How much are you prepared to pay for your children`s activities?

[OrmIrian]

Do you limit them? If they are already doing several quite expensive activities, do you call a halt when they ask to do more. On the principle that I don't let them have everything they want in material terms eg "I need a new skateboard because this one is worn out", tends to get the response, "well save up for it then". I am a bit stuck on this atm. Both my eldest DCs have decided they want to start going to a Saturday Sailing Club on the reservoir. Which is quite pricey but good value (£11 for 4 hours). DD is already going riding every other weekend (ouch!) and goes to climbing club (not so ouch). It isn't that we definitely can't afford it, it would just make things a little tighter rather than impossible. And then of course DS#2 is going to want to start doing things in the next year or so. Should I let them both go, or tell DD that she has to choose?

As ours have got older, it's not so much the cost of the activities but the investment of time.

So what was a once-weekly tennis lesson when they were 4, by the age of 10 has turned into the following:

tennis lesson/matchplay practice x2/ at least one match possibly two/club night

This is every week btw

So this necessarily curtails the amount of activities that can be fitted in.

Mine do:

Piano lessons around £15 a week (two of these)
Swimming lessons £6 a week (only one now)
Tennis lessons/club/matchplay etc around £20 a week (two of these)
Football around £6 a week only (one of these)
Hockey around £8 a week (only one of these)

Total cost £90 per week. I wish you hadn't made me work that out. It's lucky that they follow relatively "inexpensive" hobbies. They never took to riding really.

BTW I totally disagree with one poster's suggestion of teaching children to swim yourself. Even if you are a first-rate swimmer. The issue is that you'll teach them weak/bad stroke patterns, which will affect how far and how well they can ultimately swim. I am a weak parent-taught swimmer. My children can both swim like fish, and for really long distances relatively effortlessly because they've been well taught.

This all adds up to

Swimming lesson (one to one, eldest 2 alternate each week) - £23.50 per week
Spanish lessons for two - £12.50 per week
Football coaching for two (Wed) - £6.00 per week
Football coaching for one (Saturday) - £3.00 I think
Football coaching for two (Sunday) - £negligible - £20 a year
Beavers for one - £20 per half term I think

In September ds3 will also do swimming, Spanish and Sunday football.
In November ds2 will start Beavers.

It's not going to get any cheaper!

Agree with Quatrocentro re seim lessons, you can always spot the kids that have been taught by their parents.

Sea-scouts sounds good christy. But, forgive me if this is a stupid question, don't you need to be near the sea? We are, but it's a muddy dangerous tidal estuary and not many people sail in it.

Does Beavers cost different prices in different areas? DS pays 50p a week, plus the annual £22? fee.

Mine do
Beavers - 50p
Cubs - £1
Brownies - £1
Swimming - £4.50 x 2
Gymnastics - about £8 I think, but we pay on some wieird rota
Football - £4

And any of the after-school clubs going - all free!

OrmIrian, our Sea Scouts sail on a gravel pit. They do go on trips to the coast in the summer holidays - but only because we're quite near some good sailing sea. You say you've got a reservoir - it would certainly be worth checking it out.

Excellent! Thanks seeker and christy. I will look into it.

My DD's have;
Swimming lessons (£50 x 2 ) £100 a term
Irish Dancing (£35 x2) £70 a term
DD1 Brownies £20 a term
DD2 Rainbows £20 a term
DD1 Tennis Lessons £55 a term
DD2 Ballet/Tap/Modern £70 a term
DD1 Clarinet lessons £40 a term
DD2 Violin lessons £65 a term

Grand Total of £440 A TERM!!!!!

or £1320 a year.

The cost of a holiday!!
(This does not include uniform or equipment costs ie. dance shoes,leotards etc.)

However they love all these activities and I love the fact that we can give them the opportunity to do these things.

I did say £90 per week but for some reason nearly all of these activities tail off in the holidays, so the annual equivalent is to multiply it up by 35 weeks or so.

Swimming is £20/ month each (club level), which shows how expensive things get if you carry on with them (they go up to 6 times a week for that). One also does sailing @ £50 per term (2 terms a year).

Luckily that's it for me.

I think it's quite possible for a confident parent who is a reasonable swimmer to get a child to a fair standard (where they will be safe in the water) themselves if they choose to though some children learn better from people who aren't thir parents. Opinions probably vary as to what 'good enough' is, but you can always take a child to lessons to gain stamina and iron out the wrinkles after you've got them going yourself.

