S/O What activities do you recommend?

[Anonymous]

Spinning off from the “activities you’d never do” thread, curious what activities you do recommend and why. What’s been great for your kid(s), whether for confidence, fun, friendships, or life skills? My kids have tried a few things but nothing has really stuck yet!

Could be sports, arts, academic, outdoor programs, whatever. Bonus if you have kids who weren’t super enthusiastic at first but ended up loving it.

[Anonymous]

Scouting. My son was a decent student and ok athlete, but got his Eagle rank and that really helped him become a confident, capable young man.

[Anonymous]

Gymnastics, dance, theatre. Things don't HAVE to stick. It's okay to be solid at all, without being a superstar at one. The point is to enjoy childhood and be active. It's not to get a full scholarship to an Ivy.

[Anonymous]

Robotics for my younger son. It didn't take in the elementary years through toys, camps, etc.

Then all of a sudden it took in 9th grade. Because high-school level robotics is much more serious than the next age groups down.

I also recommend robotics for girls. Great place to learn computer programming, mechanical fabrication skills, project teams that are more productive than schoolwork project groups.

For me it was high school choir as a class. My mom made me because I had dropped all my instruments I started. I didn't want to at first. But I liked it because it didn't require boring at-home practicing, lessons, and instruments transport, while still allowing music-making. I ended up meeting my husband in college choir.

Robotics and choir are also not as expensive as extracurricular sports.

[Anonymous]

Tennis, golf, and swimming are really good “lifelong activities.” Basketball too. Everyone loves a good game of pickup basketball.

I know a family where the kids do Ninja Warrior-type courses instead of gymnastics and it seems pretty fun and positive for them. They have a son and a daughter and they both do it. The daughter transitioned to it when it became obvious she was going to be too tall for gymnastics.

I also know people in Irish dance and it has its own layers of weirdness, but doesn’t seem to have the same body image/weight issues that other types of dance can have. Also good for boys who might not be athletic but still want to be active.

For older kids, the technical aspects of theater can be something they can carry with them for many years. There are always community theater productions and they need things like set and lighting designers and costume designers.

[Anonymous]

Swimming and ballet have been huge hits in our household. We started swimming as a life skill but it's turned into way more -- my DD once told me that swim practice is the one place where her mind can just relax and she forgets about stressful stuff at school or with her friends. She actually inspired me to start swimming for fitness once a week because I could see how relaxing it was for her. I love she'll be able to do it for life.

Ballet has been great because it combines multiple interests -- music, dance, theater/expression. We found a great small studio near our house that is not competitive or toxic at all. The instructors are kind and supportive and knowledgeable, there's no toxic attitudes about bodies or weight, the focus is just on ballet as an art form and refining technique. No competitions.

The rest of my kids' activities are through school -- newspaper, school play, etc. We somehow missed Girl Scouts and I used to feel bad about it but now I've heard from others what a time suck it can be and how stuff like the cookie sales becomes stressful and I'm glad.

[Anonymous]

Non-competitive dance, swim, and golf.

[Anonymous]

Volunteer - Give Back
Teaches such character -- shows young impressionable kids SO much about others and the world around them.

[Anonymous]

Swimming. Every kid should know how to swim
I think it’s handy to have a basic knowledge of things they might get invited to do at some point or want to do with friends. Like basic concepts of soccer, basketball, ice skating. My now 13yo got invited to an ice skating bday party last year and if she’d never been before it would have been miserable. Don’t even always need lessons. Just to have done it before.

[Anonymous]

Swimming as a life skill, chess to build concentration, one individual sport (like tennis or martial arts) and one team sport but not football.

[Anonymous]

Learning to handle the stress of being a softball pitcher has been a massive confidence builder for my DD. As parents we wouldn't trade those hours spent sitting on a bucket catching for anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Robotics for my younger son. It didn't take in the elementary years through toys, camps, etc.

Then all of a sudden it took in 9th grade. Because high-school level robotics is much more serious than the next age groups down.

I also recommend robotics for girls. Great place to learn computer programming, mechanical fabrication skills, project teams that are more productive than schoolwork project groups.

For me it was high school choir as a class. My mom made me because I had dropped all my instruments I started. I didn't want to at first. But I liked it because it didn't require boring at-home practicing, lessons, and instruments transport, while still allowing music-making. I ended up meeting my husband in college choir.

Robotics and choir are also not as expensive as extracurricular sports.

Why would ANYONE encourage their dc to spend more time with devices? I don't get this at all. Same with "coding" classes for dc, coding isn't that hard they can learn it if they choose to - especially with AI - so why impose such an unhealthy habit on them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Learning to handle the stress of being a softball pitcher has been a massive confidence builder for my DD. As parents we wouldn't trade those hours spent sitting on a bucket catching for anything.

I was excited for softball for DD then I quickly realized how insane some of the parents were, no thanks... we bowed out of that quickly.

[Anonymous]

Piano lessons, or violin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Robotics for my younger son. It didn't take in the elementary years through toys, camps, etc.

Then all of a sudden it took in 9th grade. Because high-school level robotics is much more serious than the next age groups down.

I also recommend robotics for girls. Great place to learn computer programming, mechanical fabrication skills, project teams that are more productive than schoolwork project groups.

For me it was high school choir as a class. My mom made me because I had dropped all my instruments I started. I didn't want to at first. But I liked it because it didn't require boring at-home practicing, lessons, and instruments transport, while still allowing music-making. I ended up meeting my husband in college choir.

Robotics and choir are also not as expensive as extracurricular sports.

Why would ANYONE encourage their dc to spend more time with devices? I don't get this at all. Same with "coding" classes for dc, coding isn't that hard they can learn it if they choose to - especially with AI - so why impose such an unhealthy habit on them?

It's very rude of you, PP, to be so judgmental.

A lot of high school robotics is more similar to large appliance repair than "being on devices". When you are building, maintaining, and remote control driving a physical object that fits in a 3 foot by 3 foot by 4 foot tall space, you are not just sitting down and using a device. There is a lot of work to operate physical machines to make the parts and standing during creation, maintenance, and driving. My child actually isn't interested in the coding part, so he uses screens less than the coders. But he has taught himself CAD, which is helping him with advanced math and logic skills (part designs are 3D).

Many people have hobbies with computer interface aspects to them. Should I stop doing online genealogy?

Regarding coding, I mentioned that because a lot of coding training that kids do does not lead to real world implementation. And currently there are a lot of kids who want to become CS majors. In FRC robotics, the coding determines how the robot moves and how accurate it is, and that is directly related to whether the robot wins versus opponents. FRC robots are not battling but instead competing at task completion at the same time in the same arena. So winning and losing is versus other teams. As with sports, the game outcomes contribute to a performance feedback loop. And contribute to team bonding.

One thing that is true about the physicality of high school robotics - it is sports-like in that you belong to a team and win and lose together. But you will not get overuse injuries. My children have friends who have overuse and accidental leg injuries, particularly from soccer and track. Also, as a person who reads scholarship essays for a PTA, I can say that "how I overcame my season-ending injury" is a common essay topic among top high school students.

Robotics basically leads to applied knowledge. Much of what our kids learn in school is just fact cramming. Opportunities to apply knowledge are precious and develop thinking skills and maturity. Our team also has a nice mix of girls and boys which I think is great prep for an egalitarian workplace (some activities seem to gender sort themselves...our high school drama club has become very skewed female).

Hopefully the information above is useful to someone interested in robotics as an option. I doubt PP really cares to know.