How Many Clubs do your children do?

[Eesha]

Just curious really, for context I'm a single, working parent and my 2 children do dance, yoga plus a piano lesson at home. They are 5/6. It's all just fun really.

I've recently met someone with three children all under 7 who do at least 5 or 6 each. To be fair, they are also incredibly wealthy and have two parents. But is this the norm?

Mine does five at age 6. It’s too many really and I’m hoping to drop one or two but they get so much out of each.

"I hate all this pressure and expectation nowadays that your kids should be doing this club and that club its an awful lot of pressure on parents and kids."

But life is a lot of pressure so the sooner my kid learns and adapts to it, the better.
If they study a hard degree at uni in the future (law, medicine, maths) it will be hard... but it won't be new to them.

I had to move countries at 15yo with a completely new language to me. I think I managed well and got good GCSEs because I was used to tough extra curricular activities so I was used to pressure and challenges.

@BDeyes

My six almost seven year old does two, ballet and rugby.

My 7 year old does brownies, swimming, horse riding and dance. I think it's too much but she's not ready to quit anything yet.. hoping she loses interest in riding soon...

At primary age it was just swimming, beavers/ cubs.

My 15yr old now does martial arts, army cadets with school and police cadets. Plus duke of Edinburgh and some parkruns. He still manages to spend a considerable amount of time fannying around on fortnite. It's only martial arts I have to drive him to as we live in the centre of town. Next years he'll have to stagger which ones to miss every week as he'll have gcses.

Eldest does one club twice a week and youngest does 3. More than enough and more than enough expense! I agree with poster above that as a child I never did any clubs apart from a school club. There wasn’t the expectation of it all back then.

F

None. I'm a working lone parent and there just isn't the money for after school clubs. I also think children need downtime after school and don't see the need for so many extra activities, so even if I did have money for these things I'd only consider it if it was something they were really interested in.

I have a 9 year old who loves clubs. She does: Swimming, Tennis, Drama, German, cubs, Football and Piano. Yes it's a lot but she enjoys them all. She'll cut back slightly next year as she'll need to start preparing for the 11plus examination.

I've already posted what DS does, but just here to wow at some schools' offerings! Really envious, ours has stopped offering anything but a couple of basic sports after school (football, gymnastics, run by external company). DS would love a Lego club at lunchtime. Are these school ones free?

My kids all do one club, each does a different martial art. So between them and DH and I we have a club on every day except saturday.

my son (year 4) does 4 sports plus non-sports clubs 2 nights a week. It’s probably too much tbh but he doesn’t want to drop any.
i grew up in a country where after school you go to extra curricular classes for hours every night and kids just want to sleep all the time

Mine do 2 each, that's plenty imo.
Apart from the expense, children need unstructured time just as much as adults do.

My kids are older:

10yo
Gym
Skateboarding
Dance
Basketball
Horse riding

14yo:
Skateboarding
Cheerleading
Netball
Cadets
Horse riding

DD13 does dance , drama , gymnastics and singing lessons (in school).

DD11 does gymnastics and she is hoping to start triathlon club soon. Her PE teacher is encouraging her to join clubs in school as well.

When they were 5/6 though they didn't do very much. Swimming and gymnastics for 45 mins once a week was all. The clubs they do now are ones they have chosen to do and enjoy.

They have a lot of time for Xbox and phone nonsense!

13
Scouts
swimming
tennis
spanish
football
athletics at school

11
scouts
swimming
tennis
football
maths
guitar at school

6
rainbows
swimming
dance
tennis
football

Two parents both work part time. No wrap around care used. Don’t have fancy holidays.

Under 7 we did Tumble Tots/Gymbobs and ad hoc swimming at the health club.

KS2 they went to school football club, Music Service ensemble, and ad hoc swimming. Instrument lessons in school time, choir at lunchtime. Then bellringing one evening a week and church choir another. When S2 was 8 we started karate (originally an after-school activity which he really enjoyed). Year 6 they each started going to a church-run youth group.

