With school starting back in a few weeks, I’m starting to get notices in the mail that sign-ups are coming soon for fall activities. Schedules are posting for soccer, gymnastics, dance, theatre, art…you name it. My problem is that Annie wants to do all of the activities.
When I was growing up, I played softball, took piano and voice lessons, and even tried track one year (running! LOLOLOLOL). There were a lot of other things I wanted to try, but as I progressed through the ranks in softball and it took up more of my time, almost every other activity had to be dropped. I don’t regret the time I dedicated to softball (well, maybe I do a little), but I wish I’d made more of an effort to try other things.
Obviously, Annie can’t do everything. I don’t have the time, money, or patience to enroll her in 5,000 activities, plus HELLO that would be ridiculous over-scheduling. But I love that she wants to do everything. I like that she loves sports as much as she loves drawing. I want my kids to do sports (and I include dance in that) because I want them to have strong bodies and a lot of confidence. I want them to do art and theatre because I want them to be creative, outgoing, and imaginative.
But really, I just want them to do activities that they enjoy. And that’s the rub, because Annie enjoys everything. I’m not sure how we decide what to sign her up for. Even after I take away the activities that don’t fit into our schedule we’re left with too many options. At this age, each activity is an hour commitment per week, so even if she did two it still leaves lots of time for unstructured play.
Every time I ask Annie what she wants to do she gives me a different answer. Yesterday was dance, today was soccer, tomorrow it will be drawing or gymnastics. So obviously I just have to pick. I’m leaning towards one sport and one non-sport so she gets exposed to different things.
It’s also possible that in my attempt to make sure she doesn’t miss out on anything, I’m over-thinking this.
Also? Softball sign-ups start in January…
Laura says:
We do the one sport and one non sport per season and it works out well. My daughter is like Annie and wants to do everything! I love her enthusiasm but my checkbook can’t handle it. In the winter she does gymnastics for an hour a week so sometimes she’ll sneak a pottery class after school in addition to something else but it’s not a huge time constraint. Don’t forget, she’s at the age most girls start girl scouts!!
Debbie says:
Girl Scouts starts in 1st grade with Brownies.
Laura says:
Girl Scouts starts in Kindergarten now as Daisies.
Daisy says:
Chicago Park District just had their fall enrollment (think: activities at a fraction of the commercial rate)and it was hard to choose for my 18 month old. I opted for a once a week 30 minute Mom/Tot gymnastics class (weather here required indoor activities) and a Saturday morning indoor swim class.
Heather says:
Oh yeah we are ALL ABOUT the Parks and Rec classes!!! I love how inexpensive they are.
Susan says:
This post made me smile. More because I think your right on as Mom. Yes, you will make the decision now and I guess enjoy it because you will have much time watching your children make their own decisions which we may feel isn’t right, you know those times =) I, too, think it is awesome that your Annie faces all of life so enthusiastically. I love it. Maybe because I try to be that way now even in my mid 40’s. I like to be happy My kids are grown but we still sit around and discuss decisions they need to be making on whatever, school, girls, cars, etc…. =)
Julie says:
We always stuck with 2 activities. My daughter was in Girl Scouts and softball at first. Then we switched to dance instead of softball, but stayed in scouts until 7th grade. Our feeling was we wanted to enjoy life too and did not want our whole world revolving around our child. Once she was in junior high, school activities took over–theater, cheerleading and first of all academics. I guess we did ok. She’s a successful, independent 27 year old who still likes to spend time with mom and dad and even asks for our advice!
Heather says:
I definitely don’t want my life to revolve around their schedules but I think that’s going to be hard….this is going to get a LOT more complicated once I add James’ activities into the equation in a few years!
JMH says:
Yep..My daughter is in volleyball and my son is playing football (both in middle school) Sounds easy, right? Well, just between those 2 sports, we will either have a game or practice every night of the week (M-F) as well as volleyball tri matches on 3 of the Saturdays in September as well as football games on Sunday afternoons. It is going to be a loonngg couple of months!!
Giselle says:
Don’t worry, she can try different things each season/year, if she wants. So she’ll have the opportunity to do anything and everything she wants. it was big for me, bc of my shyness, to do the same things as my friends, so that answered that question! You can’t go wrong, whatever you choose, she will love it.
