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

[katyjeka]

In our case limiting our girls to one activity does not equal more tv. We are very active, even on rainy days. I remember the days before we decided to limit. Get up, school, drive to practice(while eating supper in the car), homework on the way to the next practice(this also completed in the car), home, shower, bed. This was our life at least five nights a week. We now have time to play. We're building a new clubhouse for summer together, the other night it decided to rain while we were working outside and we decided to play in the puddles. There are so many things we have time for that we didn't before. Yes, to some splashing in the mud may sound like a waste of time but we made a lasting memory and laughed for two hours. Our girls are less stressed and happier. I believe they are actually enjoying childhood. Sometimes I think parents feel guilty if they don't keep their kids involved in everything. (I was a cheerleader, so mine will be to) Parents can feel pressured as well, we finally decided to take a stand(the he... with what people think)and we are a stronger family unit.

 

[Aliceacc]

we decided to play in the puddles. There are so many things we have time for that we didn't before. Yes, to some splashing in the mud may sound like a waste of time but we made a lasting memory and laughed for two hours. .

One of my favorite activities when the kids were young-- I was a SAHM at the time -- was "puddle stomping." I would put them into their snow boots and go out in a shower and stomp into every puddle we could find.

We got some strange looks, but also some envious ones, from the people in the houses we passed!

 

[scrapquitler]

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 third grade, she did girl scouts one night a week (every week) for 1 1/2 hours. She also did dance three nights a week (1 hour one day and 2 hours the other two days). Girl Scouts was on one of the dance nights, so she was out three nights a week. It wasn't a problem for my DD, but you have to see what your DD can handle, some kids thrive on the extra stuff and others don't.

I wouldn't make her stop an activity that she enjoys, even if she isn't very good at it (as you describe gymnastics)...there is a lot to be learned from perservering in an activity that you don't excel at. Perhaps the 4H will just naturally fade out when she changes to a different club/level, but really, if it's only once a month, I wouldn't push her to stop it, either. YOu can always decide later to drop that if it's too much for her. Same thing with Girl Scouts...when the change from brownies to juniors came (after 3rd grade) a lot of the girls stopped going, maybe your daughter will decide not continue at that point, too (here, it was a change of leader with a different style that turned a lot of the girls off from Juniors). So you might not have to push her to want to drop something, it might just happen naturally, and that's okay.

The biggest deciding factor in our house would be "Does she WANT to do the choir, and is she willing to give up something else if her grades slip or she realizes that it's too much for her?"

 

[SEA333]

It depends on the time of year and the kid:

DS14: last week of July-beginning of November, 5 nights a week, 2 hours a day for football practice, plus a Saturday game. It will change this year because he's going into high school, but football is pretty much football everywhere except practices will be right after school instead of evenings. After football season, he trains with a semipersonal trainer 3x a week the rest of the year. He used to play basketball, soccer, and baseball, but has really phased it all out for football. He also was in computer club, chess club, book club, school spirit club, etc. At ages 6-12, he pretty much was busy year round at least 4-5 days a week.

DD10: cheer season runs from last week of july through at least mid-november, longer if they win competitions and go to state. Its 5 days week, 2 hours a day until school starts, then its 3x week, 2 hours day, plus a game on the weekend, plus 2-4 competitions per season. Tumbling class is once a week year round. She usually skips the fall session. Dance class is sept through june, and she goes on days she doesn't have cheer practice. She is also in Girl Scouts, which now only meets one Monday a month. She misses the first few every year because of cheer, but usually makes the field trips. I'm one of the leaders. She wanted to try 5th grade band this year, but she really needs afterschool time for homework. She also does computer club in the mornings before school twice a week.

DS8: football per above like his brother/sister (they were all in the same league till this year now that oldest is going to be in high school). He is also in computer club with DD. He will start basketball this winter as well.

We have pretty much been busy most days of the week/weekend most of the year since DS14 was 3 years old.

 

[kohlby]

My 8 year old really needs her sleep and needs wind down time so evening activities don't work well for her. Even though I homeschool, evening time is precious to us. Right now, all activities are done by 5:30 pm for my middle child. Her scouts in on the weekend and the rest end early enough. My 11 year old has scouts on a weekday from 7-8:30, which isn't so bad - as long as my husband gets home from work early enough since the 8 year old is in bed way before that. She likes to be in bed reading at 7. We've done the rec league sports thing before and I hate it. It's meant 2-3 weeknights out of the house, with rushing to work dinner in somehow around games. We had two kids doing that at once - making it really hard to fit dinner in and constantly feeling rushed. S

As for dropping something, that depends on two things - what she can handle and what YOU can handle. Some parents don't mind shuttling the child around all the time. Others really want to all sit down to dinner together most nights. Some kids thrive on having a lot. Others get burnt out. I'm sure my 11 year old could handle every night out, even when he was 8 or much younger. But I couldn't. And the rest of my family couldn't.

