Parents of school age children, how do you decide which/how many after school activities to let them participate in?

Ava wants to do EVERYTHING!! Should I limit the activities?? What do you do??

Re: Parents of school age children, how do you decide which/how many after school activities to let them participate in?

I can't speak from expereince yet, but my SIL has 3 kids and 2 older ones (6 & 8 now) did girl scouts, dance (I think the both took 3 different types of dance) and soccor. It wore my SIL out because she also had night school and still a 2 year old at home and watched my other nephew. She told them this year they could do dance (only 1 each I believe) and then something else and that was it.

I think at 5 the most I would let my child do is 2 activities but again I am not their yet so I am not sure.

Re: Parents of school age children, how do you decide which/how many after school activities to let them participate in?

bump

Re: Parents of school age children, how do you decide which/how many after school activities to let them participate in?

It depends on how much energy they have. honestly. When my older DD started doing activites we started out with one or two activities and believe me they tired her out. And when we did two there had to be a down day with no scheduled activities in it. A day just hang out and relax. BTW my daughter was doing 1 dance class a week from 3 up and once she started K she was doing 2 dance classes. The beginning of 2nd grade she started 3 dance classes a week and gymnastics. Now that were heading into the 4th grade i think she's just doing 4 dance classes this year. Plus the after school clubs that the school offers.

Re: Parents of school age children, how do you decide which/how many after school activities to let them participate in?

I limit my son to 2 or 3 activities... He's in baseball, gymnastics and cub scouts. Normally it would be 2 activities but cub scouts isn't very physical.

I think kids just need time to go to the park and PLAY... Too many structured activities might be overwhelming and knowing my son, it would become more like a *chore*

Re: Parents of school age children, how do you decide which/how many after school activities to let them participate in?

My DD who is 10 is already doing karate, cheer, an art class here and there this summer. Next month she will be continuing cheer 3-4 x/wk, karate 1x/wk and theatre academy 2x/wk. I was going to continue gymnastics cheer class which 1x/wk, but I am not so sure with 5th grade work ahead.

My DS (Kindergarten) is so far doing soccer, but my DD's karate sensei has expressed interest in also teaching my DS karate as well so he may join my DD in class.

I also have a 2 y/o so it is a pain dragging every1 w/me, so something will probably have to give. I will just go with the flow for now.

I also mystery shop during whatever spare time I have!

Re: Parents of school age children, how do you decide which/how many after school activities to let them participate in?

Well considering my daughter is just entering preschool, I am only going to choose 1 activity. School will be new to her so I don't want her to get overwhelmed. Otherwise I would say 2 - maybe 3 as long as school doesn't suffer.

Re: Parents of school age children, how do you decide which/how many after school activities to let them participate in?

Robbie wanted to do everything too. "Paul's in gymnastics! I want to join! Ian's in Chess Club! I want to join! Brian is doing soccer! Can I do it too? I want to be in Baseball with Josh! Can I join Karate? Will you sign me up for Guitar lessons? I need to take swimming!"

I didn't want to deprive him, but I knew that I wasn't going to have the room in MY schedule to drag him to half a dozen activities a week. AND I knew that he'd start to resent having to do some of it because I am a BIG supporter of IF you sign up, you WILL stick with it. So we decided no more than 1 activity per season - or 2 in the summer if he chose.

So we made a list of all the things he wanted to do and I crossed off things that were not possible (too expensive, too far, scheduling conflicts, etc). After that I had a little chat with him about each of the things to find out what he knew about them and dig a little deeper into why he wanted to try it. We also went and observed some of the activities together so he could get a better feel for what it was and how it all went down.

Ultimately he made the decision as to what he wanted to do and that's what we did.

Noah was easier. He only wants to do football!