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?

Our kiddo has tutor, guitar, swimming, ice skating, kung fu, maths club each week...enjoys it all and we have time for meals out, chilling and playing. Yr 3.

Is it over-scheduling to have afterschool clubs Mon-Thursday then a sporty weekend? I imagine there's still a lot of weekend left after 7 year old football, rugby and swimming (a 30 minute lesson?) It's not as though they're going to afterschool club then a further extra-curricular thing or two every night of the week.

If the kids want to do it and the parents can facilitate it, I don't see the issue.

Mine is nearly 7 and does similar - completely normal for kids in her school (in London, so lots of opportunities and easy to get to activities). I didn't have any of that as a child because my parents had to continue working after doing the school run, and they couldn't have afforded it either. Most families I know facilitate lots of extracurriculars (5+ a week) unless they can't afford to, or their working pattern means they can only use childcare and can't do the ferrying around, or their dcs have SN and need more time to decompress after school.

We still have plenty of time for play time and unstructured activities, as we live 5 mins from school so no long journey home (home by 4.30pm even after a club), and they don't need to be in childcare on non-club days or during school holidays. Probably get more down time than kids in after-school and holiday childcare until 6pm.

I remember being signed up to multiple activities each week as a child as both my parents worked full-time and it was either that or after school club until 6pm.

I hated it.

I’ve raised 2 children and in my opinion, I think this is far too much. Children need down time to just relax or even have friends over after school. Mine used to go to dance class on Saturday but that was the only extra curricular activity they took part in, and that was at their request.

It's hard to find other people who allow this though. And those who do tend to be ones who let their dc have phones in order to do that. So all you see are 10 year olds sat on a bench hunched over a phone for an hour.

@EggnogNoggin My Dad buggered up his A levels back in 1959 as he adored playing cricket & much preferred that to studying…

One of my children does one activity per week. The other does two in school, six out of school and is currently trying to persuade me to sign them up for a seventh. They’re different people with different needs and we do what suits them.

They both get plenty of downtime at home, have more screen time than I’d like, do their homework, get 10 hours of sleep per night and both get at least an hour of exercise a day (the one that doesn’t do organised activities does a lot of unstructured sport with his friends). Who cares if they do an hour of activities each day or not?! They still find me multiple times a day to tell me they’re bored…

It does seem like a lot I found it tails off as they get older eldest has a sport and army cadets. Middle child two clubs at 12.

I have a friend who is a child psychologist. She has always said that children need down time. There’s nothing wrong with the being bored and that scheduling their every waking moment isn’t good for them. They need to be allowed time to just ‘be’.

I’m not sure it’s that different from my own childhood in the 1980s. I did Brownies then Guides, a running club, swimming lesson, a weekly library visit and then a family swim at the weekend alongside occasional running competitions. I then took up a martial art in early secondary. There was also Sunday School for me.

My children have a swimming lesson, DD1 is in a running club, DD2 does tennis, they each have Scouts or Guides and they both do a martial art class. We also still visit the library weekly. My children prefer Messy Church to Sunday school so we don’t attend weekly.

Not quite 5 but I love amateur dramatics ( one weekday evening), am a member of the PCC so often a churchy thing another night, I run and do a yoga class ( sometimes run in the morning instead). Now my children are adults I am really enjoying having some hobbies again. Who wants to be stuck in front of a screen in the evening after doing that all day at work.

Some screen time and social media platforms are not always harmful. Depends on what your children access. Mine use it for Maths, coding and following family friendly content.

I wouldn’t say we’ve deliberately scheduled our DC lives but they are busy. We are waiting on an ASD assessment for DC2 and if left to his own devices he’d happily sit alone or with his brother and play Xbox games or watch YouTube so his clubs have been a bit more deliberate in order to get him to socialise.

DC are 10 and just about to turn 7 and we have:

Monday - DC1 football
Tuesday - DC2 football
Wednesday - both CrossFit, DC1 football & school athletics
Thursday - DC1 school football and running club
Friday - both swimming
Saturday - free 🎉
Sunday - both football & CrossFit

DH and I work FT but flexible and also fit our own gym/football in every day

I think children vary.

My older child thrives on having a busy schedule - he does several activities but just likes being busy. I am the same - I simply don't need or want lots of down time.

My younger one really loves nothing better than pottering around the house and rejects most organised activities.

After school.clubs are fine. They're basically childcare.

The cricket and rugby - maybe the parents are hoping to send their children to schools where these sports are played?

Swimming - important skill.

It's a lot though.

You could only manage it if you had two DCs at most.

It sounds a lot when you put it like that. But the reality is probably different - Id view the after school clubs run by school as just necessary childcare... and all stars only runs for about 2 months a year so not a huge impact. Taking those out i don't think it's too bad really. Depends on the kid. One of mine likes to chill out after school and doesnt do much aside from swimming whereas my eldest would do back to back clubs every night if I let them.

Its no different to my childhood in the 90s really - i did gymnastics, swimming and dance out of school, then after school netball and football clubs, so had something most days of the week and competitions at weekends. I loved it.

The net result of all the kids being scheduled to death is there's never anyone to play with outdoors, and those who are allowed a bit of freedom have phones so they can be tracked, so the kids spend their time on the phone instead of actually playing.

Childhood in the panopticon era...

I think many children do have too little free time. As a child I would have hated it. I have always loved space to be imaginative, either with toys, reading or writing stories. Pretty much no classes for arts and creative writing. I did Brownies for a while but never enjoyed it.

My own children only did a few things they enjoyed. They did cubs for while while they enjoyed going and a sibling did gymnastics which they really loved for a few years. It was all child led though and not because I had to work or anything like that.

I believe so, yes. Kids don't need to be constantly distracted and occupied by activities and clubs...it's exhausting for the kids and for the parents. My kids don't have over-booked calendars, and they are happy for it. As am I, as I don't have the desire to spend all of my time schlepping my kids from one place to another, day in, day out.

Too much

My kids have no activities during the week, just during weekend

Maybe they love cricket.
My DD does a ton of clubs including 3 dance classes. She loves them all and keeps her fit and active.

I don’t know how all you parents do it, never mind the children…I’d be wiped out 😆