Are we over-scheduling our children's lives?

[thr335teen]

My 7 year old Year Two child has quite a packed schedule but nothing compared to some children in his class.

A couple of the boys' weeks look a bit like this:

Monday - Thursday - after school clubs such as computer skills/STEM club/art club etc

Friday - after school cricket, All Stars summer cricket at the local rugby club followed by Under 9's cricket

Saturday - football in the morning, swimming in the afternoon

Sunday - rugby.

I just don't remember our parents being this involved in scheduling our whole lives?

Am I wrong that this is too much? What do your 7 year olds do?

Not sure what age your DC is but will you be stopping their swimming once it gets to swim club? What starts out as a 30 minute lesson a week grows into swim club with 2-4 sessions of at least an hour each a week and competitions at weekends, if the child likes it why not?! Or would you stop it even if they like it?

When on earth does this poor child ever get to "just be" Lying on the sofa reading or just day dreaming? When does he get to play with the toys that are bought for him? Please give your child a rest before you absolutely burn him out.

We've always let our kids lead their extra curriculars. Dc1 is pulling back now but there was a stage where he'd sign up for literally everything.

At 10, he currently does kickboxing, swimming, cricket (through the school but it's outside school hours), violin and Cubs.

His sibling does 2 types of dance, swimming, football, Rainbows and Beavers.

When we suggest giving one up...they argue against it and given we can afford it and can make the logistics work, we let them carry on. Neither are big into chilling but they manage to fit loads of free play with friends around their fixed activities.

No, I didn’t do any after school activities as a child and I don’t think they’re necessary unless the child is very keen. Then I’d limit it to 2 activities a week max. Children need to learn to chill.

My DS is a teen now but the only thing he did for a couple of years around that age was CoderDojo once a week. He lost interest after it moved venue.

I also paid for 1:1 swimming lessons for 6 weeks when he was 11 as I think this is much more effective than those swimming groups where they go every week for a few years and hardly do anything new from week to week.

Why are you worrying about what other people's kids are doing with their lives?

You know nothing about what the kids get out of this or how they feel about their activities. We need to stop analysing everybody's lives and focus on our own.

Some people do, some don't.

DD is 6 and does swimming on a Saturday and gymnastics one evening. We started those at the start of year 1. I think we'll add a second evening one in soon as she'd love something where she gets to perform.

I don't think it's a modern thing though. When I was in junior school (sometimes 30 yrs ago) I did swimming, gymnastics, Brownies, keyboard lessons and Latin lessons after school/weekend. All my own choice and with a SAHM who could facilitate it.

By early secondary I'd dropped keyboard lessons and Brownies as we moved into Guides and I didn't like it. I also swapped gymnastics for trampolining as it was more fun. Dropped the Latin when I started on my GCSE's.

After school clubs may help parents work
then sporting activities may be what the children like and want to do - healthy outdoor exercise and better than many alternatives given playing out doesn’t seem to exist on many parts of England

We would find that a lot but I know other families like to do more structured activities, each to their own.
DD8 does swimming on a Wednesday, after school Judo on a Thursday (this is just 1hr at school directly after school finishes)
And 3hrs drama school on a Saturday morning.

If that's the case, fantastic! But in a lot of cases (and countless threads on here seem to provide the evidence), the children default to screens.

Yes, I think we are and I think this is contributing to the mental health crisis in kids/young people.

Children who go to nursery and then onto before/after-school care can be completely scheduled all day, five days a week from 6 months to 18 years old. They're not getting the opportunity to develop key coping skills.

It might also relate to the fact that people are having fewer children. If you have three or four kids it’s not viable for them all to do a club every night, but I know a lot of people with only one child so they really can do everything.

Yes too much. Such children have little ability to play imaginatively nor do they have much creativity or problem solving skills.(waiting for someone to say how their overscheduled child is a Frida Kahlo and has won a free unstructured play olympics)
Also no ability to tolerate boredom. Are they from backgrounds in countries where learning is designed to produce robots, eliminate critical thinking, extremely high pressure with little knowledge of child development , or did the parents never do anything themselves growing up? These are the typical scenarios.
There is nothing middle class about it, mc people grew themselves doing balanced activities at a reasonable age so these will likely be working class people who grew up doing nothing, and now got decent jobs and want their kids to do all those things.

If I had the money, my 2 would be doing more than the swimming and gymnastics once a week that they currently do.

