She's pretty good at watching films, we try to watch a film together every Saturday night and most of the time she will watch it through (though if its a musical she will get up and dance about a bit). However she is a bit of a fidget so often has to do something with her hands while watching (my mum taught her to do simple cross stitch on the big grids so she will do that or make little bracelets or simply doodle (like not actually drawing anything just scribbling or drawing lines or writing random words))
Interestingly she doesn't fidget in the car though and happily does the 2.5 hour round trip with DH every week, however they do sing along to the music together.

I should say DD doesn't struggle to sit still, she'd just rather not. She's been to the Ballet and to see musicals and sat through and enjoyed them. DH is taking her to see wicked tomorrow and I'm sure she will sit through it well. She can sit and watch a full tennis match if it's her favourite players without an issue.

All kids are different. And parents have different energy levels too, in terms of taking their kids here, there and everywhere if we’re being really honest!

I had one child who couldn’t get on board with any organised activity (SEND) and was happiest pottering at home. My other child was sporty and a real ‘joiner’. She did a club after school every day of the week - gymnastics, swimming, drama, dance. She did gymnastics and swimming competitively in primary school, then got into football and was training twice a week and playing matches on Saturday and Sunday up until very recently (16 now and only does training once and a match once a week while studying for GCSEs).

Shrs always been energetic and needed lots of physical exercise and mental stimulation.

Ignore these folk!

Someone doesn't have a bad knee because of their limp, they limp because of their bad knee. Likewise my kid doesn't have ADHD because she's a busy, sporty kid, she's a busy, sporty kid because she has ADHD.

Or to put it another way, I wonder how many of us who were just busy, sporty, active kids are currently enjoying our mid 30s burnout stage late adhd diagnosis.

If it alleviates your sadness at all, her successful engagement with organised sport actually made it much, much harder for us to get her diagnosis.

My dd is 30 and at that age she was doing sports every evening after school plus running for fun on Saturday's . Then when she got to 10 she added in competing on Sundays. She competed to quite a high level until she reached 20. She still does athletics, kayaking and hiking for fun. It never stopped her getting good exam results and having loads of friends. People always made comments to us as well, enjoy having a daughter who is fit,healthy and having fun

As i said upthread my son was super sporty and a real joiner of other types of club too I forgot to add rugby into the mix! He was good at swimming, good at judo and especially, karate moving up the belts. He gained all of his gymnastics badges and there were a few competitions along the way. However he did it for fun, to socialise and and to be active /learn something. Nobody evwr seemed bothered or commented on it However, a large number of parents on MN appear to have children who, "train multiple times a week" or "compete at a high level." Great, nothing wrong with that if that's the case but possibly some parents, (rightly or wrongly) feel that they or their children are being judged in some way when their child just enjoys their sports for fun. At the end of the day, the majority of dc are doing just that. Enjoying different sports and being healthy and happy not planning on reaching Olympian level. If the other dc's parents are banging on about their dc being such high achievers ut could get a bit much.

7-8 hours a week really isn't that much. I work at an independent school, and we have loads of kids who rack up that many hours just through school practices and fixtures (and that's before you add in all the pony club hours!)

Her parenting isn’t an attack on yours.

My parenting and children are very similar to hers. Sporty, expensive hobbies and sporty, active kids but plenty of their friends are just as active spending hours at the skate park and playing footie with their friends. My point was actually to give her something to argue back with the critical parents but there is an element of bragging in her posts.

My children have always been involved in organized sports because like your DD, they love them. They tended to do one sport and another activity, for example, DS did football and Cubs at her age.

They’ve continued team sports through their teens and as a PP said, it’s really helpful in keeping them healthy and off screens. Plus they’re less interested in alcohol and weed, because they want to stay in shape for the next match or meet. DS is now a mid-distance runner on the school team , plays on a non-competitive weekend football team, and he plays the piano.

How could she have explained her point without mentioning what activities her daughter does?

At this age, they’re just working out what they enjoy and what they’re good at. As she gets older, she’ll likely naturally drop some as others take over. My DC are both competing athletes, the county league competitions are on Saturdays, they take all day, so if she chooses to compete at athletics, she might need to drop tennis/snowboarding. Training schedules also ramp up for most sports as they get older/better so there are inevitable clashes and they need to make a decision which sport to specialise in. Absolutely nothing wrong with an 8yr old having a wide base of sports to choose from.

As they are all individual sports, I would be encouraging her in a year or so to do a team sports instead of one of the existing ones.
Especially as tennis as a competive sport can be very hard mentally as well as physically. Once she goes into under 12s, if she stays playing & training competively, her hours will increase.
It's really good for children to play a team sport also.
Also if she is trampolining so much, I would include these hours in adding up her weekly exercise. So she doesn't overuaw her muscles / joints.
I have seen children 10 and under ending up with long term injuries due to over use of their bodies playing sports such as tennis. Coaches don't usually take into account the hours children are doing on other sports, when they decide a weekly programme for a child.

It’s not the original op, I think it was when I said about long walks to school and it became a bit like one up man ship. Then the stitching…and can’t sit still for tv but is amazing at the ballet and musicals. It’s harmless enough.

I'm not saying she has ADHD or doesn't, but certainly there are some red flags. Just so you know, ADHD doesn't mean that she can never sit still or watch through a ballet of movie. It's perfectly possible for people with ADHD to focus on things (sometimes even hyperfocus) if it's enjoyable and giving them a dopamine release. Girls also tend to present differently with ADHD to the typical ways you might expect and they mask a LOT (which is why she'd be able to sit still in school and then has to release it all). Doing lots of activities isn't a red flag for ADHD but struggling to amuse herself quietly indoors at 7:30am is, and so is all the fidgeting. Like I said, I'm not saying she has ADHD or doesn't but your view of what that might look like is skewed.

Some children are just higher energy than others.

DS2 needs more sport than DS1. As long as we can logistically accommodate it and he's got the energy, he can do it.

And I feel better about his gaming time knowing that he's had varied, quality exercise most days.

I know some children of his age that are barely able to run and struggle with functional movement such as getting up and down from sitting on the floor. That's not an easy foundation for life for them.

My daughter is the same age and she does different activities Wednesday - Saturday. My husband was worried about burnout, but she has been coping with it so far. Not all of them are physical activities. She goes to a dungeons and dragons group that she absolutely loves.

And I feel better about his gaming time knowing that he's had varied, quality exercise most days.

@BogRollBOGOF Yes! DS (16) also games and knowing that he gets plenty of exercise makes me far more comfortable with it. He tends to play with friends so at least it’s sociable, although the excited yelling can get a bit much sometimes. 😂

@BananaSpanner

I think you misunderstood. DD can sit still for TV, she'd rather not. I'm sure if there was trampoline in the back of the theatre she'd take herself off to that too!
I was trying to highlight that it's a preference to being busy rather than a need. She could sit inside at 7.30 and watch tv but she doesn't want to and doesn't need to. If for example we have guests staying and I say nope need to be quiet and inside as it's early then she can be without a fight, she'd just not pick that for herself if you see what I mean?
It wasn't meant to come across as a brag. I was just pointing out that DD gets unstructured time and chooses to spend it being active on top of the structured time.