How do you decide what activities for your kids to do?

[AnnieW625]

DD turns 3 in a couple of weeks and I'd like to put her in dance class at the ballet school near us. It's a ballet/tap combo class. Since we both work she'd have to go on Saturday mornings.

She also needs to learn to swim so I was thinking of putting her in night lessons two days a week. We plan on going to the YMCA.

Is this too much for a three year old who spends 8 hours a day in daycare five days a week?

[Pennylane]

Sounds like a lot to me, but I guess it really depends on your child. My children all do one activity at a time and honestly I think that they get tired of going to that every week!

Could you maybe do swim now and wait on the ballet?

Ann

[bubbaray]

I don't think that's too much.

At age 3, my DD#1 was in swimming lessons (pretty much year round) and did gymnastics (both at our local YMCA). At age 4, I added dance lessons and stopped the gymnastics. We also stopped swimming for a while (due to her behavior). Right now, she's taking both ballet (Saturday afternoon) and swimming (Sunday at noon), as well as 1/2 day German preschool (Saturday morning) -- all along with being a daycare FT during the week. We want her to take martial arts of some sort (our Y offers something, they start at age 6) and DH wants her to do soccer.

My head spins when I think of adding activities for DD#2. :dizzy: Our schedule is nuts!

ETA: Adding on top of that, DD#1 started downhill skiing at age 2.5, so on the weekends, DH tries to take her up to the local hill. She's not getting as much time on skis now that I've added swimming on Sunday (but the season is over in a month).

[Sugar Magnolia]

My dd is a few days younger than yours and will be doing the same activities this summer. She really wants to take ballet. I want her to take swim lessons before the baby is born because I will not be able to be as quick to help her in the pool.

We try to limit one activity per child at a time. In reality they usually do two. Right now ds1 is in Scouts and plays baseball (which is a HUGE time commitment). I think extracurricular activities are very important so I don't mind a hectic schedule.

[hillview]

That sounds like a lot to me. DS is 3.5 and in preschool 8-3 5x a week. One additional activity for him is all I would consider for HIM but I also think every child is different. Over the summer (no preschool) I plan to enroll him in something most weekdays (swimming/other stuff).
/hillary

[brittone2]

For my family, that would be too much.

[infomama]

That would be a lot for us, also.

[AnnieW625]

Thanks. I emailed two friends who both did ballet from toddler age through high school to see what their take on the ballet thing is. I think one friends' daughter is in the class already. My only reason for thinking that it might be better to start the ballet early is that I'd rather know earlier than later if it's for her or not.

If she does take to the swimming I'd like to keep her in it year round too.

[KpbS]

It would be too many time commitments for us as well.

I would wait on the ballet. At 4 they are better able to take instruction and ballet classes often are very formal and structured. For a 3 I would consider swimming or a dance/movement type class. You will know at 4-5-6 if your daughter likes ballet and would want to continue.

[Ceepa]

That sounds like a lot for 3 yo.

[jenmcadams]

My DD took a ballet/tap combo class at 3 and we only did one session. She took ballet/tap again at age 5 and got so much more out of it (and also figured out she didn't love ballet). For that age range, I would focus on swimming and some sort of movement class (gymnastics, tumbling, etc.).

My DS goes to full day preschool 2 days per week, takes a 45 minute indoor soccer class once a week and just started a once a week 45 minute gymnastics class (at a gymnastics gym) -- he's almost 4. Before now, we never did more than one thing per week.

It gets even tougher as they get older...My DD is 6 1/2 and takes piano once per week, goes to Daisies (a girl scout thing) 2x per month and plays soccer (1 practice and 1 game per week). She would love to take Jazz (dance), drama and/or gymnastics, but I don't think she could handle it. She's one of those kids who needs 11+ hours of sleep and between wanting her to have free time to play, homework, piano practice and the activities themselves, I already feel like she's over scheduled. But, it totally depends on your family and your child's ability to handle everything. My DD has a friend who basically does all the same activities she does (although guitar instead of piano) and also does a second sport (one with 2 practices a week + a game) and participates on her schools Destination Imagination team and never seems tired. But she's almost a year older than she is and she's incredibly bright and school comes very easy for her and for her family it works.

