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I am wondering how many activities people have their children involved in and do some parents prefer not to do any extra curricular activities at all, due to either 1) time constraints or 2) financial issues?
My daughter takes gymnastics and dance and is also in Brownies. We are pretty maxed out but she wants to do more.
How old is your daughter? Does she go to school and maintain her grades?
Does she have time to do more extra curricular activities and keep up with school work, housework, whatever else your family has to do and get enough rest?
If you/your spouse can't afford/are stressed for time/unable to have her take on more activities at this point, you should be honest with her. Tell her that it would be nice to be involved in all these activities but you feel that it would be too time consuming. Ask her to pick out a few favorites to try with a promise to revisit the situation in say 6 months.
I am wondering how many activities people have their children involved in and do some parents prefer not to do any extra curricular activities at all, due to either 1) time constraints or 2) financial issues?
My daughter takes gymnastics and dance and is also in Brownies. We are pretty maxed out but she wants to do more.
Children will always want to do more. That's because they are children. They are pure id, running around all the time yelling, "I want, I want, I want."
It is not your job as a parent to give your child everything they want. In fact, I would describe that as bad parenting. Instead, it's your job to help a child grow into a moral, ethical, self-sufficient adult. They need to enter adulthood with decision-making abilities, tenacity, and the knowledge that, while they can't have it all, they can't have their heart's content if they work hard enough at it.
So extracurricular activities are crucial. But it's important to find the activity or two that your kid really enjoys and focus on that. And by focus, I mean, do it for more than a week or two and quit when the newness of it wears off.
All my kids wanted to play musical instruments. Before I agreed, they had to agree to one simple condition: They were in it for five years, including practice. There would be no quitting because it was sometimes hard or tedious. Guess what? All three of them are really good on their respective instruments, and I've never really had to prompt them to practice. They aren't going to win a Grammy, but music has become a very fulfilling part of their lives.
The same is true of athletics, scouting, or anything else. It's more important to do two or three activities deeply than to do five or six in a half-assed manner. Otherwise, you have over programmed, strung-out kids who can't focus for being dragged from one activity to the next. And you and your family suffer, too.
Now, like all things, there are exceptions. There are times when you do throw in the towel. Both my boys loved Cub Scouts. But when they graduated to Boy Scouts, they got turned off to it pretty quickly. They were in for the camping and the friendships they forged. But their troop was run by a bunch of zealous scoutmasters who were all about pushing the kids to get their Eagle Scout badges (I learned later it was known as an Eagle Scout Factory). In that sense, the priorities of scouting diverged from the priorities of my children. That was an easy decision to make.
My boys got tired of continuously being harangued for not making headway, and it got to feel like homework to them. I let both of them quit Boy Scouts as a result, chiefly because what it was asking of them wasn't the reason they were in it in the first place.
My child is almost 5, just started kindergarten and currently I dont have him in any extracurricular activities. There isnt that much time left between when he comes home from school and bedtime and I want to ensure he gets playtime, family time at this age still. Also, starting school is probably stressful so I want him to get used to that before dumping more on his plate.
We will likely sign him up for 1 or 2 activities (once a week max) after he settles into school.. maybe January.
You don't mention your daughter's age but if she wants to do more then that's good - as long as you're not being the pushy parent and you can afford it, its all good IMO.
My son is 6 and we do extra curricular activities. We tend to focus on one sport a season and one non-sport but that varies and overlaps. We also try to do different activities during track outs (we're year round school) such as a week of tae kwon do or cooking or art camp. Currently we're doing soccer, acting and church choir. I try to find activities that will help him develop different skills to make him well rounded. He's still young but I don't foresee us committing to much more than that. We both work full time and I want him to still have some play time and to get to bed on time.
I think it's going to be hard juggling a lot of activities with 3 kids. Ideally, I'd like them to narrow it down to one activity each, along with scouting if they want to do that also.
Max is two. They all train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. My older two take art lessons in the spring/summer, and online STEM/coding courses. They've really only expressed genuine interest in art and STEM lessons, apart from BJJ.
My son has expressed interest in dance classes. So, we're thinking of signing him up for dance classes this fall. So dance and BJJ.
My kids are still young, so I follow their lead as much as possible. My eldest wanted to do a ton of activities in Kindergarten, and then even more in 1st grade, and I let her. By the end of 1st grade, she told me she was tired of doing all that, and wanted to quit all but piano and tae kwon do, and focus on them, and so that's what we did! What was important to me was that it was her idea, her decision.
My second child is in Pre-K now, and if he gets all excited about all of the options next year, I will try and let him explore as well, as much as I can. This is one of the (few) areas that I try to let my kids have as much control over as possible (without letting them quit anything mid-session of course).
We are in the unique position of having two sets of kids 19 years apart. The first two were in scouts, took private music lessons, dance,church choir, church youth group, band, orchestra, recitals, art, you name it. I was exhausted from running them around all the time. Our family time was extremely limited but I thought I was doing the right thing.
When they got out of high school and were in college, we decided to adopt 2 more and we took a completely different approach. Scouts, music lessons were almost required but they did not enjoy scouts so that only lasted a few months. One wanted dance lessons but the other didn't so that went on for 2 years. One studies flute, the other violin and they both took piano for 5 years. I think music is essential for brain development.
I think the more laid-back approach is right for these girls. They love each other and like being together at home. This works for us.
I once ran across a flustered Mom who was dressing her daughter in the bathroom for dance lessons. She had just finished gymnastics. The kid was having a complete meltdown and it was not the first time. I felt so sorry for them both. I'm sure the Mom thought she was giving her child all "the best advantages" but I'm sure the kid would have been much happier with a coloring book at home.
Now, like all things, there are exceptions. There are times when you do throw in the towel. Both my boys loved Cub Scouts. But when they graduated to Boy Scouts, they got turned off to it pretty quickly. They were in for the camping and the friendships they forged. But their troop was run by a bunch of zealous scoutmasters who were all about pushing the kids to get their Eagle Scout badges (I learned later it was known as an Eagle Scout Factory). In that sense, the priorities of scouting diverged from the priorities of my children. That was an easy decision to make. .
My daughter loves scouting but it's the camaraderie she loves about it, being with the other girls. Not getting badges. At some point she may give it up, also.
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