Hi there,
I'm one of those who regard activities for children as very important, and definitely disagree with those who say it's a modern thing - there've always been those who started an instrument (or other activity) early, piano used to be very fashionable in particular (and in a way still is), but also the violin, French was the language to learn in the "olden days" at least in upper/middle class households and many played tennis for example, or did lots of other sports.
I'm nearly 40 and am very grateful that my parents let me learn a musical instrument, made me do sports (otherwise I'd have been even lazier), sent me to swimming lessons when I was 5 or 6 (and I enjoyed swimming ever since, even though I never did it competetively) and would have paid for ballet had I wanted to(they didn't force me so I didn't go).
Even during those days, I found it strange if children or teenagers my (then) age didn't have a single hobby at all and quite often it wasn't even for financial reasons, just lack of imagination or by the parents or pure lazyness.
Of course it's an effort getting your child to classes with other children in tow (I do it even without a car), making sure they practice their instrument and still do their homework, practice reading etc. But it's so rewarding and fun for the children (as long as they enjoy the activities, of course, and it doesn't get over the top).
It's great getting children into a routine of doing something worthwile outside school and homework (which is v. important in its own right).
Obviously as long as we can afford it I really want my children to do activities they enjoy.
But I do agree that it is very, very expensive, particularly if you have more than one child... My eldest would do just any extra-curricular activity on offer so we had to cut down seriously when ds2 started doing things as well.
Also I think my children will stop swimming once they can swim reasonably well unless one of them wants to do it in a club/squad or so.
Instruments: Particularly with a string instrument sadly it can be too late or at least a lot harder to learn if you leave it until they're (much) older, say, beyond 10 or so. Being a musician myself I'm keen for my children to give an instrument a try at least (Wouldn't force them if they didn't want to though).
Regarding the swimming lessons: Is it normal that in England children start with front and back crawl? I'm also German and I only went to one course and we leant breast stroke. I was only 5 or 6 but after 6 months or so could swim for 45mins without a break. Obviously not a great technique maybe, but would have been better to save my life rather then the 5 metres my children manage after 2 years of continuous swimming lessons with a teacher pupil ration of 1:3 and several holiday crash courses here. They (swimming school) insist that the crawling technique is easier to perfect. Hmm, I have my doubts, and to be honest, I'd rather like them to survive in a bad breast stroke style and work on perfecting their crawl style later on (if they wish). Maybe I have to post another thread for this. I can't see why spending years on learning to crawl is better than learning breast stroke in a term or so. In a way I suspect they want to make money as it takes so much longer (everyone else seems to go to that swimming school for absolute ages and it's £10 per half hour, so you can work out what I pay per term).
They do swimming at school but I doubt anyone who didn't have outside swimming lessons would really learn how to swim just from the school lessons (not a bad teacher at all, but groups to large and too little time).
Would love to hear opinions about the swimming thing really. However, I do see older children swimming well and greater distances, but just wondering how long it takes and at what cost?
Otherwise, emkana, we have some very good French videos and ds1 learnt more from watching them 3 times than in a year of French lessons at school (once a week).
My sons are also bilingual and it's easy to get carried away by all the activities/languages on offer. But where do you stop? In the end I decided against French lessons and so far only invested in some videos and will possibly buy some French CDs or so, which is still cheaper than the French club where they hardly learn anything.
If money was tighter but not very very tight I would try to do something like: 1 sport activity, 1 instrument (or musical activity - maybe there's a choir? Normally cheaper to join) per child and let them choose which sport/musical activity they like best.
We pay a lot more than £1000 a year (3 children, the youngest doing the odd toddler music class only so far) and only now I realise what my parents invested (only for me to end up as a SAHM, lol). Still, I enjoyed it a lot and made lots of friends through music.
Good luck!