KS3 there were several school music groups and a Music Service band. Bellringing, choir, youth group, karate, swimming at the health club maybe once a week (Sunday afternoon, drink and crisps in the bar afterwards). S1 did cooking club for about a year, and STEM club.

KS4&5 still the school music groups and the Saturday band, and S1 joined Youth Choir. S1 also joined an occasional regional orchestra and spent two years in another. S1 bellringing, choir, karate; S2 dropped choir and eventually dropped karate, and had some time out of ringing but then went back to it. Weekly swimming continued after S1 went to uni until lockdown. S2 did the occasional run and then took up going to the gym.

At uni S2 joined the brass band, the ringers and the D&D group, and has managed the gym several times a week. S1 joined a major chapel choir, the ringers and as many music groups as would have him.

Ds is 7. He does football training twice a week, street dance, drama, beavers and French. He wants to add another sport and piano lessons after the summer. Plus he runs with me at least twice a week. He also finds time for homework, play dates and the xbox.

Dd is 3. She does ballet, street dance and French. She turns 4 soon and wants to add another class as soon as that happens.

My 11 year old does football and martial arts. 10 year old does ballet but quite intensive so doesn’t do anything else! Ds8 doesn’t do anything, he would really struggle with extra curriculars. He did do swimming but he can’t cope with it right now (or they can’t cope with him) so I’ve started taking him swimming at weekends to try and help him learn. 6 year old does junior ballet, gymnastics/tumbling, swimming lessons, and rainbows. In the summer she did football also. I imagine next year we’ll cut something back.

Realistically I don’t think there’s any right or wrong answer. My 10 year old is very intense about ballet - for her doing another activity would be a distraction. DS11 and DD6 are busy bees and need to be kept engaged and burn off their energy. DS8 needs plenty of relaxing time. Different children need/want different things.

At that age one or two activities is plenty. In fact I'd say any primary school kid 3 or 4 max, and it also depends on how much ferrying about you can handle. My daughter had netball at the same time my son had another sport on Saturday mornings and it was a nightmare as my daughter would rarely go with another parent and that would just leave me guilty not watching my son (I still had to get him there).
They both did Stagecoach for half a day Sunday, she did Brownies, netball and piano (all at school except matches and summer term when they practised at another location) he did sport sport and more sport.

My DC is 10 and goes to football, chess, and piano. It’s all in walking/biking distance which helps a lot.

Dd5 does karate, Rainbows and dance.
dd4 does swimming and karate.
I feel like this is a good balance for them at the moment.

DD(7)does MMA, Netball, Drama, Tuition sessions and Youth Club. That's something every night.

DS (9) does Tuition Session, Drama and Youth Club. He's also on the Student Council of the tuition centre standing on the platform of "giving a voice to shy kids"

It seems like a lot but with the exception of MMA and Netball, everything on that list is free and takes place at a community centre one street from our house.

The MMA gym is only a 5 min walk away.

Netball is the only pain-in-the-ass-disrupting-your-evening-to-drive-somewhere type thing that we do.

DS(9) has ASD and can only do the evening activities because we home school him during the day. If he was still at school he would definitely be too overwhelmed.

DD(7) is a little over scheduled. Especially when you considers she has homework as well. Sometimes she skips off the school bus saying "What's the activity tonight?". Sometimes she asks to miss a session and chill out at home. And that's OK too.

Extra curricular - karate, swimming and Stagecoach

In school - guitar lessons.

She used to do ballet and horse riding but we knocked this on the head when lockdown happened and she hasn't asked to go back. I'm glad as it was getting too much cost wise.

The karate and swimming are life skills I want her to have and the Stagecoach is for fun, as are the guitar lessons.

Depends on personality surely? My insanely energetic & extroverted 7yo does seven different extra-curricular things a week & thrives on it, so we go with it for now. My quieter more introverted 10yo does three & is likewise happy.