Do you think activities for 3-4 year olds are worth it or is it better to just do playdates?

[Anonymous]

I will resist activities for as long as I can. My DD gets plenty of socialization and exercise from daycare. Her daycare offers a couple classes that happen *during school hours* (a dance teacher will come to the class, etc.) and I do those.

[Anonymous]

My child started half day preschool at 2 going on 3. He really was not interested in other activities. We did some music and mommy and me type classes when he was a baby, before preschool. He’s 4.5 now, goes to school from 9-2:30 and still isn’t super interested in activities after school. He’ll do swim lessons after camp this summer and in the fall maybe we’ll try soccer again, but not forcing it. He enjoys skiing but unfortunately can’t do that every week!

[Anonymous]

If you stay at home, then it is a good way to break up the day. It's also a good way to meet other parents - which can then lead to playdates. I work and my DD is in daycare, but I do swimming because it's an important skill. I also did gymnastics because the center was so close to us and my child enjoyed running around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think most of it is a waste of money. If YOU, the parent, think it would be fun to take your kid, meet other parents, etc, do it! But it's like decorating the nursery - it's for you, not for them. Nothing wrong with that, though.

Two possible exceptions:

1) Swimming. At some point, that's a safety issue, and I think if you wait too long (until age 5 or later) your kid may be scared to dunk his head, etc. So I think this can be helpful earlier as a foundation. We start around age 2, that's probably earlier than you need, at that point it's more for us (see above; my husband was a swimmer), just with one session in the winter. I would think by age 4, though this would be important for safety reasons.

2) Exposure to group care. Our kids have a nanny, so they're use to one on one/one on two attention. Our oldest starts PK3 in the fall, so we're planning to sign him up for a short soccer session this summer just so he's had some exposure to this before PK starts.

This is a great post. I have met some other wonderful parents through my kids activities. Swim is also a necessity IMO.

[Anonymous]

My child didn't go to daycare so yes I liked the classes.

[Anonymous]

I think play groups with some structured and some unstructured play times are good for beginning attending skills, peer play, parent/child interaction, child/child interaction, etc.

I don’t think organized sports are useful at that age.

[Anonymous]

Go to the park? Make friends

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Go to the park? Make friends

doing a couple of classes a week doesn’t mean you don’t also go to parks. We did swim/soccer/gymnastics when DD was going. Swim was 30 mins a week, gymnastics 45 mins a week and soccer was a 6 week session. We both enjoyed it so for us it was worth it.

[Anonymous]

We started swimming at six months and restarted at 4 after Covid. We started once a week foreign language at 3, and moved to twice a week at 4. We figured that swimming and foreign languages are best learned from a young age, and everything else can wait.

[Anonymous]

Where do you find foreign language classes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We started swimming at six months and restarted at 4 after Covid. We started once a week foreign language at 3, and moved to twice a week at 4. We figured that swimming and foreign languages are best learned from a young age, and everything else can wait.

I know of 0 kids who stayed fluent in a non-family foreign language learned through classes, except for the rare few who went into it a language-based career. Very little benefit

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We started swimming at six months and restarted at 4 after Covid. We started once a week foreign language at 3, and moved to twice a week at 4. We figured that swimming and foreign languages are best learned from a young age, and everything else can wait.

I know of 0 kids who stayed fluent in a non-family foreign language learned through classes, except for the rare few who went into it a language-based career. Very little benefit

Agreed, but our kids are trilingual -so weekend language classes in our family languages has worked for us. In DC, there are four year old immersion PKs, and if those kids stick with the language- they do eventually become fluent - so the answer is it depends.

[Anonymous]

Our kids are bilingual

[Anonymous]

Kids brains are a sponge

[Anonymous]

I was home with my kids and I did everything with my kids. Activities, play school, playdates, short trips, friends, relatives, movies and then lots of chilled out days when all they wanted was to dig holes in the yard.