One thing that you'll find frustrating as your kids get older is how specialized they get so early. My DD loves soccer and seems to have some talent for it (not the best, but she hangs in there with kids a year+ older than her and can't seem to get enough of it). This is her last year with only 1 practice per week. In the Fall, she'll move to 2 practices per week (in 2nd grade) and in 4th grade they practice 3-4 times per week. It's insane...we finally made her take a season off (she had played outdoor soccer last Spring, done soccer day camp in the summer, played Fall Outdoor and the first session of Winter Indoor and we made her take the second session of Winter Indoor off). I like soccer and think it's a great sport for kids to play, but it's too bad it becomes so all consuming. Hopefully as she gets older she'll try some other sports out, but it's been eye opening to me how crazy it is so early.

While I do believe swimming is a vital skill, we mainly do swim lessons in the summer. We're also going to take advantage of a day camp or two to explore some of her other interests this summer (e.g. she's taking a two week drama camp that includes a performance component).

I don't work so I'm not sure how hard it would be to balance everything with your more limited free time with your kiddo. Does your daycare offer any sort of dance or movement classes? I know I have friends who have worked with the day cares to get dance, music or gymboree type places to come in and do classes for the kiddos at their centers. Depending on your parent population maybe you could work with you center to do that?

[Sugar Magnolia]

I agree with Jen. Sports are so specialized now. Its kind of silly but if you want your child to play, you have to start young. Ds1 is playing baseball this spring. He has 3 practices a week and an extra private practice. So, 4 practices a week. That seems intense, but its normal. I guess thats why I don't think ballet and swimming is too much. We don't want our kids to be professional players, but we do want them to have fun.

[WatchingThemGrow]

The HOW do you decide part, for me, works like this...

I think about the activities that DH and I can do with them and encourage with our natural talents/abilities. Whatever I know we'll be lacking in, I sign them up for that.

The schedule thing is important to me too. If we don't have several "totally free" nights each week, we all begin to go crazy. I like the idea of one activity at a time, but we're all different. You may be able to juggle more....

[egoldber]

I think it depends on the kid. Is she tired and worn out at the end of the day? Or does she still have lots of energy? The swim lessons especially are very tiring and hard to deal with (logistically) so I would personally do those on a weekend vs during the week. For my kids, that would be too much on top of a week at full day child care.

And it is very much harder when they get to be elementary aged. Sarah has Chinese once a week (at her school), drama/art (once a week at her school), and Brownies twice a month (at her school). I'd love to have her in dance or swim once a week too, but it will have to wait until Chinese and drama are over (April). Balancing activities is much harder once homework and other things (family activities, playdates, school functions, etc.) are factored in.

ETA: As to which ones, now that she is older, we do what she is interested in, which is somewhat dictated by what her friends are doing.... When she was younger, we did the things I thought would be good for her, in her case she needed gross motor work so we did dance once a week and gymnastics once a week.

[SnuggleBuggles]

I have a limit of 2 activities at a time. In the start I would probably just pick one.

Picking them is trial and error, imo. See how the classes go for a term and reasses. Remember the classes are for her so if she doesn't like something then it probably in anyone's interest to push it.

Beth

[AnnieW625]

I have a call into the ballet school and the Saturday AM class we'd go to is currently full so we'll most likely be put on a waiting list. I am totally fine with that. My friend who did ballet as a child at the same school, and whose daughter goes to the same school says that the 3 year old class is more for getting used to things.

The next session of swim lessons start at the end of the month so we'll probably sign up for those.

Thanks again!

[KrisM]

I like to limit to 2 activities per kid. I started that with DS1 even when DD wasn't doing anything. I didn't want him to get used to being able to do anything he wanted and have to enforce a limit once we hade more kids.

I do allow them to overlap though. In the fall, soccer will finish a week after nature class starts, so for a week, he'll have 3 things. In the spring, soccer and swimming overlap for 2 weeks. It's just how it works out.

I did ballet and tap from age 7 through college. I don't think it's necessary to start at age 3. There is a lot of standing around and learning steps for ballet. Is there a creative movement type of class you can do now and wait a year or two for the more formal stuff?

[ett]

That would be too much for us, but it really depends on the child. I think I would just start out with one class and see how she does.

