Do your kids have extracirricular activities and if, how old and how many?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My son is 7. He takes taekwondo two nights a week and piano in the morning on Saturdays. Anyway, after agonizing over whether I was somehow sending a bad message and overthinking the damn thing, we decided it would make sense to cut out taekwondo.

My husband and I both work, so we have to bend over backwards to fit our schedules around his classes, and sometimes they switch the times. It cuts into family time at night and they’re expecting us to buy a bunch of crap for the next cycle. And our son just isn’t all that interested anyway, so we’re thinking we’ll look for something more manageable.

So I got to thinking:

  1. How do other people, especially with elementary school aged kids, do this? Do you have your kids participate in elective activities outside of school?
  2. When did your kids start taking extracirriculars?
  3. Do you work?
  4. And does this affect your work hours?
  5. Is it something you stress about ever?
2

You will make thousands of parenting mistakes in your lifetime – I try not to stress about things that don’t put the kids in the hospital. Not to say that I don’t; I just have to talk myself out of it a few times a week.

My daughter (10) did a variety of things from about age 7, one at a time – tried soccer, then ballet, then Mad Science, etc – until she fell in love with musical theater. Now she spends about 9 - 12 hours a week on voice, dance, rehearsal etc but it’s her only extracurricular and she’s passionate about it. So we make it work with carpools and she’s old enough for drop off so that helps. And we told her that schoolwork is more important, so she has to get all that done first.

My son (7) did a variety of things (soccer, flag football, karate, drawing) until we realized he wants to do nothing! And we’re OK with that. Every now and then I try to get him into something but he’s happiest just tooling around our house and neighborhood after school.

As with anything, it’s all a balancing act and every kid is different. I know kids who’ve had activities every weekday since they were 5 and they seem OK. Others just the opposite.

If your son wants to try something, I’d make him go for the duration of the semester (or whatever) but drop it after if he likes. And if you can’t swing it because of work, you just don’t do it.

PS – unless your kid is going to the Olympics or Broadway or whatever, don’t get sucked into doing more than you and your kid want

3

My daughter got involved in the high school play starting in the 4th grade. The director liked to get grade school kids involved for a scene or two (which led to a version of The King and I where the march of the Siamese Children took 20 minutes). She did that every year until she graduated.

She also got involved in dance a year or two later.

4

A 2nd grader and a 4th grader here. I think some families handle extracurricular activities better than others. I know lots of families that are on the go constantly after school. Personally, I could not handle that. Even so, the activities are mounting and yes, I am stressed out about keeping track of everything. In summary:

  1. Currently 2nd grader has: piano (1x/wk), karate (1x/wk) and Girl Scouts (1x/wk). 4th grader has Cub Scouts (3x/month) and gymnastics (1x/wk). My general rule is that they need to be participating in one athletic activity and one musical activity. (4th grader has music at school so he gets a pass for now). The Girl Scouts and Cub Scouts are optional.

  2. Fairly young. There are some great local mommy and me gymnastics classes so we started that when they were toddlers.

  3. I work 25-30 hours/week. My husband works 40+.

  4. Fortunately not, I am able to leave work in time to pick them up from school and then I am available to get them to activities.

  5. Yes, it’s always a battle between “are they getting enough activity/enrichment?” and “help! there is too much stuff going on!”

If your son is not that interested in TKD, and it is not working with your family’s schedule, I think you are totally justified in trying to find something else.

5

My kids (9 and 7) both take piano lessons one hour per week. The youngest used to take ballet, but then decided she wanted to do piano like her brother and we could not afford both.

The older one also does Cub Scouts, which is about three hours a month plus occasional special activities.

That’s really it. They have a lot of unstructured play time and they are both really creative and good playmates with each other, plus there are other kids in the neighborhood, so neither they nor us parents feel like they are missing out on anything.

ETA: I forgot to mention, my wife works part time from home, so she is around a lot and is able to do things with them, take them to lessons, the park, etc.

