Too many activities - how to choose?

[BFrazzled]

Dd is 9yo and has always done lots of extracurricular activities. She is both athletically and musically gifted and I am trying to give her the best chance to develop her talents, but am realising that perhaps there just isn't enough time for everything...

She plays violin and piano, (grade 2 and grade 4) her lessons are in school but both require practice at home. During the lockdown she could practice both daily because her other activities were suspended, but now that things are getting back to normal she practices maybe 4 days a week. In addition to that she is in a swimming club which had now asked her to move to a squad that practices twice a week. Both swimming and music are really important to her and we couldn't make her drop them. We could ask the club to allow her to stay in her previous squad which practiced once a week for a while (but it is not a longterm possibility).

She loves dance and is naturally very good at it - she asked to have dance lessons again after the lockdown ended and we signed her up after a taster session last week. She would have loved to do it more seriously, but obviously this is impossible for now. She did have ballet lessons from age 5 interrupted by the lockdown and the current lessons are modern.

She does football which has now resumed once a week (plus Saturday fixtures), which is mostly of social significance for her, has been doing this for years now, and close to the kids on her team. Weekday evening practices are very convenient for us because they happen in school. Saturday matches however mean that both parents are busy on Saturday morning - one ferrying her from swimming to football and one with other dc. I wish she could do tennis instead of both with her brother on Saturday morning, that would have been much easier on us as a family.

At least she has nothing on Sunday so far (her sibling does...)

We both work full time in demanding (but flexible) jobs. Flexibility is what allowed us to get her to all these activities until now, but as she is getting more serious about her music and her swimming I am feeling that we are on our way to being overwhelmed, nevermind that we have younger children who will soon start to do (more) activities of their own.

Her future career will probably involve music in some shape, perhaps MT, perhaps being a classical musician. I would like her to be a competitive swimmer on some level, just for the experience of doing a competitive sport. Also I think being a good swimmer it is a life long skill.

Does all this sound like definitely too much or is it just post-lockdown blues? What do we drop when she inevitable needs to wants to add more swimming? Does it sound like we are already doing to much or are there other parents like us?

To be honest you sound a bit unhinged saying your 9 year old is likely to have a career as a professional musician. Violin is insanely competitive. Many of her peers will already been in Saturday conservatoire or doing NCO etc. There are loads of talented musicians who will never get anywhere near making a career out of it. My nephew was diploma level by 12 on the piano. He was great but no where near a prodigy and no-where near dedicated enough to be a professional.

I think you have to take a step back and think about what is realistic and feasible with your family set-up.

Does you DD have down time? With absolutely nothing scheduled, where she is allowed to be bored? Being bored fosters creativity and problem solving and various other important skills. ? It’s really important too.

@Dustyhedge With all due respect - I think questioning the presence/absence of musical aptitude it is unhelpful for this discussion. I have my reasons to believe she has aptitude for music based on what her teachers and people assessing her for various musical scholarships and competitions have said to me, which means a lot more to me than kids achieving grade x at age y. I by no means believe that she will be a famous violinist, but I believe she has a chance to have a career in music of some shape and am acting on this assumption, this is all. I am realistic this won't necessarily happen....
What do you suggest we do instead - that we drop one of her instruments, refuse the scholarship and explain to her that she won't be a musician because some people like your nephew don't persevere beyond secondary?

She is only 9, isn't it a big early to decide that she will be a professional musician and competitive swimmer? Just do things which she enjoys, and cut down the pressure a bit.

Personally I would drop the dancing as it doesn't sound like its top of her or your list. Swimming is probably better in the long term than dancing as once they get to teen years, dancing becomes very image obsessive.

My daughter is a violinist and was a competitive swimmer. We ended up in a squad where the expectation was to swim 3-4 times a week (including one early morning session) plus weekend competitions. It really ramps up. We didn’t go back after lock down as she didn’t really miss it and it was taking up so much time. Now she ‘just’ does her music (one instrument only), ballet and has taken up running to keep her fitness. The running club trains twice a week but the training is much less hardcore than the swimming club and she enjoys it a lot more. Competitive swimming is full on as is playing an instrument. We found it too much doing both.

@GingerandTilly
Thanks! This is food for thought. We won't quit just now but we will have to at least slow down at some point.
My Dd also loves running, we did it all through the lockdown when swimming was off.

Jesus. The poor kid must be exhausted.