I'm not sure I agree with that. From my personal experience, my breast-stroke kick is terrible, and I've been to swimming lessons to improve it (and hence stamina and distance training) but the bad habit is ingrained.

have no clue how much it all costs, but its not the money that I grudge but the time, between two of them there are two activities after school every day, most of this is actually dd1s swimming and ds hasnt started on anything yet, something has to give

Money isn't a limiting factor 4 us, but time/effort is. DD is 6 & does 2 regular activities (plus violin in school time, but I don't count that because it's in school time).
By the time she's 8 I will let her do up to 4 activities out of school, but no more, even in secondary (I imagine) -- they would tire her out too much. She'll have to choose.

Karate is 2nd most expensive we've tried (works out to ~350 quid/annual), but BMX racing is still dearer than that (limitless, really).

Sorry Ormiranian
But mine don't got to sea scouts but we do have one locally. Mine got to a mariners base
here

It's mine that's a Sea Scout!

DD 7yo does

Dancing £150 a term (not including exams, kit etc)

Swimming £60 a term

Clarinet £50 a term (not including instrument, reeds etc)

She would dearly love to do horse riding, football, Brownies, gymnastics and karate, and I have said no more activities.

Aside from the cost, we only have one activity-less night per week, and she needs that time for free play, homework, or friends over for dinner and play.

As my elderly grandfather said, "Jack of all trades, master of none".

Costs can often start out at a reasonable level, and then spiral out of proportion as they progress. You should be aware of this when you plan activities, especially with a dd like mine, who refuses to give anything up once she has started.

lol when someone actually has an extra curricular activities question they go and post it somewhere else entirely. mnhq helloooo...

quattro, it is harder to learn/iron out bad habits as an adult it's true but it's not impossible. My dh could only swim breaststroke when we married (had been taught by parents) and can do all the strokes very well now - I taught him the basics and then he joined a club and that was BEFORE I became a swim teacher. Conversely, we have club swimmers who've had 'proper' lessons all their lives and still have terrible breaststroke kicks! Some people really struggle to turn their feet out correctly and others do it naturally - maybe it depends which sort of child you have as to whether they need proper lessons or not.

DD1 is really into her dancing which cost £180/term, DD2 (only 2 1/2) has just started ballet classes (she was driving us mad at the unfairness that her sis got to do classes, she's7), so that will be about £400/term. Worst of all, ballet class is right out in the country 12 miles from home, DD2 class starts at 9.15 til 10. Then we have a wait for an hour until DD1's class 11.15 til 12.45. It's too far to go home and apart from a garden centre, there's nothing around for miles. So my Saturdays are devoted to dancing . I can't imagine when DD2 is older and wants to do other activities. When I factor in Diesel to ferry DD1 and DD2 about all week, I think I spend about £20/week, it doesn't bear thinking about. (They also do tumbletots, spanish club and street dance) All we had was brownies or swimming if we were lucky

Eeek - just added up the cost of ds1's 3 football sessions a week, 1 swimming lesson, 1 tennis session, 2 skiing sessions and twice a week at explore learning and it's probably about £50 a week. Plus equipment, competition entry fees and fuel.

DS is 7 and does:
Beavers £36/term
Football £35 for club fees, £25 for winter fees so about £60/year
Swimming £50/12 weeks
Art club at school - free

DD is 4 and does:
swimming £50/12 weeks
dancing (ballet and tap)£4/week

HAving read some of this, I now think I'm quite lucky:
ds and dd both do:
Swimming lessons (about £ 20 per child for 8 weeks)
Irish dancing (£ 4 each per week - and first set of shoes each we got 2nd hand for free so didn't mind too much paying £50 for ds's first heavy shoes!)
Tai Kwon Do - £ 4.50 each per week - but suits / gear / licences etc on top which does mount up.
I would love them both to do music lessons - but don't think we can fit it in. I've also warned them that if they want to do anything else they will need to drop one of their current activities.

totalmisfit - I'm somewhat at a loss to understand what is meant by extra-curricular activities. Extra-curricular to what? School? Home? Or does it just mean anything that is done outdoors. All outdoor activities in fact. Gardening perhaps?

I know some a family who have a no-more-than-three rule. This means each child is not allowed to do more than three activities.

Mind you they only have two children

They might have a no-more-than-two rule if they had three.

Because it does escalate as they get older

for my dd:

gymnastics £130 every 4 weeks!
piano £50 per half term

ds:

gym : £25 per 4 weeks