6

I have an 11 year old and a 7 year old. Currently, they’re in the same karate class (weekday evening) and they both take a parkour class on the weekends, but on different days. The 7 year old is about to start French after school one day a week.

We hire an after-school babysitter to take care of activity logistics, as well as play dates and whatnot. I’d be happy for them to do more, but this seems to be an activity level that works for them.

7

My husband and I both work until 5 or 6, so our options are limited. There’s a local music school that goes into the public schools and do lessons there once per week, so right now they’re each taking an instrument (violin for the 9-year-old boy; drums/percussion for the 11-year-old girl). Then they go right to their afterschool program, which is also at school. My daughter does Future Problem Solvers 1x/week, also at school after school. And right now they both play flag football on Sundays.

I stress about it all the time. But the reality is, we’re just not able to do more. None of us is in a hurry to get up and out of the house on Saturday mornings. We’re all out at school or work 10 hours a day, if you count commute in there. We want to be lazy. But then I feel guilty about that, too.

8

My daughter’s been in two days of After School activities for most of second and now starting into third grade. Ostensibly, she can pick any one or two she likes…but I’ve noticed that her choices always fall on days which make her father’s (my ex husband’s) life a little easier, not mine. :smiley:

9

7yo has music (voice) lessons, but that’s during school hours. It’s a supplemental program at school, otherwise we’d probably do something similar at nights.

4yo has swimming lessons one night per week. I stay at home and we sometimes do sports or gymnastic classes during the day. At age 5 (I think), they can join a soccer or t-ball team, and since mine is pretty into sports we will probably do this.

10

Ooh, I’m worries I’m going to be one of those mums.

My almost-4 year old has been doing ballet and gymnastics this year, and has been in swimming classes since she was 6 months. Her 21 month old sister does swimming and most of the gymnastics class (since I have to assist her sister), and really really wants to do ballet but is too young.

Wanted to get her into Suzuki, but no teachers around her for piano.

11

13-year-old: martial arts 5 days per week and theater 1 day per week.

9-year-old: gymnastics 5 days per week.

They’ve both become girls of steel. I think concentrating on doing one thing well is better than switching around every three months.

12

I agree that concentrating on one thing is best. Do you and your wife both work? How do you handle the logistics?

13

Both of the oldest kids were involved with instrumental and vocal music from about the third grade forward, and musical theatre in high school. During elementary school, their after-school performances and practice averaged about two hours per week. By high school, it was often 8-12 hours, but they were able to carpool a lot, or drive themselves or one another, so we parents spent maybe an hour a week total playing chauffeur, plus an occasional gig chaperoning a band trip or such.

The two middlest are in tenth and seventh grades. The sophomore is on the robotics team, which meets twice a week after school, and needs to be picked up, plus about four annual competitions. His drama class averages one after-school rehearsal and one performance per month. The seventh-grader is in book club, math team, quiz bowl, literary team, and student council, and wants to go out for track in the spring. (She has already been told that the last is contingent on keeping up her grades.) These activities call for about two after-school meetings a week, and one competition or weekend activity per month. Right now, my husband and I are both home full-time due to his convalescence, so transportation is no big deal. We’re looking forward to the elder getting his license soon, though, so we won’t have to choreograph so many rides. When these two were in elementary school, both had school based extracurricular activities, but we lived two blocks from the school, and both learned to walk when feasible (plus my folks lived only four blocks further, and my best friend was also close by and on the pick up list. And the kids’ dad lived closer to the school than I did. Otherwise, as a single working mom at the time, I couldn’t have managed to keep up with basketball and cheerleading and chorus and dance and academic teams.) Both kids have been honor roll students since kindergarten.

The two littlest kids are pre-school age, but we plan to enroll Lily in a tumbling/gymnastics class soon, if only to burn off some energy and teach her to fall safely. That class will be once a week, and close to home, so we’ll manage, especially when we have a third driver in the house.

