Superchildren

[sigh18]

How do some children find time to ace academics, music, sports and drama? Where do they find the hours to practice or are they naturally gifted at everything? Though I am not sure how anyone can progress in music and sports especially without practice?

My DD comes back home, knackered, and just about manages to finish homework. She does a few activities over the weekend - an instrument and a sport- but that’s about it.

How do others manage to excel at so much?

Planning and no TV!

Planning. Often extracurriculum activities done straight from school.
No tv or screens on weekdays.
No chores ond dsys (all family members opt in) if time spent practising an instrument/language.

Tbh it's more of a toll for parents to works around activities with job/commitments than our children.

It soon becomes a habit and stamina grows. Persistence, enjoying having a go and enjoying being in groups help.

Plus good sleep, simple food, less TV. Oh, and lots of parental support as MumChp says!

We did reading and instrument practice in the mornings before school. They don't have the concentration afterwards.

Swimming etc was after school or at the weekend.

But why do they need to? How old is she? I've never understood this need for kids to be doing everything - sports, musical instruments, after school clubs every day and then on the weekends. Two or three a week maximum is absolutely fine. Add in to that homework, play time and family time and you've got a full week already.

If you have the kind of child who is constantly on the go physically and can't sleep unless they are physically knackered then doing extra sport after school really does help them sleep and help your house not get trashed.

The more you limit screens and technology, the more time there is for other things, particularly reading.
Homework, except reading, is largely a waste of time in primary, and only serves to get in the way of developing extracurricular interests.
Schools which support extracurricular sport/music during the (extended) school day help make efficient use of time (e.g. you don't have spend time taking them to and from a music lesson or swimming lesson after school if the lesson is a pull-out lesson from school or the school has a swim team.
Facilitation by parents is also important. e.g. at the early stages of learning a musical instrument it's important to be in the room with them, helping them through it. Having a musical parent (who can e.g. help with reading the music, getting the rhythms right, rather than the child misreading, learning wrong, then having to unlearn) speeds up progress hugely. If both parents are at work till after 6pm it's going to be more difficult to facilitate.
An early start on some interests (e.g. music, gymnastics) is generally necessary to get to the highest levels. If you're not starting till 9 you're practically geriatric.

The kids I know like that are just super organised and eager plus have parental support to ferry them to various activities. A girl in my son's year was in the Cadets, in the choir, always had a role in any plays, did an extra GCSE in Y10 on her own 'just because'...(and got a 9). She'd rather study than watch TV. Only thing she wasn't great at was sport.
A girl in my daughter's year was equally top in music, academics and sport. Always getting the awards every year. Their siblings weren't like that - it was just them. She put a lot of pressure on herself though.
Anyway, kids are kids and there's always someone doing everything really well. Does it translate to happiness or even future success? Not so sure.

Kids like that are often just naturally good at things and are self motivated.
The one I know is also quite competitive (I know the parents are not like that at all) and that motivates her to keep trying and improve because she wants to be the best at it.
It's often because they were naturally good and people noticed and they don't want to lose that edge so keep trying.

Agree with this

I have one DC with limited energy (medical reasons) and as you say, just getting through school and homework was enough of a challenge. She did almost no extra curriculars until about y5.

My other DC is totally different… like a puppy who needs lots of exercise…. she does a club every day after school, two on some nights, and more at the weekend. I am not a pushy parent at all, my life would be much easier without all the blooming ferrying around. She asks to do these clubs and is so much happier being busy and physically active.

Some 9 year old girls we know are like grade 7 or 8 piano and competing at county/regional level for sports, all the while excelling academically too. I am absolutely amazed by them!

Oh yeah I know one or two of those. They do have immensely pushy parents. The kids may well be competitive and ambitious themselves too - these characteristics are genetic like anything else! Of course they also have natural ability but it’s been finely honed!!

dunno.. it just happened for my two! however i will admit, that as soon as school realised they fell into the 'gifted and taleneted' bracket at school, nothing was too much trouble for them.

yes there are pushy parents out there, i wasn't one, i supported my children when i could and if i could afford it, but at the end of the day, i was happy for my children to follow their own path.

i did not restrict TV/sceen time, i did not make them do anything they did not want to do. if they wanted to try an out of school acitivity, they had to finish the one they were already doing first.

i might add, one fell asleep at every opportunity the other had the energy of a baby tiger!

It's not all about pushy parents.

Some kids have an internalised drive to work and to achieve. I know someone who as a child achieved highly in everything they did - top of the class at everything at school, a sport at county level, piano and was also very popular because despite being a high achiever was modest and very likeable with it. The parents weren't pushy and in fact at times tried to encourage her to slow down. She was just so driven.

I know a couple of other kids like this too but without the sport element (but time still committed to extracurricular activity).

