Extracurriculars you regret supporting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This area is competitive, selective, and has a lot of parents with a lot of money. It means that any activity your child would enjoy _can_ be done at a level of expense (private lessons, travel teams or other "selective" competitive leagues, specialized equipment/camps/opportunities) that is mindboggling. And almost any activity that your child would enjoy _can_ be done in a calmer quieter way, which also deprives those parents of getting to complain about how much money they are "forced" to spend.

In my humble opinion, it's not about the specific actviity. It's about the mentality of the parents and the level of expense they want to throw at their "snowflake."

This - 100% agree.

You can do dance lessons at the neighborhood studio down the street, and be active, learn some grace and musicality, and have fun with neighborhood friends. You can play rec soccer from age 3 to high school. You can take gymnastics classes and never go to a competition.

[Anonymous]

You can do dance lessons at the neighborhood studio down the street, and be active, learn some grace and musicality, and have fun with neighborhood friends. You can play rec soccer from age 3 to high school. You can take gymnastics classes and never go to a competition.

I consider this a bigger waste than the more competitive and expensive activities. If you’re going to have your kid downs so much time doing something at least let them learn what excellence is and what it takes to become good at something instead of spending a lot of time on something mediocre or low quality. What a waste of time.

[Anonymous]

Travel sports. I have one in travel hockey and one in travel baseball which one I hate more varies, but probably baseball. It’s nonsense to do tournaments only, I’d much rather see high level league play over time than 3-6games in a weekend and scraping to find enough quality pitching for the last games. Think it puts way too much stress on young arms that league play doesn’t.

One is just starting to get into debate but I hear that’s another huge time commitment but at least he’s learning good research skills

[Anonymous]

I’ll answer on behalf of my lifelong friend: competitive figure skating.

She missed out on a normal childhood to include early teen years. Traveled to competitions every school break. Had a compressed HS schedule that allowed her to arrive late after rink time and other days, leave early for specialized training like dance.Delayed puberty and then amenorrhea and later an eating disorder.

Family sacrificed to pay for the travel and coaching and classes and so pressure to continue was intense. Huge family rift when she up and quit junior year of hs. Mom was a judge, Dad
heavily involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Travel sports. I have one in travel hockey and one in travel baseball which one I hate more varies, but probably baseball. It’s nonsense to do tournaments only, I’d much rather see high level league play over time than 3-6games in a weekend and scraping to find enough quality pitching for the last games. Think it puts way too much stress on young arms that league play doesn’t.

One is just starting to get into debate but I hear that’s another huge time commitment but at least he’s learning good research skills

High school debate is a huge time commitment but requires very little from parents other than money- basically you send them to camps and pay for tournament travel. Back in the day only one or two parent chaperons came with the team when we traveled together, and often it was a smaller group of just us and our coach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Travel sports. I have one in travel hockey and one in travel baseball which one I hate more varies, but probably baseball. It’s nonsense to do tournaments only, I’d much rather see high level league play over time than 3-6games in a weekend and scraping to find enough quality pitching for the last games. Think it puts way too much stress on young arms that league play doesn’t.

One is just starting to get into debate but I hear that’s another huge time commitment but at least he’s learning good research skills

High school debate is a huge time commitment but requires very little from parents other than money- basically you send them to camps and pay for tournament travel. Back in the day only one or two parent chaperons came with the team when we traveled together, and often it was a smaller group of just us and our coach.

My kid does debate. It's a big time commitment, but agree it doesn't take much from the parents. (No money in our case, because our public school program is very well funded.)

[Anonymous]

This area is competitive, selective, and has a lot of parents with a lot of money.

This is true of almost any urban or suburban area in America. You might be surprised how much worse Texas, CO, and CA can be than here, or even Florida where certain sports never stop. I don't think it's at all specific to DC/NOVA/MD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ll answer on behalf of my lifelong friend: competitive figure skating.

She missed out on a normal childhood to include early teen years. Traveled to competitions every school break. Had a compressed HS schedule that allowed her to arrive late after rink time and other days, leave early for specialized training like dance.Delayed puberty and then amenorrhea and later an eating disorder.

Family sacrificed to pay for the travel and coaching and classes and so pressure to continue was intense. Huge family rift when she up and quit junior year of hs. Mom was a judge, Dad
heavily involved.

+1

This was my nephew with baseball. He was a strong player, and could have attended college for free, but up and quit and never spoke about it again. Pushing kids can really backfire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Competitive dance - costumes, makeup, dance moves, etc. Who are they trying to impress? Creeps?

+1. Competition dance is such a waste. We left and found a lively non-competitive team and we are all so much happier.

I would add any sort of dance, including ballet, at a dance school/studio with a poor environment can wind up being a big regret in hindsight.

Agree. I advise avoiding dance all together. While it occasionally can be a good environment and beneficial, more likely than not it won't be

No regrets for my teen who is a serious ballet dancer. She is passionate about the art form and makes her happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm actually really surprised that parents don't remove certain activities as an option go begin with.

Exactly. I can’t regret anything because a sport/activity that didn’t work for us for whatever reason was ended fairly quickly or ruled out before lessons began.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
You can do dance lessons at the neighborhood studio down the street, and be active, learn some grace and musicality, and have fun with neighborhood friends. You can play rec soccer from age 3 to high school. You can take gymnastics classes and never go to a competition.

I consider this a bigger waste than the more competitive and expensive activities. If you’re going to have your kid downs so much time doing something at least let them learn what excellence is and what it takes to become good at something instead of spending a lot of time on something mediocre or low quality. What a waste of time.

The issue is that some people are really good at/super interested in dance, soccer, and gymnastics, etc, and 1-2 hours/week at recreation level just doesn't satisfy the interest. I had one kid who did fine in rec league and one kid where that was no where near enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This area is competitive, selective, and has a lot of parents with a lot of money.

This is true of almost any urban or suburban area in America. You might be surprised how much worse Texas, CO, and CA can be than here, or even Florida where certain sports never stop. I don't think it's at all specific to DC/NOVA/MD.

I hear in other parts of the country, kids get homeschooled and such when they are really good at sports. THat would be unheard of (or really frowned upon) here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Competitive dance - costumes, makeup, dance moves, etc. Who are they trying to impress? Creeps?

Everyone gets a trophy. The medals and trophies became meaningless after awhile. The awards ceremonies were a joke.

So you want it to be even more competitive?

I think the point is that achievements are meaningless when everyone gets a trophy. Unlike, say, track and field when you are competing for a time or distance, something objective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Travel soccer. The parents and coaches were way too into it and I witnessed some pretty bad behavior.

Travel soccer.

[Anonymous]

Figure skating. Terrible on the body and psyche. Reinforces a rigid perfectionist mindset. So very expensive with absolutely no upside. Very little chance of making it and few opportunities (at least gymnastics has scholarships and NCAA). Even if you win the Olympics, your reward is skating in Stars on Ice.