Do our kids do too many activities?

[CaliTerp07]

Sports are what taught me patience and perseverance. I had zero trouble with academics--straight A's in all AP classes with my eyes closed senior year. Graduated high school with 45 community college credits from dual enrollment throughout high school. Perfect scores on my SATs. School was easy.

Soccer, on the other hand...that taught my brain to think in new ways. I had to balance physical challenges with mental ones, learn to think on the fly, and interact with people I never would have crossed paths with in my "I'm going to Harvard" class schedule. Sports made me a better person. There were lessons learned from piano, band, theater, and scouting too. I'm glad I had those opportunities, regardless of whether they helped me get into college.

Don't get me wrong--if my parents ever thought that sports were hindering our ability to be successful in school, we knew we had to drop the extra curriculars immediately. But as long as academics were in good standing, we could add on as many things as we wanted (we never had any expensive hobbies, thankfully...)

[shamrock847]

Originally Posted by claremarie

"While high school extracurriculars may count for something in college admissions, whether an elementary schooler is in two or six activities is unlikely to matter very much."


Absolutely. But the nature of many activities requires early exposure to identify and develop interests. You can't be in the jazz band in high school if you didn't start playing the trumpet in elementary school. And although you might have grown up in a community/era in which kids could pick up a new sport as teenagers, unfortunately it no longer works that way. With some notable exceptions such as cross country and crew, most high school sports teams are filled with kids who have been playing for years.

It's certainly a mistake for parents to spend all of their family time hustling kids from one expensive activity to the next in the desperate hope of getting into the right college, but it is equally a mistake for parents to overreact to this busy-ness by deciding that what worked for their own college admission process will be good enough for their kids.

I agree with you, but at the same time given the competitiveness of many high school activities around here, very few of the elementary schoolers involved in an activity will ever make it to the high school team or organization.

If the younger kids are in an activity because they enjoy it that's great, but if they are in it because their parents think it will help them get in to college 10 years down the road it's a mistake. It's these cases of parents pushing their kids to do everything because they think it will give them some advantage that cause people to say kids are overscheduled.

[claremarie]

Originally Posted by shamrock847

I agree with you, but at the same time given the competitiveness of many high school activities around here, very few of the elementary schoolers involved in an activity will ever make it to the high school team or organization.

No question. But, to turn it around, virtually none of the elementary school kids who were NOT involved in that activity then will be in a position to participate in high school.