 

[Claire&TheBoys]

We're on the "low commitment" side as another poster put it.

The only consistent thing in my kids' lives is that we go to church on Wednesday nights. Children's choir, Youth worship, whatever -- nothing is allowed to interfere with it.

When my kids ask to do a sport, we look at it as a family and decide if we want to put forth the time and money for it. Each child has done organized sports of some kind, but they don't "love" it and frankly, I don't want to spend my afternoons and evenings schlepping my kids to and fro. I refuse to spend hundreds of dollars on sports teams for my kids at the expense of other family priorities.

Family dinner is a priority in our house and on average, we eat together 6 nights per week, the only exception being Wednesday when the kids and I leave for church before my husband gets home from work.

A good friend of mine has 3 kids and at one point, they were all involved in different activities several days per week. She actually had a schedule of who went where when, and between driving the first one to practice, back-tracking to take the 2nd one to some other activity and dropping the 3rd one off, just in time to go back and retrieve the first one -- she spent something like 2+ hours in her car several times a week just going back and forth. No thanks.

 

[SEA333]

I don't think there is anything wrong with having structured activities, sports, etc.. But in some cases it is overkill. What about time together as a family??? With children each in a different activity and getting pulled in different directions, where is the time to eat together as a family, rather than gobbling up a quick sandwich in the car, or having fast food 2-3 nights a week. Homework should be done in a quiet location where a child can focus, not while sitting at the sidelines of a soccer or baseball field. I'm sure some students can handle a different pace then others, but downtime is not necessarily a bad thing. It also doesn't equate to screen time. My oldest son spends some of his best downtime playing with his younger siblings, reading, playing with Legos, shooting hoops in the driveway. I'm sure there are other activities he would sign up for, he's a "joiner", he's very active and enjoys doing things with his peers. But I believe part of my job is to make sure he has a childhood where there isn't a rule book, pressure to succeed and win all the time and just a chance to act like a goofy 10 year old boy who loves life and his family.

Our kids' sports and activities ARE our family time. We make the commitments as a family and we all enjoy it. Hard to believe for some parents, I guess, but there is something about watching my kids doing whatever it is they are doing that I feel good being there. We are not the drop off and see you in two hours kind of parents...we stay and are involved. DH coaches the boys' team sports and I coach, team parent, or lead DD's scout troop and cheer team. I watch all of her dance classes and tumbling classes. I do not helicopter....in her classes, parents are welcome to stay and watch from the 1 way mirror and most stay the whole time. I'm going to be sad that for the first time in 7 years DH and I will not be involved as coaches/leaders with DS14's HS football team....we have truly made football a family thing since DS was 7 years old. So, instead of sitting at home or spending money doing various "family" activites, we use our kids' activities as the family activity and togetherness time. We eat dinner together 90% of the time because we ARE together so much. You don't have to be sitting at home not letting kids get involved in a sport or activity to spend time as a family. We are living proof of this. And have been for almost a decade. It helps that I am very organized and plan dinners ahead of time, homework gets done after school, and we have all family cleaning parties on Saturday where everyone pitches in. It works very well for us!

 

[NinaBella]

One of the theories regarding the history of "school breaks" was not for kids to enjoy the summer or have family time. Summer break was a necessity for kids to help their parents on the farm to bring in the crops, or help with other needed summer chores. You know… organized/structured activities known as farming.

Call us the over scheduled family; except the older boys are now 21 and 20 so we no longer have to taxi four kids to activities. Our house rule was that each of the four kids HAD to be involved in one extracurricular activity. With three boys and one girl, that ended up being mostly sports and boy scouts. My kids have played almost every sport. Currently, my daughter is the only one involved in sports and is the most competitive out of all of the kids. There is so much to be learned from being part of a group or part of a team. That team IS family! She is on an All Star Cheer team. All Star is year around practice with about 9-12 competitions a year depending on the gym. We travel with our “cheer family” throughout the state of Florida as well as several out-of-state competitions a year. The girls have a very close bond as well as the parents. My daughter wants to add volleyball to her activities in the near future.