@SkiingIsHeaven

Jesus. The poor kid must be exhausted.

The kid is fine. The parents are exhausted from ferrying her around and picking up calls in the car park.

As someone noted up thread just like grown ups kids have different levels of energy.

BFrazzled No I’m not saying quit but i do think she’s spread too thinly if professional music is a possible goal. It seems bonkers to say that at 9 but there will be children already who are completely single-minded about music at that age and that’s the competition.

Music is wonderful. It brought a lot of joy to me when I was younger even though I was mediocre at best. We have been blown away by my nephew’s playing but he’s not unique at his school and I’ve seen the difference between him as a talented player versus a couple of his friends that just live and breathe music at the expense of other things. I think it is quite common to be talented without taking it further. One of my good friends was a NYO player but had no intention of taking it further and I suspect a sizeable chunk of music grads don’t go on to a career involving music.

I think I’d be asking her whether she prefers swimming or dancing and dropping one of those. I’d prob drop her least fav instrument too so she only has one to practice after school. Sounds like she’s a good little swimmer so I wouldn’t worry about it being a life skill as sounds like she has skill in swimming. How many other kids do you have?

If as a family you can manage and afford this level of activity and your DD enjoys them, it's not too much. If her commitments are such that other siblings are missing out or have their choices restricted by hers, then it's too much.

DD1 loved organised activities at 9 too. She did ballet, musical theatre, a couple of musical instruments, Brownies, Saturday music centre and various sports clubs. She picked things up quickly so inevitably ended up being given opportunities to do more including being scouted for national diving training. She liked being busy and liked being around people so doing lots of clubs was perfect for her but when she was offered a place on the diving training we gave her the choice between that and one of the dance classes she already did. She chose dance. At one point we were told she would have to choose between being a ballet dancer, MT performer or musician as all three were feasible. By the time she was 12, she was doing even more activities because she joined lots of sports clubs at secondary school and ended up in multiple teams.

She's now 16 and no longer does dance, musical theatre, any of the sports clubs, Guides/Young Leaders or one of the musical instruments. She has continued with her main instrument, attends a JD and apparently still has the makings of a professional player but she's no longer interested in doing that. Like most of her peers, the career plans she had at 9 have changed somewhat. She loved the activities she did when she was younger and has happy memories and good friends from them but time moves on and the narrowing of her interests has coincided with an increased workload at school and the independence to hang around with friends. Interestingly, her closest friends have had similar pathways albeit with different activities and one stopped competitive swimming and gave it up for a dance programme she does all day Saturday and on a couple of days during the week. As with most of these things at a high level, there needs to be a high level of commitment and an expectation that the activity will take priority over most other things. Enjoy the current activities for what they are and support your DD to make decisions as and when decisions need to be made.

@Dustyhedge Well of course it is absolutely possible that she would choose a different career. Whatever she chooses as you say being able to play and understanding music and being athletic are two things that I want her to have as an adult. I am not sure that being a musician necessarily requires abandoning everything else at this age. I understand that it is not possible to combine this with say serious swimming from some age. It is a shame that in children’s swimming it is so all or nothing - I wish there was a possibility to swim say twice a week. Even in dance you are expected to do more and more...

a shame that in children’s swimming it is so all or nothing - I wish there was a possibility to swim say twice a week

Some clubs have junior masters squads who train less and dont emter as many/any galas you could always look around. Or she could do Rookie Lifeguards, my eldest son wanted to continue football so couldn't commit to swimming so he did Rookie Lifeguards instead, its fun and good for fitness.

In my experience, she will start to arrange her own extra curricular schedule in the next couple of years, and may well change her interests out of the blue anyway, so this won't go on for years.

I've seen parents throw hours and huge amounts of time at a competitive interest (swimming, gymnastics, riding, tennis, chess) - I'm talking 20-30 hours a week on top of school work. They then find that the child reaches early teens, they may be at a very high level, but not quite top (say top 20 in the UK, when only the top 10 make the national squad). Teen gets bored with it, school work ramps up, they scale right back just for fun.

Honestly, in your position, I'd stick to music because it is her thing, and keep the football and maybe dance for fun. Competitive swimming is going to take over your life if she's going to take it seriously.

It sounds too much to me, honestly. When does she have time for homework? It sounds like your life must revolve around her activities. I do think it’s easier to have a variety of scheduled activities if they don’t have a time commitment burden outside of the class, but musical instruments in particular require quite a large daily time commitment, so if she really wants to keep both instruments up then personally I would say she needs to pick one sport to do well and at a push maybe one other extracurricular that’s an easy once/week activity for enjoyment.