14

13 year old has done art since she was 3 and is really good. So, she goes to a painting class on Sat mornings. She has also done cello for 3 years and does the Youth Symphony Orchestra for 2 hours on one school night. She also does study hall every day after school and then gets the bus home. The school night is a pain in the butt since she has to leave home at 6:00. It’s okay if I’m not on a business trip but is a real pain when I am away.

She wants to join the musical. Not sure if the time commitment works. The musical is a LOT of time for months. And, what’s worst, is not sure if the transportation works since she won’t be able to take the bus every day home. She’s in a temp school as the real school is being rebuilt, and the temp school is far away and horribly positioned for nasty rush hour traffic. On top of that, she will miss study hall most days.

Twin A does Chinese class and music on Saturdays.

Twin B has therapists that work with her 1:1 6 days a week for hours after school. That’s not really applicable to the OP.

15
  1. We do a lot of volunteering - in the fourth grade, Sophia volunteered 112 hours, in the fifth grade, close to 160. We sort cans at the food bank, clean up the neighborhood, she altar serves and sings in the church choir, stuff like that.

She also does soccer, but this is her last season. She just doesn’t care about team sports and is in them more for the social aspect than anything else = unfortunately, she’s entering the age where more and more of the kids are doing it to win or to improve themselves… and Sophia’s not about improving herself. Not in soccer, anyway.

  1. 2nd or third grade she was in chess club, we had her in karate when she was in kindergarten (she was so CUTE in her karate outfit!), bunch of other stuff to see if it would fit.

  2. Me, yes, wife, no. But the calls on my time bother me less than the calls on Laura’s time.

  3. No. Her education affects my work hours - we have teacher conferences all day on Thursday, which I will likely miss a good deal of the work day, but not extra-curricular activities. We work a LOT in regards to Sophia’s education (and it shows - she has three 100’s (grammar, lit, and study skills), and 91+ averages on all her other classes) - this last Thursday, we were up until 10pm working on her science fair project.

  4. My wife, yes, me, sometimes. I wish Sophia would put more effort into practice and improving herself at the fundamentals, but she refuses to work by herself in any “self-improvement” way. My wife can’t stand the demands on our time (which is really quite minimal, but Laura hates losing her Saturdays.)

16

Can I come in here from the other perspective? I teach English as a foreign language to primary school children, independently, outside school. My classes are really fun, we sing songs, read stories, play games and do art projects and after a while the kids magically speak English. They always love it, and they very often cry when they are told they can’t come.

I have in the past turned down parents who were telling me on the phone how their 4 y/o needs to learn English NOW to get a head start at university, but we’ll have to plan it around their singing lessons, clarinet, swimming, field hockey, painting lessons etc etc. I have no interest in dealing with those parents and that is not what my lessons are about. But seriously, those people have called me more than once.

I know it can be challenging to get the kids to my lessons every week, there is always so much going on. So I always try to be flexible, and other children are always welcome to join if it’s a playdate (I need 24hrs notice because of materials & prep). They quite frequently do bring friends for playdates, and then they often want to keep taking lessons, so that’s good business too.

But I see how challenging it is to bring children here. There are birthdays, and other things to be done, and changing school schedules and poorly siblings. And often they come from quite far away, and need to just hang around during the lesson. Some do emails on their tablet, others try to get shopping done in the hour the kids are with me, some like to watch the lesson. Two mums were good friends and used to drop off the kids and then go for coffee & catch up together, I always thought they had the best plan!

Most children who take lessons with me also do other after school activities, always swimming (I’m in the Netherlands) and often a sport and musical instrument as well. I think it’s a socio-economic thing. Honestly, all students have always been from fairly affluent, middle-class families. Most mothers (and it’s mostly mothers who drop them off, just two families where it was always the dad) are either STAH or work part-time.

Thinking about cancellations, and why they cancel, the child being poorly is probably the no. 1 reason, and the school schedule/other activities probably no. 2.

I think the parents universally think the activity is very much worthwhile. They are always thrilled to see the progress in the songs the children learn and the way they can discuss their artworks in English. It’s also clear in how much the children like coming, which I think is very valuable because it teaches them that learning languages is fun!