Avoiding activities that meet on the weekend?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think some of you just don’t have any older kids yet. They reach a point where they no longer want to go to the zoo or the indoor trampoline place or have a “play date.”

Isn't a "playdate" just kids hanging out and playing together? Shouldn't that be a bigger part of childhood? When are kids supposed to start doing more of this, when they can drive themselves? I wonder how much of this is driven by college admissions and how much by the suburbs lifestyle of driving everywhere. (Speaking as a suburbs mom myself and also as someone who was always terrible at sports and mostly grew up outside the US.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope ,we love having sports on the weekend.

Same!! It’s great for them both physically and mentally. Learning teamwork is a lifelong skill.

What would you do with your child if there were no sports on your weekend?

You can learn these things without sports.

Sports are great because you can 1) do all those things while 2) staying in shape and getting exercise. Think of it as killing two birds with one stone.

You really can’t see the value in other activities? Not everyone likes playing sports.

[Anonymous]

My fifth and sixth graders still love strawberry picking, family hikes, museums, and zoos. They asked for a few weeks of no summer camp to do just that. It would be nice if their friends weren't so over scheduled.

To answer your question, op, we avoided scheduled weekend activities for ten years until my kid really wanted to join a team. I'm so grateful we had those years of weekends to do family stuff without much schedule pressure. and grateful the sport is not year round.

[Anonymous]

We've had both extremes -- from time-consuming activities that can take up the entire weekend to nothing -- and find that the best option for us is 1 or at most 2 activities that occupy Saturday morning, possibly into early Saturday afternoon. These would be activities though that don't require additional games, performances, competitions, etc. Then Sunday we keep open.

[Anonymous]

My kids do lots of sports, activities, music and we still do plenty of family things like hikes, fruit picking, museums, play dates and socialize with other families. We stay busy but never feel like we miss out. Thanks suppose the thing my kids don’t do much of us sit around the house and watch tv or daytime screentime on the weekends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids do lots of sports, activities, music and we still do plenty of family things like hikes, fruit picking, museums, play dates and socialize with other families. We stay busy but never feel like we miss out. Thanks suppose the thing my kids don’t do much of us sit around the house and watch tv or daytime screentime on the weekends.

Do you and your spouse both work full time or do you only have 2 kids?

[Anonymous]

It’s family dependent and you absolutely don’t have to. We try to keep weekends as unscheduled as possible. We sleep in, do family day trips (usually something outdoors or in nature, and it’s stuff that everyone enjoys, both adults and kids), kids play with their friends sometimes (yes, they are more scheduled than us, but can still generally fit something in). We’re lucky that our kids have plenty of after school activities (including sports) available to them at school during the after school hours. In our house, weekends are for rest and getting organized, family, and adventures. Kids are in elementary and middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We give our weekends over to sports. There is no choice if DS wants to play and he always wants to play. We have four sports annually.

+1. Same. DD plays soccer, basketball, tennis and swimming. Right now her swim meets are like five hours every Saturday morning and it’s a pain. She loves it though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope ,we love having sports on the weekend.

Same!! It’s great for them both physically and mentally. Learning teamwork is a lifelong skill.

What would you do with your child if there were no sports on your weekend?

You can learn these things without sports.

Sports are great because you can 1) do all those things while 2) staying in shape and getting exercise. Think of it as killing two birds with one stone.

You really can’t see the value in other activities? Not everyone likes playing sports.

No, we do other things but people are constantly confused here about why other people like sports. Do you not see value in health and fitness?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope ,we love having sports on the weekend.

Same!! It’s great for them both physically and mentally. Learning teamwork is a lifelong skill.

What would you do with your child if there were no sports on your weekend?

We would go on family hikes. Visit museums. Go strawberry picking. So many things to do!

This. Amazing how many obsessive sports parents simply cannot fathom this and say things like the above.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope ,we love having sports on the weekend.

Same!! It’s great for them both physically and mentally. Learning teamwork is a lifelong skill.

What would you do with your child if there were no sports on your weekend?

We would go on family hikes. Visit museums. Go strawberry picking. So many things to do!

If that's what your kid wants to do then just do that. But if they want to play sports and see their friends then you need to resign yourself to what weekends with kids looks like.

+1

My friend had all these grand plans for what she wanted to do, but forgot to ask her kids. They weren’t interested.

Luckily not every family, even in 2022, lets the kids run their household.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^we like to leave time on the weekends to get together with other families we're friends with. Our kids love these get togethers, too, at least for the time being. Yes, sometimes those are outings to the pumpkin patch or a farm brewery with a playground, etc.

And you can’t plan these things around a one hour soccer game? Of which you have the entire season scheduled in advance? Play One sport doesn’t take up your entire weekend. Hell, my kids play multiple travel sports and it still isn’t take up our entire weekends.

We have three kids, so if each did a sport like that, it would take up much of the weekend. Also, you know that many leagues have games all over the place, so you have to factor in travel time. We also like our family to have downtime, so that’s in there, too. Some families are barely home all weekend and that’s fine. Also fine: not wanting that.

Yeah, the “you can’t plan around a one hour soccer game” is ludicrous. Between traveling across town to games (even if not a travel team) and ridiculously early and late scheduling to accommodate so many teams on the same fields, plus multiple kids, my sports parents friends have their weekends eaten by kiddie ball. “One hour,” my foot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bottom line is that American kids play sports on the weekends. Other than that there is not much more to American life once the kids get too old to enjoy those ‘family hikes, zoo and museum visits’ lol

I grew up as the kid of immigrants and our family spent every weekend at friends’ houses for dinner and hanging out until late into the evening. The kids would all just play with each other.

Americans don’t really do this …other than have the occasional bbq and invite a couple of friends over a few times a year maybe. So their kids’ sports fill their weekends. Otherwise there is not much else for them to do!

What pathetically limited thinking you have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bottom line is that American kids play sports on the weekends. Other than that there is not much more to American life once the kids get too old to enjoy those ‘family hikes, zoo and museum visits’ lol

I grew up as the kid of immigrants and our family spent every weekend at friends’ houses for dinner and hanging out until late into the evening. The kids would all just play with each other.

Americans don’t really do this …other than have the occasional bbq and invite a couple of friends over a few times a year maybe. So their kids’ sports fill their weekends. Otherwise there is not much else for them to do!

Since college applications want a laundry list of achievements and activities Americans have little choice but to sign their kids up as young as possible to find their "niche" because hanging out at the neighbor's house during all your down time isn't exactly going to set you apart from the pack when it comes time to apply.

Yes, your six year old playing soccer just like 90% of the other kids is their ticket to Harvard. Yup. For sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope ,we love having sports on the weekend.

Same!! It’s great for them both physically and mentally. Learning teamwork is a lifelong skill.

What would you do with your child if there were no sports on your weekend?

You can learn these things without sports.

Sports are great because you can 1) do all those things while 2) staying in shape and getting exercise. Think of it as killing two birds with one stone.

You really can’t see the value in other activities? Not everyone likes playing sports.

No, we do other things but people are constantly confused here about why other people like sports. Do you not see value in health and fitness?

Do you not see that organized sports are not necessary for “health and fitness?”