[Clarity]

I think that sounds like a lot for a newly turned 3yr old but I do agree that you know your child and are best able to determine what she is able to handle.
We both WOTH and have had our 2.75 yr old in gymnastics once a week from September to April. Starting April we plan to stop gymnastics for the Spring/Summer and start swimming lessons. That's plenty for our family as I do want time left for impromptu trips to the park, visits to friends/family, evening play in the backyard, etc. Although........I would be much more willing to add more than one activity in the Fall/Winter because it so much harder to get them the proper amount of activity and exercise while cooped up indoors for 5 months. KWIM?

[bubbaray]

I did ballet and tap from age 7 through college. I don't think it's necessary to start at age 3. There is a lot of standing around and learning steps for ballet. Is there a creative movement type of class you can do now and wait a year or two for the more formal stuff?


I dunno. I've learned that if you want your child to go to RAD studio, they pretty much expect that the child will start at 3 or at least 4. My DD#1 started with our current RAD studio in the 4yo class this past September. Next year, she goes into pre-ballet (5yo) and then at age 6 they start the RAD curriculum with Pre-Primary. The studios here seem to not allow children to start with their age-peers if they haven't done the previous levels, especially once they start the RAD curriculum. *I'm* not a dancer by any means, so all of this is a bit new to me, but that's my sense.

I also know that team sports are pretty hard to pick up if you "miss the boat" on the age levels. It seems crazy to me to start "team" soccer at age 4, but that seems to be the norm here.

[KrisM]

I dunno. I've learned that if you want your child to go to RAD studio, they pretty much expect that the child will start at 3 or at least 4. My DD#1 started with our current RAD studio in the 4yo class this past September. Next year, she goes into pre-ballet (5yo) and then at age 6 they start the RAD curriculum with Pre-Primary. The studios here seem to not allow children to start with their age-peers if they haven't done the previous levels, especially once they start the RAD curriculum. *I'm* not a dancer by any means, so all of this is a bit new to me, but that's my sense.

I also know that team sports are pretty hard to pick up if you "miss the boat" on the age levels. It seems crazy to me to start "team" soccer at age 4, but that seems to be the norm here.

I suppose it depends on what you're after. I only did it as a fun thing and never joined RAD or got tested, etc. I went to a "just for fun" place.

Age 4 is about the same for teams here. I hate it. Am I really supposed to put him in soccer, t-ball, basketball, etc now and hope he likes one of them enough? Crazy.

[bubbaray]

Yeah, I'm not into the whole RAD thing, but I did want DD#1 to be in a dance class that had some structure and supervision -- the community center one we did when she was 3 was a complete waste of time and money. The kids just wore leotards and ran around screaming for an hour. It was nuts.

All of the studios here are on the RAD curriculum. Our current studio seems a bit more "moderate" at least with the "Tiny Tots". I found one studio using the Cecchi (sp?) curriculum, but they didn't offer little kids classes at all.

I'm a bit perturbed right now. Our studio's recital is coming up. They expect all of the children to be at THREE performance at a large concert hall (I think it holds a few thousand seats!) and they expect even the 3yos to stay for the whole performance. I'm not seeing that that is going to happen. My 4yo is NOT staying up until midnight, KWIM?

[KrisM]

Yeah, I'm not into the whole RAD thing, but I did want DD#1 to be in a dance class that had some structure and supervision -- the community center one we did when she was 3 was a complete waste of time and money. The kids just wore leotards and ran around screaming for an hour. It was nuts.

All of the studios here are on the RAD curriculum. Our current studio seems a bit more "moderate" at least with the "Tiny Tots". I found one studio using the Cecchi (sp?) curriculum, but they didn't offer little kids classes at all.

I'm a bit perturbed right now. Our studio's recital is coming up. They expect all of the children to be at THREE performance at a large concert hall (I think it holds a few thousand seats!) and they expect even the 3yos to stay for the whole performance. I'm not seeing that that is going to happen. My 4yo is NOT staying up until midnight, KWIM?

I know I want DD to dance and I think she'll like it. I guess I should make some calls and see if not starting until she's 4 or 5 or 6 is a big issue.

