How many nights a week is your elementary aged child out of the house for activities?

[MommyMK]

DD8 who will be going into 3rd grade this fall just got accepted into a local children's choir, she was one of 14 students accepted for her grade level out of a large number of children who auditioned. The choir meets weekly for an hour (5 min from our house) performs 2x a year and has 3 additional Saturday practices over the course of the year.

She is already involved in girl scouts which meets twice a month, 4-H which meets once a month and takes gymnastics classes that meet weekly as well. Gymnastics runs 8 week sessions and we usually start up in November and take classes until May.

I'm trying to decide if adding choir to the mix is too much or if we can manage it. I'm going to strongly encourage her to drop 4-H after December when she ages out of her current club and has to join a new one. She loves gymnastics, but isn't particularly good at it, she will be starting her 3rd year in the beginner level classes this fall. However she is unwilling to try any other sport so I don't want to make her drop it. Sports will never be her thing, so I like the idea of opening her up to other activities, however finding the right balance is hard. She doesn't get home from school until 4:15 and most of the activities start at 5:30-6 pm so finding the time for homework and down time after school can be difficult.

How many activities is your elementary aged child involved in and how many nights of the week are you out of the house running children to activities?

 

[Lolsmum]

My son, in year 3 here in the UK (so 8 1/2) currently does swimming, trampolining and football (soccer) twice a week. He is considering Scouts and will be adding another football session from September. He is also hoping to pick up cricket and/or distance running next spring. He has always been an active child and he is currently in the top of his class for school.

My daughter is in year 2 and is nearly 7. She currently does swimming, trampolining, football once or twice a week (will be twice most weeks next year), 2 gymnastics classes and dance. Next year she will do all of the above, potentially replacing one gym class with cheerleading and adding Brownies. She is an incredibly high energy child who currently sails through her academics.

I do think my kids are exceptions to the rule, not because I think they are amazing but because they are and always have been extremely active kids. My daughter would not go to sleep before 11 or 12 despite a 7:30 bedtime without all of the activity.

You know your child best. As long as she continues to be capable of handling it and you can afford it, I see no problem with doing all of the activities. If she starts to struggle too much, then I would revisit the issue.

 

[skw444]

My dd is 9 and just finished 3rd grade, but she is involved in tumbling, cheerleading (in the fall), softball (in the spring) ballet and Girl Scouts. She has activities Monday - Thursday. She has handled it well and makes good grades but we have told her that if her grades start slipping, she will have to give up activities. My dd11 just finished 5th grade and she is involved in 2 dance classes, girl scouts and voice lessons which is 3 days a week and has done well as well. I think it really depends on the kids and whether the parents are willing to give up their evenings taking the kids to everything but if you and your dd are up for it, give it a try.

 

[JaimeK]

My 8 year old does ice skating, guitar lessons (at our house), soccer practice during the week plus more soccer and swim on the weekends. It works for us!

My neice does competitive gymnastics and she's at the gym 2-3 times a week for 3 hours at a time, plus she does soccer spring and fall. That seems like too much to me, mostly because it's ALL evening at the gym. But she loves it!

 

[MandiC]

I try to limit extracurriculars, they can each be in one extracurricular at a time, though they do get to be in a few school related things as well.
My almost 10 year old just does a few things at school, Kids for running is twice a week but only in the spring, choir once a week before school, ect.
My 8 year old is in competitive dance, it is year round so that is pretty much it. Every once in a while we'll do a short lived activity (swim lessons, ect). She has dance twice a week, one day is 2 hours the other is an hour and a half.
My 4 year old isn't in school but he does soccer so that is another thing once a week. This is actually precisely why I try to limit them to one activity at a time. I have 4 kids, my husband works a lot, so it is usually just me and I am only one person. I think it helps them narrow down what they really love to do when they can only chose one thing at a time as well.

 

[Altoqueenkelly]

My daughter is seven. We currently do dance once a week (it takes two hours out of our night) and she will begin training with an Irish dance troupe this summer, they train year round so I expect her to be taking her "regular" dance classes one night and her Irish dance classes another night.

Two nights is about all I can handle, and I what I think is appropriate for a 7/8yr old. She also attends a private school that has an advanced curriculum, so we have to spend most of our evenings on studying/homework.

 

[ccgirl]

DD8 who will be going into 3rd grade this fall just got accepted into a local children's choir, she was one of 14 students accepted for her grade level out of a large number of children who auditioned. The choir meets weekly for an hour (5 min from our house) performs 2x a year and has 3 additional Saturday practices over the course of the year.

She is already involved in girl scouts which meets twice a month, 4-H which meets once a month and takes gymnastics classes that meet weekly as well. Gymnastics runs 8 week sessions and we usually start up in November and take classes until May.

