My daughter just started kindergarten today (her first of two or her only, read more about that struggle here) and with that incredible milestone (don’t even get me started, she’s my baby…my last…ugh) our back-to-school shuffle begins. Big Brother has one more week to go and he’s milking these last few days of summer for all its worth. The way he should be.
And with the end of our too short summer (or too long depending on how you see it), starts the inevitable schedule crunch. I spent well over an hour a few weeks ago trying to reconcile multiple schedule conflicts.
I was there, hunched over my iPhone with a furrowed brow for a good hour.
Good grief.
What has our life come to?
Soccer, dance, piano, and swimming. Really?
Why? When?
How?!?
It didn’t help that I had just read this article about pushing our kids too hard.
But here we are, back in the thick of it. There will be daily homework, hurried dinners, and a rush to meet the bedtime deadline.
I’m worried that I’ve put too much on our plates.
Soon, we’ll be rushing from school pick up to one activity after another, barely leaving time for a sit down home cooked meal. I’m no Giada (no matter how hard I try), but spaghetti and meat sauce enjoyed together at our dinner table is something I value.
We all need some down time. Time for the kids to just be and time for us to just be…together. And aside from our bedtime ritual, dinner is our only family down time during the crazy Monday to Friday shuffle.
My inner conflict is nothing new and I know as the school year descends upon us, many of you are likely feeling the same way. We all recall moments of our own childhood spent roaming the neighborhoods, only to be called in at dusk for dinner time. The good old days. Or, are they?
Sure, I have fond memories of playing hide and seek until the sun went down with whoever was outside at the time. But, the reality is that times have changed folks. There are no kids outside playing anymore. They’re all at soccer, dance, or Tae-Kwon-Do.
And I see some true benefit from organized sports and extra-curricular activities. They’re good for the body, brain, and soul.
In moderation, of course.
So…I’m torn. I’m trying to find that balance. The balance between being a good kind of busy while still having some time to smell the flowers so to speak, or at the very least make really good mud pies and build an impromptu fort of pillows.
I don’t want to steal away my kids’ childhood with one organized activity after another.
So, at the end of that time crunching, over scheduling hour, I decided this: there has to be at least one day during the week when no one has an after school activity, they should generally enjoy what they’re doing, and I give myself and my kids permission to reassess and change direction when things just seem too hectic.
After all, they only get one childhood and the hubs and I are determined to make sure it’s a childhood well played.
Are any of you struggling with this right now? How do you balance extra-curricular activities with life?
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I wrote about this today, too! This is the first year I’ve really felt the pull to do “more” than I planned, and it’s hard to decide what’s important and what isn’t. I don’t want to over-schedule, but I also want my kids to have opportunities to try a myriad of different things. Sigh. (Oh, and I mainly mean my daughter. I haven’t quite over-scheduled the toddler yet…smile)
I don’t know how to deal with this either. Simplifying matters for us is that we have only one child. Up until this summer, my rule was no more than one regularly scheduled activity each weekend day. He goes to fulltime childcare during the week – and this ensured we got out of the house doing something active on the weekends (we’re all introverts in my house.)
This summer we added a (fabulous) tae kwon do school – which added one evening activity a week.
In the fall, for a few weeks, we’re going to try to add another sport (which will likely mean 2-3 evening activities a week and 1-2 weekend activities (total, not each day on the weekend), and that feels like a lot. But the (amazing – really, I’m so impressed with them) TKD is year round, and the add’l sport is just for a few weeks.
And when I look ahead to next year (when he turns 5), I want to add a music class. Agghh.
I feel immensely pressured to keep him in sports and physical activities, because I think that even at his (good) preschool they don’t get enough outside/run-around time. It will only get worse in K from what I understand. And you know “childhood obesity-oogah-boogah!”… and he needs to learn how to swim properly, so we’ll do a few more county swim lesson courses until I believe he’s ‘got it.’
It’s just crazy. I have no good advice. I’m very nervous about the next few years and finding a good balance between allowing him his passion (baseball right now), exposing him to different sports, exposing him to other activities (music), doing family dinners, making sure he gets enough sleep, and managing my own demanding full-time job.
Stumped.
We have four kids (11, 6, 3, 1) and try our hardest to provide plenty of down time for play. Our children DO play outside and we go on family walks/bike rides in the evening when we can. One thing that helps us is only allowing one activity per child. With four, we feel this is a must. We also limit our evening commitments for church or other groups so we are home more than not. We always eat dinner together as a family. Sometimes it is rushed if someone has an activity but so far so good!
It is certainly hard to achieve balance these days and it takes setting limits and sticking to them! Good luck!
My oldest is starting Kindergarten in a couple weeks, so we’re not too far into activities yet, but we’re trying to stick to 1 after-school activity per kid for now. We’ve done swimming in the winter and spring, t-ball in the summer (as well as a golf class during the day) and now soccer in the fall. My younger son is just starting swimming too. 2-3 nights/week taken is already a lot when we’re both working full-time, so I hope to keep it this way. I’m already stressing about how to have 2 kids in 1 sport at the same time (with different games), because like you, I want to be home some nights too!
We made the rule about having one activity at a time. The kids have enough on their plate between school obligations and social obligations. The big kids each get to pick what they want to do, and that’s it. For my son, that’s baseball, and my daughter is choosing dance!