How many activities?

[emsies]

At the moment my daughter does gym, music and swimming which is fab - but she isn't at school yet!

I's quite like her to go to rainbows when she's old enough....

How many activities do your children do? Which ones would you choose?

I don't want to be a mum that's always traipsing her around to things, I do want her to have time to play as a child! BUT I'd like her to be able to swim, play an instrument and do dance/gym etc. At the moment its fine but once school takes up her time....

Ideas?! Thanks

DS is 5 and at pre school, he does 2 activities, one after nursery one day a week and swimming at the weekend. As he needs to go to extended nursery a couple of days a week I feel that this is enough for him, plus its good to keep a lot of the weekend free as we get a lot of party invites. When he starts school and is six we will add beavers to the mix and see if he can do any activities on the days he is at afterschool.

To me swimming is important and is a life skill, the rest is nice to have. School is meant to be tiring when they are young, so I think a couple a week is fine.

DD is two. She does football, swimming, two music groups, gym club as well as playgroups etc. She's starting ballet in September.

Ds is 3 and does swimming and rugby at the moment. He's shown an interest already in dance, football, tennis, ice hockey, golf, drums, piano-to name just a few! It's tough to choose which classes as like you I think children need lots of free time to just 'be'. I'm hoping once he starts school he'll get a taster of a lot of these things, and then I can take the lead from him.

Mine didn't do anything much before they started school.

DD is 5 and does:
Football
Sports club
Art club
Urdd (Welsh children's group)
Horse Riding

DS2 is 7 and does:
Football
Sports Club
Hockey
Art Club
Urdd
and will start learning an instrument in September

DS1 is almost 9 and does:
Football
Hockey
Sports Club
Art Club
Urdd
Choir
Piano
and wants to start playing rugby.

DD (5)
Swimming lessons
Rainbows
Ballet
Tennis
Cricket

DS (7)
Swimming
Beavers
Tennis
Cricket

Have only just started the cricket though, something might have to give if they are getting too tired. DS has asked to stop activities in the past because he was finding it a bit much, so I trust his judgement. Beavers and cricket don't start till 6 so there is still a fair amount of down time after school on those days. Also my two go to bed fairly late for their ages (8.30) so there is a reasonable amount of time to fit it all in. We travel maximum of 10-15 mins each way for any activity, the only one of these I have to drive for is swimming. We also only have a 5 min walk home from school, if we were had longer journeys to all these things we would probably do less.

My dd (5) does swimming twice a week and she has one regular play date once a week (alternately at their house or our house). Tbh I feel that´s about right for her. It means we have adventures in the woods at least once a week and have plenty of time for whatever takes our fancy.

DD1(10) does swimming and piano.
DD2(5) does ballet.
DS(8) does....nothing (that's another thread).

Too much and they don't have time for homework, playdates, charging around outside with their friends after school and generally chilling out. I don't think children should be too scheduled. I would like DS to do one thing though, but he needs lots of time for putting crabs in buckets, drawing racing cars and making sweet shops outside the front door, apparently.

DD1 (9) and DD2 (7) do Art, Violin, Dancing and gymnastics. And we fit in swimming when some of those hobbies are on a break (like summer hols).

It is too much, but they LOVE all of their hobbies and refuse to give any up. But arranging playdates is a nightmare - we pretty much only have free time on Saturday afternoon (and Sunday, but we keep that as a family date, except for birthday party invites).

For music, remember to factor in that they will need to practice, perhaps most days of the week. And when they get older they may have homework (mine do). They will also have birthday parties, playdates, to schedule.

My recommendations would be no more than three!

Forgot to add:
If she gets good as gymnastics/music/dancing it may mean more than one class per week!

I always said no more than 3 each, but they do love them all and never seem to be tired. Luckily none of them require extra practice in between times but I can see homework becoming an issue as we move into key stage 2.

Oh and:
time for recitals, concerts, shows, displays, etc... As these often take place outside the time you normally do the hobby.

Sure I realise as a hobby grows it would take more time, so I don't expect her to continue them all!! But as she is only 2 at the moment it is very definitely at the "for fun" stage, just trying to work out how much she can continue when at school.

I hadn't thought of doing swimming in the holidays. That might be a good idea, as locally they do intensive courses then. I don't want her doing tons of things so 3 sounds good.

Thanks everyone :)