Scheduling Extra Curricular Activities
February 8th, 2010 · 3 Comments
I often wonder about over scheduling my oldest. My daughter just loves everything, she has expressed an interest in everything from guitar lessons to karate and even piano lessons. Currently my daughter only has one sport that she plays in the Fall, that is Soccer and her father is usually the coach for her team. The remainder of the year her and I have Girl Scouts together, I stay with her and help the best I can with the weekly meetings.
It seems I have a child who is interested in so many things, I see a lot of me in my daughter because I am one of those ladies who can dress up and be all fancy but in the next minute be getting all greasy working on the vehicles. I think it’s great when a person has so many interests that they can get along in any social setting and I hope my daughter keeps this skill.
In the meantime as a parent I struggle with what is “too much”, you know? I want for my children to experience anything and everything they show an interest in but at the same time I don’t want them to be over scheduled and stressed out. I feel that my daughter can take on one more activity when soccer is out, so maybe a winter or summer type of sport? I don’t know what’s best. I do love that she is very artistic and has a love of music, she actually often talks about having her own band. It’s cute the lyrics my daughter has come up with for songs of her own, I must admit I have a very creative child and hope that maybe guitar or piano lessons will be something in her near future to encourage her love of the arts.
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And here my girls are totally opposite. My oldest does not have any inspiration to join any sports or after school activities. And if I force here I know she won’t put her all into it since she’s not interested anyway. She just loves being home.
My middle one does cheerleading but at the end of the season her grades starting slipping so I told her she can’t join anything until her grades improve.
We made the decision to put our son in Tae Kwon Do. He has his good and bad days with it. I think as long as your daughter can handle all of it and you don’t mind driving her from A to B to C, the go for it.
I definitely worry about overscheduling – I actually kind of go the opposite of it right now, because I know eventually they won’t get enough downtime at home as they get older. Right now my kids do swimming lessons periodically throughout the year and that’s about it. They did do soccer, indoor and out, but asked to stop. My oldest wants to do tae kwan do soon and maybe a dance class. I’m thinking I will put them in a couple of things in the summer!
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It’s great that your daughter is interested in so many facets of life. You’ve passed on a great trait to her in that!
I’m not sure where the line is between just right and not enough..but I think you can take a lot of your daughter’s cues to decide.