To wonder if we sound normal enough routine wise

[sugarlumpwasarockinghorse]

My children are six next month and three. The older one is obviously in school and the younger one in preschool three days a week.
dc1 does beavers, swimming and basketball after school 3 nights a week then football & rugby weekends

the three year old doesn’t do after school activities but does ballet, swimming and a regular class on one of our days off. So we’re quite busy.

We get home from school and preschool just before 4, they usually play outside for a bit if the weather is OK or play with their toys inside. Dinner is at 5 and then I start their bath and bed routine at 6.

I was wondering about getting my older one some board games for Christmas and one response when I asked for recommendations was incredulity I hadn’t done them with the kids yet. I guess I’m just wondering if we sound normal! As I don’t actually know when I’d fit them in just at the moment!

Those things are fun though, and fun is play.

Yes. But their parents aren’t schlepping them from activity to activity. Asc is precisely where they’d play in the park and with their friends.
you sound a bit excessive tbh. Hundreds of activities and even the toys have to be productive and educational.
sometimes humans can just do things because they like them or need to relax you know?
nobody I knew spent all weekend dragging their kids to activities that were just about the kid after they’d spent all week doing them too

I absolutely hate board games. The only one my 7 year old has ever played is Scrabble with my mother. I don't think she's suffered at all, and I do play dominoes with her.

My DS is 7. His week looks like this:

• Mon & Fri home 3:45
• Tue home 4.30 after club at school, swimming at 6.30
• Wed and Thu home 4.45 after club at school
• Sat AM club

Main difference is we start bedtime routine at 7. He has plenty of time at home and plenty of board games (which he loves).

DD is older and does much less (her choice).

Your routine sounds normal to me. Some do more, some less. Personally I'm not a fan of spending 2 hours watching a film, but fine if others want to.

Conversely about 70% of the families I know schlep to all sorts at the weekend. We are on the light end only having one club on Sat AM.

Who plays board games with their kids every night?🤣 my 4 year old plays basic ones at her grandads but as you can imagine, it's still hard at that age haha

Recommend Labyrinth as a great kids game.

My 5 year old son is incredibly active and does swimming, tennis and rugby each week. We use board games to relax and have quality time together at the weekend. He loves: Blokus, Snakes & Ladders, Snakes & Ladders 3D, UNO, UNO ultimate, dominoes and drafts/chequers (which he is now unbeatable at, great training for chess!). I’ve got Dragomino and Outfoxed on his Christmas list. I think games are a great way to connect, learn to lose, learn to win with grace and to think strategically.

Well you'll notice that I specifically didn't mention the week days for this reason, I asked about weekends and unstructured time together.

It’s just how to fit them in and also being mindful they are supposed to be enjoyable.

This is what I find weird.

It's really not that complicated to "fit them in" - it's just playing? Which I am guessing you already do with the kids. Like this morning, my 6 year old asked to play a quick game of sleeping Queens - it took 10 mins. Yesterday he wanted to play 10 mins of football in the garden before school. It's 10 mins either way.

And of course it's enjoyable, it's not homework, it's playing a game!

If it's only a couple of hours a week then why do you feel you don't have time for board games 😂 I'm not sure you can have it both ways!

"Going to an activity club" isn't just the time of the club itself though, is it? There's time in advance to prepare (get changed, find all items necessary). Then the time to get there and back.

So if you have Beavers from 4-5 on a Wednesday, I'm going to bet that that means you come home from school, DS gets changed into his uniform, then you take him to Beavers. You probably come home while he's there, but because the session is only an hour you won't have much time to do much of anything. Maybe you do a quick activity with the 3 year old or prep dinner or something like that.
Then you go and pick him up, and go home, he'll potentially change and be wanting to tell you about Beavers. This probably takes up most of the time until dinner (depending on when you eat). You'll be busy with dinner, so any available time is likely spent watching TV or playing on his own. And then by the time you've had dinner and cleared up, you are probably into homework/reading/bath/bed for a 6 and 3 year old.

Whereas a child going to ASC would be spending the 3.30-6 (or whenever) period entirely relaxing with friends and doing their choice of activities.

It's easier when they are older but while they have early(ish) bedtimes there isn't a great deal of time in the after school period.

Who cares about normal' so long as it works for your family. Sounds fine.

I said you're unreasonable..

