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?

Have you any experience of either? Doubt it. Preopinonated ignorance.

It's not actually equivalent though to real socializing for kids.

It's hard to know what to do, but I don't think we should just accept it.

So who takes the kids to swimming and gymnastics and the rugby matches while they have to work? Most aren't on site at school.
Having to work has nothing to do with it. In fact it's remarkable parents are able to find the time to drive their kids to all those activities when they should be working.

It depends on the child.

My daughter was a fizzing ball of energy when she was younger. She needs to be well exercised, otherwise she just cannot concentrate or sit still.

I do sometimes worry that she does too much. She’s settled on one team sport, dance and one instrument. She runs at school and does a couple of lunchtime clubs. She still goes to swimming classes, but it’s more from habit as she’s not going to be a competitive swimmer. All these are things she has chosen herself and is excited to do. The only thing that was a must-do was learning to swim, and I’m more than happy for her to stop lessons when she wants.

That doesn’t seem that much, but the time requirement grows for each activity as the child gets bigger, such that she’s at the dance studio nearly every day, and does have multiple activities on some days. She doesn’t have a day completely off.

But she wouldn’t have it any other way. She understands that choices will need to be made when there isn’t more time to squeeze, or when homework requirements increase. So for now, why not let her fill her boots with all this activity?

At the back of my mind are two other thoughts.

1. activities outside school come with independent friendship groups. This was extremely protective when there was bullying at school
2. a lot of girls in particular stop doing sport or exercise in teenage years. Hopefully something she is doing will stick as a longer term love.

EDIT - She is late primary age now. I would add that the mushrooming of organised activity has been over the last two years as the training requirements have increased. At 7, she was still yomping around on family walks or cycles, or being wild in the back garden with friends. I miss those days.

And what are you paying for therapy now?

At that age my daughter wanted to do lots of clubs so we let her. What do your kids say about the number of clubs they go to?

I bet none of those control freak mums would choose to do five "enjoyable hobbies of own choosing" themselves after work, would they, but they don't mind putting the kids throught the stress and being trained to be a sheep at an early age. It's just abusive.

Yea where they spend 3 years learning to blow bubbles because they started when they were not developmentally ready to brush their teeth leave alone learn swimming strokes.

Aren’t the afterschool clubs just glorified childcare essentially?

I did similar when I was young, and I like to think that I grew into a well-adjusted adult. Maybe the difference is between activities that you have a passion for as a child and ones where there is parental pressure?

I also remember my childhood as one full of playing with friends, and blackberry picking and other unstructured activity, despite doing a lot of organised activity and committing to the practice and training that went with it.

I think personality comes into it. I have always been a busy person. I will still make busywork for myself now.

In fact, I can only remember 2 periods of my life when I didn’t feel the drive to do things. Once during COVID, when I was physically and emotionally burnt out, and once during a major bereavement. We knew I was better when I had the urge to sew something, or bake something, or go for a walk.

My other half is the opposite. He loves sleep, he loves quiet time. He doesn’t like being around people.

Both approaches are fine. Horses for courses.

Of nursery, yes. Professional experience.

No professional experience of after-school clubs only as a user.

I think if you ask anyone who uses a nursery they will be able to tell you about the routines and structures they follow though. If you use a nursery ask them for a timetable, I'm sure they could provide one.

Having lunch every day at 12 and story time at 3pm isn't what people mean by overstructured and overscheduled, nurseries are child led and free play based and good ones are great for kids.
And the same with childcare based after school club as opposed to extra curricular ones.

You sound over invested. You do you.

7yo's week looks like this :

Monday- free
Tuesday- free
Wednesday- rugby
Thursday- free
Friday- swimming
Saturday- free
Sunday- rugby

I'm always amazed at this massive in school activity programmes... my DDs attended 5 primary schools in different parts of the UK and all of them they limited the clubs one child could do... usually 1, sometimes 2. As there just wasn't the capacity for every child to do an activity club everyday. Child care was just the generic ASC.

Well no, if it was just lunch and storytime it wouldn't be over scheduled.

It's not though. There's breakfast, snack, lunch, afternoon snack and tea. There's naptime. There's story time. Nappies are changed to a schedule. Trips out will be scheduled. There will be some combination of yoga/french/mandarin/music/circle time etc etc, which will all be scheduled. There will be scheduled time for being outside. Any art/craft/messy activities will be done at set, scheduled times. Weeks will often be themed around a certain learning topic and toys/resources available will be based on this rather than following children's individual interests. Even the brief periods of 'free play' will be scheduled.

I'm afraid you are quite wrong re. nurseries not being over structured. They are very, very structured. In part, I think, because parents (not understanding child development) want this kind of structure for their children. I've seen many posts saying how good their nursery is because their two year old does French lessons, ballet and yoga at nursery!

As the years go on I’d assume your child will drop things/ move on. We didn’t have the money for a lot of clubs and I hugely regret it

DD is in year 1 and does swimming one evening a week. She doesn’t fancy anything else and we’re not pushing it. The rest of the time she’s playing with her little brother, we meet up with friends, reading, in the garden, at the park, cooking etc. She’s very good at entertaining herself and needs plenty of time to do her own thing.

I think while personality is a big part of it, the people I know whose kids do loads of activities and complain their kids need organised fun as they won’t play independently never actually gave them a chance to learn.

I don't have kids but sometimes i listed to my colleagues (and siblings when their kids were small) and I get exhausted listening how many activities they do.

My nephe lw used to come for a sleepover and he always asked for the same routine. We get self made pizza ingredients from the shop, make pizza and watch a movie. The next morning we wat breakfast and play football in the yard. When I suggested cinema/trampoline park etc. He always said that he did not want to go anywhere for once.
Now that the kids are grown, it is kind if funny how lost my brother is that he doesn't have activities with the kids.

My dd is 8, she does flute, piano, singing club, swimming, dance and karate and after school club on the days she doesn’t have an activity, she enjoys them all, all except karate and dance are 30 minutes and she takes it on herself to practice at home, the singing and music lessons are in school time. There are definitely some children for whom that would be too much, but DD enjoys them all and she has plenty of free time at the weekend to go to the park and read and play.

Of course not but what is the alternative? They do a fair amount of down time and we don't allow screens apart from family TV on a Saturday night.

I don't want to be saddled supervising other people's dc on a a field somewhere either.

I agree OP. I did a long walk around the local streets of my village and around two local parks this weekend. I didn’t see one single child playing out on a gorgeous sunny weekend in a very safe village. So depressing. Children need unstructured time without adults around to develop essential life skills. Constantly shepherding them around from one activity to another is not good for anyone.

Get kids back playing out! It’s really not that hard. How the fuck have we got here where it’s no longer the norm! Instead we put kids on a merry go round of constant structured and organised activities or they are indoors on screens.

My DD’s did choir, orchestra, piano (orchestral instrument lessons in school time), swimming then dd2 did football older (school and club). By 9 they were singing 3-4 times as week as choristers, kept them off computers