If your child goes to after school care

[Anonymous]

Are they also enrolled in after school activities outside of that?

When do the activities take place? After daycare or on the weekends?

Do you worry your child is overschedule or do you think they would be lacking something if they were only doing after school care?

[Anonymous]

We do aftercare. No week night activities beyond that.

We do Saturday morning dance and Sunday morning we go to Church/Sunday School.

My kids want to do more. They want to do T ball like their friends. Or soccer. Or swimming. Or whatever. But I limit them to one activity of their choice. They both chose dance this time. Religious Education is non-negotiable.

I wish I didn't need aftercare. In an ideal world, I would like for them to come home after school and have free play most nights and maybe one additional activity. Instead, I will look for a variety of camps for next summer to cover some of the other activities they would like to try out.

[Anonymous]

My son is in aftercare and does weeknight activities.

During the week my son does jiu-jitsu 2-3X a week. Some weeks he has boy scouts (only time per month). This is all year round. In the winter he will also have basketball. In the spring he will have soccer. So he could have something 3-4 nights a week, depending on the week. We don't do any travel teams due to his schedule already being full. Aftercare is his free play time.

On Saturdays my son does diving classes (year round) and has basketball games and soccer games in their respective seasons. Sundays we have church and some games.

My son is also in AAP and manages to keep up just fine. He has about 1 hour of homework a night + a project every now and then. He's 8 years old and in 4th grade.

[Anonymous]

DCs are both in aftercare, have instrumental music lessons once a week and a sport once a week during the week, as well as dance on Saturday morning. We are able to handle this because they carpool to the sports practice. It also helps that both are in the same activity at the same time. If each kid did a different activity on different days/times, we couldn't do it.

[Anonymous]

I have a second grader who goes to aftercare. we didn't do any activities (besides some swim lessons) til second half of first grade. He's done some of the afterschool programs that have been offered (a Lego class, basketball) and don't involve any pickup or dropoff on my part.

he's just started getting into sports and I can handle about one weekday thing right now (I also have a younger kid) so he's done some sports that have a weekday practice and a saturday game. I expect we'll do more as he gets older, but we'll see what his interests are -- it's more an issue of how to get him somewhere with work/commute than it is too much for him.

[Anonymous]

Our school PTA has a lot of afterschool activities from 4 - 5 p.m., when DC would be in aftercare anyhow. He can pick any of those and usually does one per season. On weekends he does swim lessons and Sunday School, plus playdates and birthday parties. We couldn't manage activities on weeknights after aftercare. Younger DC is in daycare all day, too. He has two weekend sports plus Sunday School.

[Anonymous]

2 kids are both in aftercare.
DD1 has scouts once a month and dance on Saturday.
DD2 has science club once a week and music lesson on Saturday.
Both scouts and science directly after school.

[Anonymous]

Our DS first grader is aftercare as is preK 4 1/2 DD. DS is into art, soccer and gymnastics. We break it up by doing aftercare art and soccer and on Saturdays he does gymnastics and art. DD is into ice skating, ballet/tap and enjoys soccer and gymnastics. We do dance and gymnastics on Saturdays alternating sessions with private ice skating lessons and soccer - so 2 activities each season. We always have 1 family day together. DH and I switch off taking each kid to activities. I teach both piano for fun and both love it. Our kids really enjoy activities and we never pushed but feel it's important to not sit around because all they want then us TV ? 2 hours at home playing downtime is enough - they'd be bored out of their minds though DH and I are tired. The way we handle it is we would be tired anyway if they didn't do anything because they would be so cranky!

[Anonymous]

The kids are both into Tae Kwon Do so we switched from Sacc to that for aftercare. Each does 1-2 sports during the year at the rec level. It works out to being 1-2 practices in the evenings and games on the weekends. They love it but I'm really tired. We work out carpools for my oldest since they don't need boosters anymore.

[Anonymous]

I have 2 bous who love sports. We tried after care for one year and it was misesrable. We moved to an AuPair so our boys could play with their friends at the playground, come home, do homework, relax, and then go to their sports practice. Often between the 2 boys each season they play one travel sport and one rec sport, so basically running 2 sports each (total of 4 ) each season.

Yes thr AuPair is expensive, but my bottom line can take a hit so that my job doesnt have to intrude on their childhood. To put it honestly, a child in aftercare is keeping adult like work hours. That one year, my boys were hotribly exhausted and DH and i were always in a frantic rush. No more of that.

[Anonymous]

My DD went to aftercare in elementary school. On Wednesdays she also had ice skating from 7:30-9pm, in addition to Saturday ice skating.

She was underscheduled but that was all I could afford.

[Anonymous]

Sports twice a week after aftercare.

Music once a week after aftercare.

Sometimes he has an after-school activity that is instead of aftercare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have 2 bous who love sports. We tried after care for one year and it was misesrable. We moved to an AuPair so our boys could play with their friends at the playground, come home, do homework, relax, and then go to their sports practice. Often between the 2 boys each season they play one travel sport and one rec sport, so basically running 2 sports each (total of 4 ) each season.

Yes thr AuPair is expensive, but my bottom line can take a hit so that my job doesnt have to intrude on their childhood. To put it honestly, a child in aftercare is keeping adult like work hours. That one year, my boys were hotribly exhausted and DH and i were always in a frantic rush. No more of that.

Well, good for you if you can afford it. Unfortunately for a lot of us who do after school care, this is not the case. Just realize that you are one of the lucky ones.

[Anonymous]

We do aftercare and sports. One kid plays soccer 2x/week after aftercare and the other swims 2x/week after aftercare. It is tough as many nights DH and I are each taking a kid to their respective activity and we aren't home until 7:30. But my kids are late elementary. No, I don't feel 1 sport is overscheduled.

[Anonymous]

Two in aftercare. DS usually does a sports activity and theater at aftercare plus one rec sport each season. That's usually one evening practice plus a weekend game. DD usually does a "kid fitness" activity and occasionally an art class at aftercare and also goes to girl scouts there (2x a month). She does a year-round sport with one evening practice and one weekend practice.

This feel like the right amount of activity for them. They like being at aftercare and having that time to relax and play with their friends (their friends go to aftercare too so they wouldn't have anyone to play with if they just came home). The also usually get their homework done there.