In our house we have decided to focus on music and tennis, with horseriding (not for competition, just fun) as the relaxed low-commitment and fun extracurricular. If horseriding becomes more prominent, something else will need to fall back. The music I find to be the biggest burden, because each instrument requires daily practice, and then there are weekly lessons and music theory on top. Once they get a bit older and start playing in orchestras, we will probably urge them to focus on just one instrument, but for now when they are young, we are happy for them to do two instruments so long as they are willing to practice both.

@Linguaphile Yes this is sensible and it is what we will do very soon with music, swimming and dance. She will have to choose between dance and swimming.

@Iknowtheanswer I am not sure quitting after getting into top 20 rather than top 10 is such a waste - I think getting to be so good at something gives the kids confidence for the rest of their lives. In a sense this is what I want for dd (not to get into top 20 mind you, but a sense of having been good enough to compete in swimming.) I can see even now that it forms a big part of her identity and honestly this is the biggest reason to do it. My parents sadly didn’t do it for. me (I was very athletic as a child too) and I felt I missed on it later on.

Re: choosing between swimming and dance - she will have to at some point the problem is dance is not exactly a sport.

Don’t worry thinking that it will remain like this. As another poster has commented, things will reduce down gradually as she gets older and you have given her a wide variety of activities to experience and then decide which she would want to continue with and/or pursue. As she moves to secondary you can then discuss with her if any issues arise with time to do homework etc.

One other point, grades are not the only indication of a musicians potential as they all develop at a different rate so go with the teachers opinion of her ability rather than your DD being compared to others who have x number of grade 8’s etc. and therefore writing off her chances at such a young age.

I think she's doing a lot however if she can sustain that it's fine. But realistically by the time she reaches secondary school she won't be able to. Especially swimming as if she's competitive she'll be in the pool before school a few times a week.

One thing that jumped out at me is when you mentioned MT which I assume to mean musical theatre? If so she absolutely needs to be doing dance no question.

Pre lockdown DD(13) )was busy busy (Regional swimmer, county hockey and now at G7 flute). I can't say she practiced more than 30 minutes/week unless an exam was looming.

She dropped dance classes aged about 10/11 as they kept clashing with fixtures and I could see it was hard work to catch up without private lessons.

She was just very efficient at getting schoolwork done and not faffing.

Other children would find it horrendous, but she used the hours of swimming as her "mindful" time.

Be led by your child, and your own lives, but check that she is still enjoying everything.

Re: choosing between swimming and dance - she will have to at some point the problem is dance is not exactly a sport

Why? Do you consider dance to be inferior in some way? I can assure you that you need to be very fit, strong and athletic to dance at a higher level.

@Standrewsschool

Would she consider dropping the swimming for dance? If she’s athletic, she may excel at the dancing. Or do you think you’ve invested too much time (and money) in the swimming to give it up?

This raises an interesting point. The investment of time and money. Usually when you make an investment, the expectation is that your investment will ultimately bring rewards.

Most parents (I think) view the time and money spent as simply the cost of their dc doing an activity they enjoyed. There are some, however, who do expect a return on their 'investment' in the shape of their dc's success in competition, or by way of a possible future career. I don't really believe that we should put children under that sort of obligation. Paying for your kids to do an activity shouldn't really come with strings attached.

I think it really depends on the definition of “return” or “benefit” vs effort involved. For some the suitable return is simply enjoyment, for some it can be long term physical or psychological benefits and some would say only getting something tangible like say a scholarship would be enough.

Then the question is also if spending thousands of pounds on private lessons just to get into first 30 rather than first 10 in that area would be worth it like another poster has said - probably not. This is really not something I can imagine myself doing in any case...

@dodobookends

Re: choosing between swimming and dance - she will have to at some point the problem is dance is not exactly a sport

Why? Do you consider dance to be inferior in some way? I can assure you that you need to be very fit, strong and athletic to dance at a higher level.

Of course it isn’t inferior in terms of effort or physical demands although I guess they are different. However there isn’t a clear definition of winning a competition like there is in sport. It’s more complicated and I guess it sometimes leads to unhealthy relationships . This is what I imagine and have heard, I wasn’t actually ever involved in dance in anyway.