Jeanne P says:
Once my son found KungFu and my daughter found dance they didn’t want to do anything else. My daughter also did Brownies because she was already at school and the meetings were after school.
If you want the kids to be exposed to other activities you could find some summer or school vacation programs that don’t require a year-long or season-long commitment. Some are run by museums or art schools.
Heather says:
As much as I want them to try everything, I am kind of secretly hoping they’ll find something they’re passionate about right away…I feel like that makes things a lot easier, scheduling-wise!
Heather says:
Also, love the idea about the vacation programs. Annie will be old enough for those next summer!
Annalisa says:
Yeah, but depending on where you are, liability priorities, etc., they don’t take kids younger than 5. I know both from being a camp counselor/teacher and having a 3 year old who’d probably love themed summer camps, but alas, she’s too young to be enrolled in many…
Colleen says:
Do as much as you feel comfortable and able. My daughter was also into everything and when she was younger, I let her do whatever I could manage. As she got older and the time commitment got stronger, she had to drop some things. When she was in fourth grade, she contracted a bone disease that made her have to quit sports. Thankfully, she was also involved in theater which became her focal point. If she hadn’t been involved, she would have been lost. Let Annie try as much as you can afford and do and all will be well.
Tammy M. says:
My son was the same way. Eventually, he decided that hockey was his passion over bball, soccer and football and stuck with that through high school and college.
My hubs was smart in that he also encouraged our kids to learn to play “lifetime sports”… things that they can enjoy even after age creeps up on them, like golf and tennis. Worked with the son, the daughter not so much!
Elizabeth says:
I’m right there with you! This fall my daughter is signed up for Girl Scouts, cheerleading, soccer, dance, and occasionally horseback riding. I told her we’d see how the fall goes but eventually she’s going to have to cut back and pick which activites she wants to do.
Sarah M. says:
I’m an anomaly in that I’m taking these early years to expose my kiddos to as much as they want. Between parks and recs and living in a very saturated market, the cost is reasonable while they are younger and have more time outside school. I’m hoping they find things they enjoy and might want to pursue at a higher level plus having friends outside of their core school group is important to me in our disconnected society.
Right now, my 6.5 year old is involved in swim, gymnastics, ice skating, and piano. I made her take piano (she loves it now), but the others are all her choice. We will have to change things when she moves up next at swim or gymnastics onto competitive teams because of time, but she loves her schedule.
My almost 5 year old son takes swim and is involved with the learn to play hockey program. He is involved with a local kid’s engineering group. He starts piano in the spring.
I think some of my willingness to let them be involved in a lot of stuff is that I grew up with very busy working parents with tight finances. Classes and sports were a stretch so by the time I was able to participate in school, I wasn’t good enough to make the team or never got to play.
Vicky says:
Our Parks and Recs offers a sports variety. For example in one “season” they play soccer, football, basketball and baseball”. Not really game level, but exposes the kids to each sport
Js says:
I work with kids this age, and while they need and crave control over what they do, they’re terrible at making choices. You could try breaking it down into more manageable options, give her a choice of just 2 sports and let her pick one, a choice of two arts, let her pick one, and tell her that whatever choices she makes today can’t be changed, but that when she’s five she will have a chance to make new choices again if she wants to. Hope that helps!
Melissa says:
Thanks for sharing
CLos says:
Personally having taught kids on how to swim I think (without having children of my own) swim to be important. Also “track” or “Cross Country” seem to be something the older I get the more I realized would have been an excellent option when I was younger.
The older we get as “parents” the more we realized that had we had an opportunity we would have done things a “little” differently. It seems that acquiring an affinity for “lifelong” sports at any early age is important.
So I would recommend Swim and Cross country or something that is “run” centric since as we get older that is what we find ourselves partaking in.
Jenny says:
I am in a different season with a different perspective. My son wants to play select soccer. He is 10. It is almost impossible to break in from rec league to select due to the number of kids who have been playing select since 6/7. We made a team (barely) but he will have to fight very hard to keep his position. Looking back, I wish I had that crystal ball.