Mine was a combo of Russian and Checcetti methods, but no testing, etc. When I started and was young, we only had 1 recital. As I got older and the studio expanded, we had 2 nights and the older kids danced both nights, but the little ones were split between the two. I would be pretty annoyed at a 3 year having to be at 3 recitals. This is my fear with the classes now. I just want her to have a fun thing to do, not necessarily be a professional dancer.

[brittone2]

I'm personally uncomfortable with the "need to start young" school of thought that seems to be behind most sports teams these days. I think there's something to be said for trying out a lot of different things before committing to one sport. As a PT, it bothers me to see kids playing one sport year round (like soccer often becomes) and not having time off or at least a change in activities. Taxing the musculoskeletal system (and a growing one at that) in the same way month after month after month almost year round can really be a recipe for overuse injuries in young kids.

The problem is, in reality, most teams expect kids to specialize in one sport early on and a season is no longer a season...it rapidly seems to become a year-round (or nearly year-round) commitment to a single sport. I personally just don't think that that intensity and focus on a single sport is healthy for the musculoskeletal system of little ones. Unfortunately, it is difficult these days to find team sports w/ a more relaxed approach.

[hellokitty]

We have a limit of one activity at a time, two if it is like a one wk overlap. My five yr old is in am preschool 3x a wk. To me, THAT counts as an activity in and of itself. Right now both of my kids are doing gym and swim at the YMCA 1x a wk. We also have a lot of moms club activites to attend and my kids really need the down time to just play with their toys (usually legos). Also, $ is an issue. I'm not willing to spend gobs of $ on lessons that *I* want my kid to take, but they don't want to take. BTDT, I had parents who started over-scheduling me as soon as I was preschool aged. I hated it and felt that b/c I was spread out so thin, I never really got a chance to become very strong at just ONE thing that I really liked, but was expected to be good at 10 different things...

[maestramommy]

I decide based on age, what I think my kid would be interested, and my ability to pay for and drive around to these activities. Not such a big deal when it was just one. Bigger deal when it was two. Much bigger deal when it is three. Preschool is about what I can handle right now, plus outings with my moms group.

[niccig]

We haven't done any team sports yet. We have done a soccer class and now a t-ball class with the same coach. It's really just play time with the kids learning some skills, so very laid back. We're going to take a break for a while, as DS says he has fun, but he really wants to do it HIS way and not the way you get taught. He gets frustrated when he can't throw the ball far, but he won't let anyone show him how to do it. I can't see him on a little league team with real coaching and games. I've decided it's best for us to just play around with these sports at home. Maybe next year when he's 5, he'll be more ready to be "coached".

We did the same with swimming. We had weekly classes at the Y, and I started to feel that it wasn't fun as he was only in the water for classes. I LOVED swimming as a kid. So I now take him during rec swim, I try for once a week, but often it's once every 2 weeks. We just play around. Last year we did private classes for 2 weeks, and that teacher's philosophy is classes for a few weeks and then just be in the water as much as you can for the rest of the year, and have fun.

So, I would try things out, but be ready to change course if it's not working for your child.

[Octobermommy]

My limit for my 4 yr old is 2 things at a time max. We will do swimming lessons over the summer and soccer and gymnastics in the fall. I think starting with one and seeing how it goes would be good.

[KBecks]

For our family, I like to keep things as simple as possible. I've tried a few things and have found that one activity at a time is the least stressful. I also prefer daytime classes, and locations that are close to our home. I don't think that either dance or swimming are essential at age 3. Given your specifics, I would try the dance on Sat. mornings and see how it goes. Two nights a week after work when you are all tired doesn't sound like that much fun.

We generally try one session and see how it goes, we have been changing activities and not going with anything constantly. I have 3 children so it would be nuts if they all had activities. I've decided that my oldest can try swimming this summer. If that goes well, I will likely have my middle swim also, and try to get them in class times that are close together for convenience. I'm also thinking of trying Tae Kwon Do but have not looked into class times, etc. yet. Perhaps after we've done a few sessions of swimming. I don't know how we will do it when all 3 kids have activities!

[KBecks]

I dunno. I've learned that if you want your child to go to RAD studio, they pretty much expect that the child will start at 3 or at least 4. My DD#1 started with our current RAD studio in the 4yo class this past September. Next year, she goes into pre-ballet (5yo) and then at age 6 they start the RAD curriculum with Pre-Primary. The studios here seem to not allow children to start with their age-peers if they haven't done the previous levels, especially once they start the RAD curriculum. *I'm* not a dancer by any means, so all of this is a bit new to me, but that's my sense.