For every article that discusses kids being over scheduled in a negative aspect; there is an article that discusses the positive lessons learned from kids being in structured activities. As I currently work on my master’s degree and as career women of 20 years, I see the positive benefits of working and collaborating with a team toward a common goal. Also, if you research well-known corporate presidents and CEO’s and look at their biographies you will find Eagle Scouts, Sports history, and other structured groups they grew up a part of. And not that I expect my kids to be famous athletes, but if you research any pro athlete or Olympian you will find that they started their sport at a young age. There are “late bloomers” in sports, but rarely can a child walk into a sport after age 10 (these days) as they the majority will never catch up to their peers. Today, by age 10 kids have tried multiple sports and have decided which one they love to play and which ones they prefer to watch from the sidelines. I think it is good for kids to try multiple sports or activities until they find the one they love and are passionate about. It may not be the same sport their parents pick which is why they should try several.

My kids crave activities. Just yesterday my daughter let the word “I’m Bored” slip from her mouth about 7pm. So I gave her two options. She could organize her room (it needed cleaning) or she could work on her summer virtual school assignment (she is taking summer classes with Florida Virtual School). She did both. She ended up doing both. Especially after I told her that her brother has submitted more assignments on his virtual school class than she had. LoL. Competitive kid. My daughter wants to start Florida Virtual School Full-Time, but I am not sure yet so the summer classes is to give us an idea who self-motivated she will be in her school work.



Some famous boy scouts http://www.usscouts.org/eagle/bsfamous.asp

You can google "what sports teaches kids" for positive articles.

 

[puffkin]

I just wanted to agree with the PP that said sports/activities are our family time. I agree 100%. I think we are together as a family way more than most families I know who aren't as involved. We just aren't literally around the dinner table every night together but we spend TONS of time as a family unit. And, with my son being so competitive in swimming especially, we eat lots of home cooked, super healthy meals and he is on a very healthy diet for his sport. We just may eat it at the pool or around a picnic table before his baseball game etc. Just because we are on the go so much doesn't mean we are going through the McDonalds drive thru.

My DS8 and DH are in the backyard almost every night when there is no practice thowing some type of ball (even after practice they are out there sometimes). Sometimes they go to a field to hit. A lot of times they include my younger DS2, as much as he can be included. My DH helps coach his team. If I don't go to the practices I stay home with DS2 and we get a lot of one on one time. Baseball is a very Dad oriented sport and I love that he gets that time with his father but I make it to every game. Swimming though, I love because I get that one on one time. I am the point person in the family for swimming. I get to spend a lot of time with him running him to practices, volunteering, sitting with the whole crew at meets/invitationals, etc. I love that in swimming, the moms can be involved with their sons so much more. My DS2 gets to spend sooooo much time outside running around on playgrounds, playing with other kids, splashing in the baby pool etc while we are at the swim events/practices.

I get the points about family time and free time, but I do find it degrading that just because we are busy means we aren't as good of a family as someone else that isn't as busy. 95% of the families we come across in our sport families are very strong, involved family units with awesome, well adjusted kids. There are always those one or two families that do the dump and run babysitting service or force their kids into every activity imaginable, but those are few and far between.

 

[Happyjen27]

DS7 has cub scouts 2x/month.

DD7 was in gymnastics and got bored and didn't want to continue, so she has no activities. She really wants to start girl scouts, which she will do in the fall.

I have other things I work into the schedule, like Picnic Tuesdays (I pack up dinner and we try out local parks every Tuesday of spring, summer and fall that the weather allows us to dine outside). We have Fun Friday (pizza and a movie on Fri night). Otherwise, the kids go to school, come home, play outside and lather, rinse, repeat as necessary.

 

[katyjeka]

Our oldest dd was ten, left school at 4:10 and swim practice started at 5:30. This did not leave time for homework, let alone family dinners. I became VP of the aqua club and spent five nights a week at practice with her. My dh kept our others kids and would run them to practices. Yes, we committed to this as a family and lived the life for over three years. I would not call this quality time as we were in totally different places. It probably would have worked out better if they all did the same sports but this was not the case. I do have several friends who run all the time and they are happy and have great families. Our oldest is almost twenty now and she of course has her own life and is very busy. I'm thankful we made the choice we did years ago, as it set out family on a different path. On a side note, we often look back and laugh at how important a tenth of a second was when she swam. I was one of the crazy parents who pushed her too hard. Since this is a Disney board I'll mention that one year we almost did not go because the hotel that had a lap pool was full. I insisted she had to practice twice a day so that she would not be behind when we returned. Thank goodness my dh was sensible!!!!