A) you're so busy! To worry about fitting more into that schedule is unreasonable. I do feel like kids need time to be bored and to rest. However, if it all works for you then crack on
B) you're overthinking this whole parenting thing and comparing yourself to others. That isn't healthy. You do you and work with the kids that you have. We're not all the same.

We didn't do board games until ours were around 6 or 7. I had 3 DCs in 3 years and I was too bloody busy for games before that!

My 3 year old asked for “games” when we showed him board games he was like yeah these ones, I wasn’t a big board game fan as a child, we got a couple like snakes and ladders, connect 4, although they only last 5 minutes because my 3 year old has an attention span as a gold fish it gives us a wee 5 minutes all together so worth doing I would say.

Age appropriate board games (or similar, like cards, dominoes etc) are so good for children - they're excellent for improving concentration, learning how to share, learning how to lose, learning patience waiting to take your turn etc.

I think it's perhaps a bit unusual not to have played any by the age of 6, but not highly so.

And if you genuinely can't fit them in, then you and your kids are definitely doing too much! Do you never have time to play with them, or do other activities with them, such as baking, craft, watching a film? I personally think these sorts of things are just as important, if not more so, than lots of organised club type activities.

What's wrong with playing for half an hour at a weekend when you are back from the sports clubs, or a wet Sunday afternoon when you probably wouldn't go out anyway?

Or perhaps make bedtime half an hour later, and sit together to play then - 6pm start to bedtime routine does sound quite early for a 6 year old, but I guess it depends on what time they have to get up in the morning.

I mean - this is just a very modern way of looking at childhood isn't it?

The vast majority of children - for the vast majoirity of humans time on this earth - never played any board games! Your children sound completely normal, healthy and well looked after

I would not give this the slightest thought.

I have always found board games terminally dull.

My children are similar in age, DD just turned 6 and DS is 4.5 - so he's just started at school.
Both do swimming once a week at the same time/ same place but different stages, DD has just started girl guides and both do tennis on a Saturday morning (although this is flexible as it doesn't need to be booked for a term). I often take them to the park or library after school.

We do have quite a few board games! My husband and is family are more into board games so he bought them. There is a board game cafe near us which we go to once every 6 weeks or so. It's really great for trying before you buy! My husband also got some lovely games from waterstones.

I came across a lady on Instagram who has loads of kids and they play board games a lot. She does great videos recommending games for different ages. Her account is - tabletopfamily

Hope this helps!

If all those activities are the type of structured paid for weekly clubs which involve the need to plan travel/logistics/when to eat/what to do with the other child etc, then I'd say your schedule is very full on for those ages. That much would be unusual in my area.

Ours didn't start doing anything like that til they were 7 - until then we just did stuff informally ourselves when it suited us.
The families I know doing that much tend to be ones with children who need tiring out, or have got into a competitive parenting spiral with their friends and are scared their kids will miss out if they don't do everything!
The trick seems to be to find the balance that works for you as a family. Easier said than done I think. And it changes so much each year.

If they are more like clubs at school like wraparound childcare, or free local activities that you can dip in and out of and make your family logistics easier, then it doesn't sound too mad.

Board games are great though. My active kids love them. What's especially nice is its given ours a great way to play with friends and older relatives who aren't able to join in with more active things and I don't have to do anything or play with them. Hearing them trash talking the grandparents during a heated game is a pleasure. 'Sorry' is a big favourite with us.

Not really true? There have been games for thousands of years!

@villadicance i think because it would involve sitting down and making time in that sense - perhaps I’m not explaining it too well. Have to say I’m not keen on ‘weird’ as an adjective though.

Thanks all. I do know there’s a division on MN about after school and weekend activities and I have asked ds if he’d like to drop anything and he definitely doesn’t. He would probably drop swimming - he likes swimming but the lessons obviously require a certain amount of discipline and he’d rather do fun stuff in the pool, but to do fun stuff he has to know how to swim! He doesn’t do more than one activity a day so he isn’t taken from activity to activity (I am though!)

It s true that baking and film watching are fun but so is beavers and football especially if a lot of your friends do them too. I’m just conscious he’s getting older and may enjoy activities and things we hadn’t done before and so that’s why I was considering bringing other things in - it’s not a massive deal. Just interesting finding out what other families do.

The clubs are the modern bit, board games are hardly modern?!

I did Brownies, swimming and horse riding in the 1980s/90s. Also did ballet at one point although I was not very good 😂

“It s true that baking and film watching are fun but so is beavers and football especially if a lot of your friends do them too” yes but when are they having fun with you?