Is three days/week too much?

Dh and I will never see eye to eye on this...lol. But I wanted to know who was off their rocker more: me or him. He signed Nicholas up for the developmental soccer league. It's $300/yr: fall, winter, spring. Ages 4-6. No games. Just practices. Three.times.a.week. Now, they do not have to go to all three. Just one is plenty. Dh, right now, is having him go to all three-as long as that's what Nicholas wants. So far, so good. But it's Tuesday nights, Thursday nights, and Saturday mornings. Dh starts school next week, so he will be gone Monday and Wednesday nights. I still have two more kids! Lol! Annabella will be doing ballet on Thursday nights, and we are hoping to get Anthony to try TaeKwonDo.

But man alive, those activities are no more than 45 minutes-a week! Nicholas is up to three hours already. He's only four! Granted...5 in October.

Maybe I'm just not a fan of how crazy our schedule has just become. I didn't, and still don't, want to be that family carting them from here to there. I also don't want Nicholas to take precedent over the other two children. In my eyes, it's starting to.

Long story short, lol, do you think three days a week for one activity is too much at this age?

 

As long as it doesn't interfere with your schedule too much, I'd do whatever. If you start to have to run three different places, I'd go down to one or two... guessing Thursdays would have to go so that one of you can take your dd to ballet while the other stays with the other kids.

 

Personally, yes. I'm signing the twins up for soccer this fall, ages 3-5 is one night a week. We practice for 2 weeks that night, and then games for 5-6 weeks, one night a week. Sean's in karate, 2 days a week. Kaelyn will be starting karate and it's the same times as Sean's is. If she wasn't, she'd be in soccer 2 nights a week. Monday~ Soccer for the twins, Tuesday/Thursday Soccer for Kaelyn, Thursday and Saturday Karate for Sean. It was going to be insane. BUT since she's starting karate....Monday is soccer for twins, thursday/saturday is karate for the big kids.

Anyways, yes, 3 nights a week seems like a lot for any kid. But I'm also not a big fan of over scheduling my kids. 1 activity at a time is our rule. The twins will do soccer in the fall and t-ball in the spring, same as my older kids did. When they turn 6 if they want we can switch them to karate.

 

I think it's very important to consider not only what's good for a child that age, but also what's good for the family. I think many children are too overscheduled and don't have much of any time to just be kids. So many great learning and developmental milestones for young ones are best reached in an unstructured environment, IMO... or at least in a balance of structure and unstructure. If they have all of their time dictated to them, they don't learn how to enjoy time by themselves, how to make certain decisions well, how to unwind, and more. And at the same time, if Mom and Dad are running around like crazy trying to get kids to activities, they're not at their best and not as able to build as solid relationships with their children. I'm not an expert, it's just what I've seen in our lives and others around me. Personally, it sounds like too much on both counts.

 

Dinner is my favorite family meal of the day so I'd say yes. I like to have a yummy dinner with everyone present and sit and discuss our day. I would hate to rush off a couple times a week to an activity. ardon:

 

This is my feeling. We haven't put the girls in anything yet (well, they just finished their first level of swimming lessons but that doesn't really count). I've already told Justin I'm not spending all my time ferrying kids around to activities or spending all my weekends watching them play sporting events. It's not my bag of tea. We may try some organized summer activities but during the school year I just can't see it - unless it's a school team/activity. I'd be open to that.

I mean, there's some playing it by ear too. If one of my kids developed a real passion for something, I'd be open to figuring out a way to support that without it being detrimental to the rest of the family. But activities that are on my initiative will be kept to a minimum.

 

Thanks for the input so far everyone! I should add a small disclaimer that dh is Italian, soccer is a religion in those parts, lol. And dh was a high school varsity player.

And the dinner thing is big with me too. It's what we both grew up with. And already-all five days/week are interrupted.

But, I also want to use this time as the boys and Annabella to get individual attention with just one parent with no sibling around.

The boys will be in school four days/week. Plus soccer. Plus Tae Kwon do. It's a lot.

We will see how the fall goes. I'm not writing anything in stone just yet.

 

Could not have it better! I totally agree.

We have done one 'sport' at a time. It is plenty! When they were younger, we did more 'activities' such as playdates, storytime at the library, etc but one paid for class.

Now that they started school full-time. It has suprisingly stayed the same.....They do swim class every week. It also seems like there is always some at least one night a week at school. Then there is homework and dinner...and I really want them to have some 'creative' playtime.

Too many kids dont know what to do when they get older and have a few hours to just do something unstructured.


Plus, trying to balance two other kids!!! Yikes-- I personally dont like all my nights booked up every week. It leaves no time for spontanous activities and/or 'free playtime' for kiddos.


Maybe when kiddos get at the age where to be competitive you have to practice more often, but at 4,5,6,7 = I woudl keep it light and fun. No one wants to burn out or feel pressure to do well in a sport before they leave Elem. school!

 

I totally agree with this.
To me it sounds like too much. My daughter really wants to do dance this fall. I told her that she had a choice between dance and soccer, she could not do both. One, we can't afford her to do two activities and two, I refuse to be on the run carting kids around to various activities. So DD decided on dance, she goes for an hour on Saturdays and my son will go to soccer, his is 2 hours on Saturdays for 6 weeks. So I will take her to dance and DH will take him to soccer.
I like it because they have nothing scheduled during the week and we only have to devote a Saturday morning to activities. The only issue I can see with the Sat AM activities is if DH has to do overtime, then I am not sure how I will get both kids to both places. But for now, we are not planning on Saturday overtime and we are not sure when overtime will start up again for DH.

 

My rule for activities is I have to be able to handle all the running around myself. Yes, dh is there on the w/e's to go to the games, but sometimes he has to work late and I have to be able to handle it. Sometimes the practices do crash dinner time, but we eat a decent snack after school and just have a later homemade family dinner.

My daughter only does horse riding. Her lessons are an hour plus time for saddling and un-saddling. They are also the furthest away. But her stables aren't picky on the time. They have a class time list. You can show up to whichever time works that week. We usually go the same day, but if something comes up there is some pretty good flexibility to move things around.

My son is 8 and plays soccer. He plays through the YMCA league. It's one practice a week and one game most weeks at a park 5 mins away. He also takes piano lessons. That's 30 mins and the place is 2 mins away from the house.

We're not adding anymore activities. This is plenty. Sarah would be allowed to add back piano, but she tried it and really doesn't like it. Sarah was just asked to come to a special riding time they are going to have at the stables to start learning how to jump horses so I going to have to look at how that works with the Saturday soccer games. But this is busy enough.

Marissa