There is sometimes fall out later on though because I think it's very hard to sustain that level of commitment for nearly twenty years which is pretty much how long it is between starting school at 4 and graduating from some of the longer uni courses and then you have to navigate the working world and all of a sudden working hard doesn’t guarantee success.

GoneIs I agree that these kids will have lots of drive of their own, but to have achieved county level/grade 7 or whatever by an early age, a parent must have started that child on these activities very young (like 3 or 4). To me that is a pushy parent.

Some dc thrive on doing many activities. They just slot homework in here and there. They don't get tired.

Forgot to add, some dc also retain a lot of info at school. For example, not needing to study for spelling tests, not having to learn multiplication tables at home (just learning them at school and no need to practice at home) etc.

Children are not all the same but I see the old trope of 'pushy parents' has been wheeled out. If you get the combination of incredible drive, commitment and inate talent then it shouldn't be that surprising that children like this exist. My DD made it to Grade 6/7 in 1.5 years on one of her instruments in spite of having two parents who knew absolutely nothing about music; she also had a speech delay requiring SALT and barely spoke until she was 3.

Some children are just naturally able to excel with minimal effort. It is also a known fact that children who excel in music also tend to do well in maths. Many children children that excel in academics, sports, music are also naturally self motivated so it's not necessarily down to pushy parents.

I don't buy into the pushy parent narrative so much BUT parents have to have time and energy to facilitate all the activities. Most schools don't offer enough in the way of clubs so parents must collect the kids most days at 3:30 to take them to things. Our DD does football to a good level and this happens one evening per week and both days at the weekend. Then both kids do swimming and another sport each and DD does drama club. This would not be possible if I were not able to work flexibly from home. Some mums we know work part time or not at all. Our school also has a no homework policy (reading only) so that helps. DD is bright and doing well, no doubt we could stretch her with a tutor but won't go there.

There's a cultural element I think in parenting style and responses to authority. There are three children in dcs class (year 4) with a Chinese background. These children excel at everything, they go to a separate school all Saturday, they practice instruments 2 hours a night, they play for county level for various sports.

They are very disciplined, seem to have a military level schedule and have strong respect for their parents. There is no eye rolling at mum like my dd does!

@Arrestedmanevolence oh wow! I don’t think my DD has stamina for all that, even if she wants to work this hard.

It also depends on the instrument. Piano and strings typically take longer but can be started younger. Woodwind and brass shorter but, except for recorder, you need to wait a couple more years. Perfectly possible to be starting grade 8 repertoire on woodwind/brass after 4 years, starting at age 7 on moderate amounts of practice a day (say 20 mins for earlier grades, 30 mins for later). One of the main issues with wind instruments at that age is teeth falling out.
Piano and strings took longer, but starting at a younger age. Also woodwind went faster because they already knew how to read music etc as it was the 2nd/3rd instrument studied.

I'd suspect grade 6/7 from scratch in 1.5 years is rare, though, and needs more than 30 mins/day.

I think that limiting screen time is important - in primary mine had hardly any in the week which meant that there was time for music practice and sports teams and homework etc. Most activities were done straight from school or at school which helped. I'm not a tiger mum - music didn't start until year 3 for the older but little one obviously wanted to start earlier in emulation.

One was massively driven to practice music and that is pretty well all they did - cathedral choir, Saturday music school plus any orchestra they could find in the holidays. They also got very tired and, by secondary, very frustrated that their academic work "got in the way" of their music. The other was far more energetic and needed a physical outlet - so cathedral choir, half day Saturday music school, lots of orchestra but also is on a national pathway for a sport at uni and was an academic high achiever. Where I think they both really benefited was that they learnt at an early age how not to waste time -eg 15 minutes on the tube was long enough to learn their French vocab, 40 minutes on the bus was time to do their maths etc.

I think some of them are literally just naturally interested in all the things they do, and school and just ‘doers’. We’ve had to work on my 14yo who says anything, and I mean anything, as in homework, study, helping out at home, going to visit someone etc etc is wasting his (insert precious though he’d never dare say it!) time. All he wants is Lego, the books he likes and gaming. I think the all rounders think of everything as having the potential and possibilities to entertain them and as I said just do- so they leap into everything with gusto! my youngest eg enjoys homework, tries learning new languages, teaches himself magic tricks, reads all off his own bat. My 11 yo makes games on scratch by looking up YouTube videos himself) Saying that they’ve all got amazing things in their personalities and the two that don’t push themselves to try/ learn etc have as much possibilities as the others, or as the kids in their class that do sports/ hobbies/ community work/ get high grades/ play the flute while cooking a Michelin meal. (I’m not even joking😉)

@londonmummy1966 I totally agree - my DD is very efficient in the use of her time - aural practise/ sight singing in the car on the way to school (not the whole journey but 10/15 minutes of it). When she practises her instruments - it is for about 20/30 minutes each 4/5 times per week - she is focused though.