How many clubs do your kids do?

[Franny1]

How many extra-curricular clubs do your kids do? Especially at the weekends? My kids do a fair bit but I'm quite a big believer in the benefits of boredom and I try to keep quite a few afternoons free (and at the moment my ten year old doesn't do any weekend clubs at all). But I feel like they are missing out!

(Bear in mind they are at an independent London school, so it may be that I'm surrounded by rat racey people and they're all doing too much!)

3 at school, 4 outside of school

10 year old does rugby (training once a week and match on Sunday), 7 year old does Beavers, gymnastics and Stagecoach.

10 year old does two instruments/choir/orchestra/band/tonnes of sport in school so not fussed about what he does outside school - they have really long days.

7 year old does lots as has adhd and needs to be entertained at all times - I’d be very happy for him to do less!

4 at school (one lunchtime), 3 outside school (one of them twice a week, tge rest weekly). plus instrument tuition.
will stop swimming after this term though.

10 year old does choir, piano lessons, football, netball and hockey. Choir is before school, piano lessons in school time, the other 3 straight after school. She also plays for a football club, which has 2 training sessions a week plus a match at weekends.

8 year old has 5. 4 year old has 3. Most are after school except for one one a Saturday morning so we have the rest of the weekend free to make plans

7 yo ds does his weekly judo (1hour), martial arts (1 hour), swimming (90 mins as he’s quite advanced now), drama (1hour), multisports/athletics club (1 hour) and also cycles an hour each Saturday (he currently out of the local MTB or CX club because it clashes with judo).

Next term he’ll probably swap a few of the clubs as we like to mix things up and try new things. He’ll probably start bouldering (NIBAS) and drop multisports. We might add piano or science or coding club and Beavers too.

DS is at state school so there isn’t a lot of academic pressure and he needs the enrichment.

I would hope that at an independent school you wouldn’t need to add a lot of activities because school would organise it all!

7yo does football, beavers, swimming, violin and is a chorister so has choir once per week atm but soon to be x3 - I think it’s too much really but he doesn’t want to drop any of it.

5yo has swimming and a musicianship class which I think is plenty.

None at weekends. At school they each do 3-4 extracurricular clubs during term time. Some before school, some after school and some at lunch.

Ds used to have swimming lessons and take a karate class. Now he (17) is a weekend pool lifeguard and still does an hour and a half in the dojo.

One each outside of school- on a week day so that weekends are kept free. The older one (y5) does a few in school- either lunch time or straight after school so just a late pick up but the Y3 just does one in lunch time. I have to remind myself frequently that it’s enough, they have long days, plenty of sport at school etc because so many people do loads outside of school and I worry they’ll get “left behind” especially in the sports related ones. But I think it’s so good to have family time and time to chill and just play at home.

Three sports clubs, one social club, one volunteering thing, one academic club, one music group and Saturday language school. Most occur in school/straight after/before school.

Youngest has one swim class a week

eldest does cubs one evening, football training one evening and football matches one weekend morning. Used to do swimming but quit once she could swim a few lengths

I’d say do as many as you can afford. You never know what might ‘stick’ and become a life-long pastime and source of pleasure for years as your DC become adults.
My DS (15) does something every weekday: chess, two instruments, tennis and ballet. When he was younger he also did Stagecoach and school choir.
They need something meaningful away from screens and the academic pressure of school.