I also know that team sports are pretty hard to pick up if you "miss the boat" on the age levels. It seems crazy to me to start "team" soccer at age 4, but that seems to be the norm here.

I really have a hard time with the idea that parents need to decide for their three year olds which activities they will do throughout their entire childhood. It's crazy! My practical self says that we will avoid as much of that cr*p as possible, even if it means that the boys will not be professional baseball players. I know Tiger Woods started golfing at 3, (Lang Lang started piano very young also.) but that's not the childhood I mean to give the children, and I don't expect my children to be prodigies. (I think we would have noticed by now.)

One thing I am interested in is matching the boys up to sports based on their individual abilities. If I had a very short child, I would look more into gymnastics as an ongoing sport, or at least give that opportunity. Same with ballet (aren't ballerinas normally always small statured?) I am not familiar with the general physical attributes but there are some, and it may be wise to be smart about that kind of thing. I want to see if there are books about those things, although my kids seem to be fairly average and generalist..... they are still young!

I recently read some books about matching musical instruments to kids. There are actually physical and personality traits that make for better matches than others. Here is one that I'm going to put on hold at the library
http://www.amazon.com/Your-Kids-Sports-Everything-College/dp/189373272X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237328716&sr=8-1

[gatorsmom]

The how we decide: what is crucial comes first. We are surrounded by water here and DH loves water skiing and wake boarding. So, learning to swim is essential.

Next we decide on activities we'd like to pursue as a family. DH loves to downhill ski and I love crosscountry skiing. When they are grown up, we hope that they will still want to go on family trips downhill skiing (and hopefully we'll go to places where I can crosscountry ski as well). DH also loves to play soccer so we'll be starting them in this activity in the summer. I love to speak French (and would like to continuing to learn Spanish) so I'd like my kids to speak a little of that and maybe be able to travel with me later on in life.

Finally, we have them in things that interest them AND are reasonable for our family. Most of our town here is all about hockey. The kids here are started early, the whole family gets involved in hockey-related activities, etc. But that requires commitments to practice nearly every single day of the week. Sunday morning hockey practice is the norm. So we've decided that that would be too hard for our family. We would all have to make a sacrifice of our time if the boys want to play hocky. So that isn't happening. Summer soccer we can do. Karate 2 or 3x per week we can do.

As for age, I started Gator in swimming lessons at 3.5yo. He does that year round. He started a summer activity camp when he was 4yo. That was 2x per week (3hours each time) for 8 weeks. At 4.5yo he took a few down hill skiing lessons. Last summer at 5yo we added soccer to his summer schedule of swimming and summer activity camp. So, he had 3 activities last summer at 5yo. This winter he was taking swimming and we added a lot more downhill skiing classes as well as karate. But this is a kid that LOVES to be busy.

Cha Cha started karate and swimming at 3.5yo. When he turns 4yo this summer we'll add soccer to that. He loves to do anything his brother is doing.

It sounds like a lot but so far they are really enjoying this and it's doable for us. I take Cha Cha and Gator to activities that have their classes back-to-back and that eliminates some of the driving for me and DH. If mine were in daycare all day, that would definitely limit the activities they are in.

hth.

[MelissaTC]

When DS was 3, we did swim lessons and indoor soccer. At 4, he wanted to try tee ball so we stopped the indoor soccer and did spring tee ball through a rec league at our church. He then played in the fall. We took the winter off and did spring tee ball again and swim lessons. Then we played soccer in the fall except this time we did it outside, again rec league. And we also tried basketball this winter. Machine pitch baseball will start in a few weeks and that is once again through the rec league. I really like doing one sport at a time and allowing him to try what he wants (except for football-he weighs nothing and the division was 5-7 year olds and he was tiny compared to the other boys). It has become hard now at almost 7 since he is wanting to try new things and I am trying to keep him from being overloaded. He needs time to unwind and just be after school and the thought of having something every single day is just too much for us. He is interested in doing boy scouts, gymnastics, guitar lessons....the list goes on and on. Chess club has ended for us so it is now baseball practice one day a week and a game on the weekend.