I’m in my 40s now, and I had clubs every day after school except Tuesday, and on a Saturday morning.

I have a memory of sitting on the carpet at school on a Tuesday afternoon and thinking, “oh it’s Tuesday, no clubs!” and being so happy/relieved.

So yes, I think we do over schedule our kid’s lives and they need downtime to play, decompress and rest.

There are no kids near us for my DC to play out with and scheduling play dates can be like trying to arrange an audience with the King sometimes so I have always sent my DC to a lot of clubs to make friends and have other children to interact with. I have terrible guilt that they don’t have a childhood like mine with a street full of kids out playing every evening so I find other ways of getting that for them.

We both work, ds does gymnastics on a Monday, Dodgeball on Tuesday, Athletics on Wednesday, wellbeing club on Thursday (seems to be mainly art activities and yoga) swimming lessons on Friday and he's on the waiting list for beavers which will be later on Friday evening.
We do try and keep weekends free for family time, friends' issues and play dates, but that will get harder as he gets older and if he gets involved in team sport with matches.
He gets bored at standard after school club.

I also think with this generation of children you can't win as a parent , you often hear oh they're all just sat on screens, but if you have a child who isn't and is out doing activities, it's oh they're doing too much they need down time 🤦‍♂️

Just go with what's right for your child, DS is a ball of energy and he enjoys his hobbies and the friends he has through them

Nursery and after school clubs is mostly free play and exactly what the kids need, it's extra curricular activities that too much of is harmful. Strange you don't know the difference but have an opinion.

It would be far too much for mine but kids are all different. Some of my friends admit to doing a lot of clubs because their children either can't or won't entertain themselves. Left to their own devices they follow them around whining for attention or to go on screens.

Depends whether it is the children or parents wanting them to do something. If the kids are happy to do the clubs and parents are able to afford them all then good on them.
I always wanted to do dance as a child but we just couldn't afford it so I think it's great if children can do things like this.

I felt over-scheduled as a child in the 1980s. The equated to about 3 extra curricular activities during the week, plus 2 (sometimes 3) on a Saturday and 1 on a Sunday. Seems chicken feed compared to what I see some kids doing now.

I had a physical disability though and my parents were encouraged to have me doing as much physical activity as possible to try and assist with my impairment. My mum later admitted I had too much on and there was no way they would have tried to keep that up during secondary school. I definitely FELT over scheduled and remember longing on a Saturday morning, when the weather was nice, just to be able to go outside and have some unstructured play time.

Nursery and after-school clubs are both structured, nursery very much so.

Isn't the only important question here whether kids enjoy the activities they do, and secondary to that whether it works for families? Beyond that, everyone's different and that's fine.

At that age I only did a couple of things outside of school. I was an only child living quite remotely and spent a lot of time bored and lonely. A couple of years later I started the violin, and in a very short time most evenings had an orchestra rehearsal or a lesson or something else musical. That was where I did my socialising, and it was wonderful.

My son's 10 and very busy with music, drama and 3 sports, but there's nothing he'd voluntarily give up just yet. (Believe me, when I have to stand on the side of a rugby pitch in the freezing cold, I do check with him that he still wants to do it!) He plays with Lego, reads lots, loves playing in the garden, and has more than enough time for screens.

It wouldn't suit him or us to do less. But I also appreciate it wouldn't suit everyone, and that's ok too!

They should be playing and your work has nothing to do with it, presumably someone takes them to all those activities? Or is it all at school? In which case they could go to the after school club that's childcare and not an activity and which most schools offer and learn to develop their imagination and social skills instead of being told what to do non stop from 4 years old.
Take them to the park instead or let them occupy themselves, it's better for them and for their advancement

I think it's too much. I think being bored is very important for children- creating your own entertainment and being free to explore your interests on your own is a real skill.

Yes, it is too much, and I think there is a lot of research pointing to that now.

Kids need time to free play, they need time to be with friends in unstructured environments, they also need time to be outside adult supervision and managing their own play and friendships.

Many of the problems we see with teens and young adults now, especially anxiety, are in part because of a lack of these necessities.

We've almost entirely eliminated the ways in which kids can get these needs met, partly through safety culture, partly through actual changes in the environment (cars,) partly by making parents feel they need to give their kids a step up with activities. I also think school becoming more crap is an element, parents feel they need to make up for that with outside activities.