Lesley says:
When I was little I LOVED being in Girl Scouts! It’s great because you get exposed to so many different things – teamwork and group activities, different outings/projects, community service, summer camp, etc. I love that the program both encourages girls to try new things but also to be active with what they’re passionate about. And it’s really great throughout school – I was a Girl Scout from 2nd through 12th grade and now I’m an adult Scout!
If you’re curious: https://www.girlscouts.org/who_we_are/facts/what_is_gs/daisy.asp
Molly says:
My girl needs a lot of downtime and if I’m not careful, I tend to overschedule her, so my rule of thumb is to stick to two activities and then narrow them down by time (right after school works best for us bc getting her home and then dragging her back out again is TOUGH) and commuting distance (the less time in the car the better). I used to sometimes schedule two activities during the week and one for say, Saturday morning, but it finally became apparently that she doesn’t want to have to be anywhere on weekend mornings–she just wants to hang I her PJs for as long as possible! Can’t say I disagree…
Molly says:
Oh, and her little sister, who’s almost 4, gets to do one activity, and I pick it to coincide with big sister’s (or while sister is at school). So far this has worked out pretty well.
Kate says:
My parents waited to start us in activities until we were older (like, first or second grade), which I think helped them because there were three of us and they had neither the time nor the resources to put us in every activity we would’ve wanted to try out. But like others are saying, I think as kids get older, they figure out what they enjoy and what they don’t, and even if they don’t tell you, you can figure it out. That is how I stopped playing soccer–I never said, “I hate this, it’s stupid and horrible,” but my parents put two and two together and thus ended the soccer teams.
I don’t know if schools still do this, but when I was a kid, a lot of the school districts had what I can only term “fun summer school” for younger kids. Like, it was summer school in name only, where you signed your kids up for optional, low-cost classes on such things as computers, or the American Girl books, or art, or calligraphy. It was the best way to spend the summer, and I was heart-broken when I aged out of the program. But it also feels like a relic of the 90s, and not something schools would do in this day and age, so I don’t know.
Julia says:
our school system still does this. $6 for four weeks. my favorite is “cooking from children’s books” — porridge, curds & whey, honey pots, etc.
Jen says:
My middle daughter is also doing everything now. Volleyball, basketball, softball, piano, she just asked me to sign her up for voice lessons, and when she starts middle school this month, she’ll be in band. Crazy! But she does great academically and I think she is just one of those kids who does better when they are busy. She currently plans to get a softball scholarship to college and then be on Broadway in the Phantom of the Opera when she is an adult
Thankfully my older daughter only does the high school newspaper and yearbook, and my youngest only does dance (although she wants to do soccer this year), so it somehow all balances out.
Good luck deciding! It’s crazy, but it’s fun
Rachel says:
My sibling and I were in no formal activities until 1st grade, though we did get swimming and skiing lessons. I think we’ll do the same with ours. Whatever happened to “just playing”? Why do little kids need formal schedules already?
Glenda says:
Both of my kids started at 5. Prior to that I met up with friends at the park and they just played or rode their bikes. They did group activities in pre-school.
My son did soccer and basketball and my daughter did dance and gymnastics. As they got older some days we had to spilt up (hubby & son) and me & my daughter but it worked out.
I’m sure you will figure it out as they get older.
Katrina says:
My daughter has had the same dilemma. We came to the agreement when she was about 4, that she can participate in 2 activities at at time. She chose dance (which is Aug – June) and the plays soccer in the fall, softball in the spring and this year (she’s now 6) we added golf lessons in the summer.
Katrina says:
I forgot to add that she also does Piano, but that occurs at her school and it’s not something we have to cart her to and from.
Nikki says:
My dad’s biggest thing with sports was he wanted us to choose a “lifetime sport” For example: You can’t play football when you are 50, but you can still ice skate, shoot hoops, and play softball! That was how we narrowed it down Seem to work well as both my brother and I still skate/play hockey, in older leagues of course!
Kris says:
How about a little bit of history regarding vaccines?
Kris says:
Let’s start with 1798, which is the year I think of as the modern age of vaccines.
Kris says:
Whoops! I’m on the wrong post!!