[Tracey with 6]

I was reading apost in the homeschooling section about the amount of extracurricular activities that children are expected to take part in for socialisation these days, and I got to thinking, even with kids who are school how muchis too much on kids these days? Do we expect too much of our children with scouts, band, ballet, cheer leading, gymanstics , church and everything else, when do they ever get time to just be kids? How much do your kids do ? Is too much unhealthy?

[deedee1231]

The last year Erica was still in Catholic school she had way too much going on. She was on the school volleyball team, had soccer with a league not affiliated with her school, was in girl scouts, had honors chorus, she was the assistant editor of her school newspaper, and she was involved in the student government. There was something every evening and every Saturday that she had to get to, and on top of that she had a pretty heavy homework load. Sometimes she wouldn't get home until after 8:30 and would still have an hour or more of homework before she could even shower and get to bed. It was to much for her and it was too much for me, too.

When you are homeschooling, it is a little different because you have the whole day to work with, not just the evening hours after school lets out, but I still think it is really easy to take on too much at once. And kids do become overwhelmed when that happens. We just moved a few months ago, so all my kids have been involved in this summer has been swimming lessons and pool membership. They are done with lessons and looking for activities. Erica wants guitar lessons and to take karate. Alex wants to join cub scouts and the twins want piano lessons (which should be interesting since we don't own a piano) and want to join girl scouts.

When you think about it, it isn't a lot, but it would be impossible for me to manage all of it if I had to do it all in the hours after school lets out, and then after activities still have to help 4 children get homework done before getting to bed at a decent hour. And that is without even mentioning dinner. And you are right, it would be too much and would be unhealthy. Like Erica's last year at Catholic school when she was missing about a day of school a week because of sheer exhaustion. So, I am going to allow each child to choose just 1 activity to start out with and see how that goes from now until Christmas. If we are able to handle it fine, I may let them add one more thing. But I think joining a ton of activities just for the sake of "socialization" is a bad idea.

[Tracey with 6]

I wasent attacking homeschool, I really meant any child in any form of activity, hey Iknow a 3 year old whohas 4 diferent activities a week and I think thatis over kill.

[deedee1231]

Hmmm...Not sure why you are thinking I thought you were attacking homeschooling? I didn't think that at all, .

I was just agreeing with you, in a rambling sort of way I suppose, that it is easy to let kids take on too much. I tried to express that I understand how some homeschoolers manage it because we don't have to deal with all the evening homework after activities, or ven restrict our activities to our evenings. I can fit in almost a whole days worth of homeschool academics in the time it used to take the kids just to do their homework, so I get how homeschoolers have more time to spend on a ton of socialization activities.

But I still don't want to take on more than one activity per child right now because we do other things, too, like library every Thursday and I try to plan an outing at least once a week, and those are the things I think are important. I know some homeschoolers who sign their kids up for every activity that comes along just so they can say that their children are adequately socialized. I won't do that because I think the whole notion of "socialization" is, well, kind of silly.

[deedee1231]

OK, I see the problem here, I didn't realize this was a debate thread. Oops !

My apologies, I wasn't debating, I was just responding. Discussing, as it were. I don't think I can debate this topic because I think you are right, Tracy, many kids do not get enough time just to be kids. They need to play, draw, color, run for no reason but to feel their legs moving beneath them. Use their imaginations. Etc...

[twinzplus3]

I think that 'kids just being kids' these days is fill their lives with activities. That is what you do. I think some of it stems from uber competitive schools that look at your preschoolers' extra curricular stuff to see if you're a good fit for the school but I think some of it is that kids don't do what we did when we were kids. I used to just hop on the bus and go to the pool. . .but I can't let my kids do that. So I have to schedule it.

We have a few rules. . .we do nothing on Sunday ever. (Except for church.) Sunday is family day and we won't split up or be involved in schlepping everyone everywhere. We try not to schedule sports on the same day so that we can all go out and support the other kid. That's not a hard and fast rule. . .but a goal rather. We are out every afternoon except for Sundays. But of course if I had one or two kids--we wouldn't be out every afternoon.

[deedee1231]

You make a good point. When I was a kid I used to hop on my bicycle and ride all over the neighborhood. I used to walk to out community swimming pool and the neighborhood Benjamin Franklin store. Kids don't do things like that anymore. It isnt even safe for them to do so.

When we were still in MO, we lived right across the street from a big park. The play area was visible from our front windows. There was also a walking/jogging track, a bike trail, and soccer and baseball fields. My kids were over there constantly. They would take their ball and play, or take kites, or ride their bikes, or just swing or slide on the playground. They could always find other children over there to play with. They were also able to walk to McDonalds or the grocery store from our house. Now that we don't have that anymore I can really see why people would need to schedule more activities rather than less.

[ahermitt]

I didn't think this comment was inappropriate for the homeshool forum. I wondered why you moved it.

Actually, I think that kids having alot of activities is part of kids being kids. My kids beg to do these things. When my kids were younger, I kept the activities to a minimum. All I could think of was I have to take you to all of these places and pay for them too. Regardless of the numerous requests to try everything thier kids were doing, I kept the activites to things they could do together and still limited it to one creative and one athletic. My kids have taken piano and sometimes another instrument for many years, and also a sports activity of one kind or another at all times. Keep in mind that this replace music and physical education that they would be getting in school.

Now that they are older 12 and 14, it is beginning to get out of hand. They want to fence, they want to do drama, they want to just hang out with friends. The are now also split by age.

Now we've never done any of these things for socialization. We always knew that they were perfectly fine social creatures. Instead these activities cover the "what about phys ed", and "what about clubs", and what about "the arts" questions we also get. Of course, these things aren't garanteed in schools, but hey!

[twinzplus3]

Huh? This post was never moved. .

[Tracey with 6]

sorry Val, I moved it myself, I try to be careful when it comes to the homeschooling threads and thought this was a subject that couldencompass public schooling aswell