I'm trying to decide if adding choir to the mix is too much or if we can manage it. I'm going to strongly encourage her to drop 4-H after December when she ages out of her current club and has to join a new one. She loves gymnastics, but isn't particularly good at it, she will be starting her 3rd year in the beginner level classes this fall. However she is unwilling to try any other sport so I don't want to make her drop it. Sports will never be her thing, so I like the idea of opening her up to other activities, however finding the right balance is hard. She doesn't get home from school until 4:15 and most of the activities start at 5:30-6 pm so finding the time for homework and down time after school can be difficult.

How many activities is your elementary aged child involved in and how many nights of the week are you out of the house running children to activities?

When my DD was in 4th grade she was doing competitive swimming. She had swim practice 4 times a week year round. She was also on the travel soccer team during spring. She had practice twice a week and a game on Sunday. She was also able to keep straight A's. If it affected her grades or happiness, we would have discussed stopping. This year she is in grade 5 so the classes a bit more difficult. She is swimming 5x a week now so she quit soccer in order to maintain her grades.

 

[aprilchem]

We only allow one activity at a time, and my kids have chosen swimming. It's 5 days a week for an hour a day, year round.

 

[mjkacmom]

All of them have at least one activity every night. Dd13 and dd11 have dance 2+ hours every night (lasting as late as 9:15), plus dd11 has soccer practice before dance twice a week. Ds11 has soccer and/or baseball every night (he's on 2 soccer teams). Ds16 usually has soccer and/or track every night.

Dd17 is my slacker. If she's not in a performance, she is usually just at work.

They always get their homework done, and are pretty much straight A students. They know they have to get an early start on studying and projects. Homework is started right after school.

My girls LOVE dance more than anything, dd11 likes soccer (but dads a coach, so...), and my boys LOVE sports, especially soccer.

 

[JenMarie82]

Our 9 year old is only allowed to do 1 sport at a time to try and minimize time out of the home, but wrestling does run from November to March and has 1.5-2 hour practices 3 nights a week, meets all day on Saturdays, and at least 4 Sunday tournaments sometime during the season. Baseball is our break with 2 games weekly and only 1 practice. Soccer is much the same.

 

[PennockFive]

My DS10 has lots of different activities at various points throughout the year, usually there are 3-4 times during a week that he has something going on. My DD4 and DS3 do gymnastics now and that's it. Obviously school work comes first, but I also want them to have a chance to be a kid. Several of my sons friends can never come over and hang out, play video games, because they always have something going on. I think it's important for them to have some "downtime" as well. Only you can decide what is a good balance for your family.

 

[olwyngdh]

My 12 yr old dances 4:30-7:45 Tuesdays, 4:30-7:30 Wednesdays, 3:30-8:30 Thursdays, and 10 until 1:30 or 2:30 Saturdays. She isn't in any other official activities, but we homeschool so there are homeschool group trips/classes, etc about once a month.

 

[Crl1817]

My ten year old usually has activities two times a week during the week. The he usually has some thing on the weekend as well. Mostly that's baseball, sometimes tennis--depends on the time of year. He likes a lot of downtime and this is plenty for him. He also has a little sister who is in preschool and she usually has an activity once a week. She would love to do more, but that's plenty for me to keep track of.

 

[sunb75]

My dd is 12,but has been on a competitive gymnastics team since she was 5. She practices 3-4 hours, 4-5 days a week. She would go more if it was an option as she has endless energy!

 

[Crl1817]

I think the big thing is personality. People have mentioned having energetic kids. Ds is physically very energetic. He's non-stop motion and impossible to wear out. But he is also an introvert. That's why he needs downtime, it's not a lack of physical energy. Younger Dd is less physically energetic, but she's an extrovert (the only one in the family) and I can already see that she will be able to handle a lot more activities.

 

[4leobeans]

That schedule sounds do-able. I guess it would depend on other kids activities, commuting times and academics.

Like others, my 6yo dd does a variety of activities throughout the year.
Currently Sparks on Monday nights. 10 weeks of gymnastics on Saturday am (just ended last weekend), before that it was skating lessons. Swimming just started tonight, for 10 lessons.

Usually our weekends are full, as we also visit the library for literacy events, but our week nights are not to bad.

What does your daughter think?

 

[snoopy5386]

Currently 1x a week and then another activity that meets every other week.

 

[MSSANDRA]

Last spring DS, now 7 had karate two nights a week, and baseball practice two night a week, plus sometimes a game or two during the week. It was too much. We can handle two nights a week on a regular basis with an extra night or two thrown in each month but we all start to wilt a bit with more than that. I do think keeping the gymnastics is a good idea as it seems to be her only more physical activity and she is not really into other sports. Encouraging that early is so important. As long as she is happy, who cares if she is "good".

 

[MommyMK]

Thanks for the input all, it's good to get an idea of what others do. My daughter doesn't know about the chorus yet, DH and I had been discussing it first and asking some questions of the chorus director, we wanted to get our ducks in a row before we tell her. I'll tell her tomorrow and see what she thinks.

 

[krazy4crusing]

Be cautious of over programming both yourself and your child. Summer is coming and withit (for some) comes some rest from the busy school "activity time" part of the year