 

[elaine amj]

Our kids' sports and activities ARE our family time. We make the commitments as a family and we all enjoy it. Hard to believe for some parents, I guess, but there is something about watching my kids doing whatever it is they are doing that I feel good being there. We are not the drop off and see you in two hours kind of parents...we stay and are involved. DH coaches the boys' team sports and I coach, team parent, or lead DD's scout troop and cheer team. I watch all of her dance classes and tumbling classes. I do not helicopter....in her classes, parents are welcome to stay and watch from the 1 way mirror and most stay the whole time. I'm going to be sad that for the first time in 7 years DH and I will not be involved as coaches/leaders with DS14's HS football team....we have truly made football a family thing since DS was 7 years old. So, instead of sitting at home or spending money doing various "family" activites, we use our kids' activities as the family activity and togetherness time. We eat dinner together 90% of the time because we ARE together so much. You don't have to be sitting at home not letting kids get involved in a sport or activity to spend time as a family. We are living proof of this. And have been for almost a decade. It helps that I am very organized and plan dinners ahead of time, homework gets done after school, and we have all family cleaning parties on Saturday where everyone pitches in. It works very well for us!

That's a nice way to manage the situation to have lots of family time

MY DD is heavily involved in school activities. The last school year, she would stay after school for an hour or so about 2-3 days a week. My son is in a local travel soccer league (nothing further than 1 hr away) and in the summer, plays/trains about 3 days a week for 2 hours.

While my son has asked to do a little more, these are our reasons not to commit more:

- We have our own financial priorities and expensive sport/competitive activity (and it's always more expensive the more serious you get) just doesn't fit in. I believe there is a lot of value in these structured activities. I also believe that you can learn a lot without spending a lot of money. For our family, we have chosen to put our money elsewhere. My kids are "deprived" but get to go to WDW, Europe, cruises, etc.

- Where I grew up, sport wasn't as big of a deal as it is here. Some days, DH says that our DS could earn a scholarship with ___ sport and I just tell him with the money we save not putting him in ___sport, we can pay for his scholarship ourselves.

- we like to travel as a family and typically go somewhere 1x every 1-2 months. This would not jive with many activity commitments.

- DH and I have our own activities too. We road bike and in the spring, train 2-4 times a week. I also sit on several committees (trying to squirm out of them)

- most importantly, DH just likes an underscheduled home life. He likes having all of us home together doing nothing.

Figure out what works for your family. It might be lots of activities. Or it might be very few.

 

[disneynewbee]

This past school year my schedule looked like this:
8yo dd- team gymnastics T, Th from 4pm-7pm and Sat from 10-1
11yo dd- dance W from 5-8:30pm, Th from 8-9pm, and Sat from 9-12:45
5yo dd- dance M from 5-6 and preteam gymnastics Sat from 12:30-2

5yo was in Kindergarten and did not bring home homework so that helped. My oldest 2 were only allowed one activity due to the number of hours required.

My schedule this summer will be much nicer:
8yo- will do day hours at gymnastics M, W, and F from 10-2
5yo- dance Tu from 5-6
11yo- dance (hip hop only) one day a wk for an hour, not sure day and times yet

We moved my 8yo to a better gym but now we have an hour commute to the gym. This new gym wanted my 5yo on their preteam but that would have required practice twice a week for 1 1/2 hours. She liked gym but loves dance better and since it would mean me entertaining her for the other 2 1/2 hours that her sister was still practicing I just couldn't see doing it. We had her choose and she chose dance. She loves dance and I can see her getting into long hours at the dance studio. In the meantime I may look at the allstar gym right near my house so at least she can continue her floor tumbling. My oldest decided that the other dance classes were just ok but she loves hip hop. She's going to continue that class and drop the rest. She's hoping to find a rec volleyball team.

Once school starts again my life is going to get hard again since my 8yo will be at the gym 3 days a week for 4 hour practices. I just feel like it's mass chaos sometimes trying to get everything done in the evenings. I wish I had the patience for homeschooling.

 

[kam1011]

My 8yo is in gymnastics 17 hours/week, so 4 days of that. Plus it's an hour drive each way. She does her homework and eats in the car. On her "night off" she has CCD and Brownies.

So...all of them.