Weekly activity schedule

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What time are all these kids going to bed? Mine has to be up at 6:40 for school.

9pm. The days he doesn't get home until 830pm are a little rough. This is a 10 year old.

At younger ages we didnt do as many evening activities because bed time was earlier. Until 2nd grade he went to bed around 730pm.

But we are in Fairfax so he doesn't need to wake until about 8am so a little later now is fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That seems wild to me. I also have kids (aged 7-14) who like keeping busy, but even my oldest is not so structured. They like to ride bikes, go hiking, go fishing, play outside, read, have friends over, play board games, etc. They all do one low key sport (between 1-3 days a week) and the older ones also do 1-2 after-school clubs. I do keep them busy with camps in summer because we work FT and they prefer camps over a nanny and hanging out by the pool.

I make them all take piano for 2 years and learn how to swim (they just need to learn front crawl) and even those requirements are like pulling teeth. The kids resist so much!

Not every kid resists. We have one (10) and she asks to do everything and we have to set boundaries on her.

I think it's one thing if a kid has lots of hobbies (and 10 is a great age to have capacity to try and do a lot of things - you don't have as many school demands yet, are old enough to really develop skills, and you don't need the same amount of free play and early bedtimes any longer) - but a lot of the activities listed on here are almost certainly parent-directed (such as the violin, piano, tennis, Kumon combos).

White kid who loves his string instrument and his tennis lessons, and thinks the keyboard is a toy, sits down and jams whenever he has a minute. Weird that you dont think kids would enjoy those?

Math not so much, but reading yes. If there were reading clubs around he would willingly join.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That seems wild to me. I also have kids (aged 7-14) who like keeping busy, but even my oldest is not so structured. They like to ride bikes, go hiking, go fishing, play outside, read, have friends over, play board games, etc. They all do one low key sport (between 1-3 days a week) and the older ones also do 1-2 after-school clubs. I do keep them busy with camps in summer because we work FT and they prefer camps over a nanny and hanging out by the pool.

I make them all take piano for 2 years and learn how to swim (they just need to learn front crawl) and even those requirements are like pulling teeth. The kids resist so much!

Wel obviously if your kid complains or resists then drop the activity. I dont think this thread is for you. My kids have never complained about attending a sport practice or music lesson, they LOVE being involved in all the activities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:many Asian tigers on this board obv with the violin, piano, tennis, math enrichment

I mean if we are going to speak that generally, Russians also love music and math for their children. What I have not been able to figure out in driving kids to activities - where are the Indian musicians? I see American, Russian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Mongolian, etc. 2nd generation kids at music lessons and orchestra but maybe 1% Indian kids in a fairly Indian-heavy community. We did chess for awhile and it was 80% Indian. I'm just curious, since Russians/Chinese/Indian culture are geographically and in some ways culturally similar, except that Russian and Chinese really excel in music while I don't see any Indian musical talent. Is it discouraged?

I forgot to say that I see chess, music, and math as being very closely linked and Indians absolutely dominate at chess (and historically chinese and russians too), but only Chinese and Russians dominate in classical music.

Indian kids are busy learning Indian classical music, vocal and instrumental. Most girls learn classical dance as well (Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kuchupudi).
Just like Western classical, these are hard to master and require a decade of committed practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:many Asian tigers on this board obv with the violin, piano, tennis, math enrichment

I mean if we are going to speak that generally, Russians also love music and math for their children. What I have not been able to figure out in driving kids to activities - where are the Indian musicians? I see American, Russian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Mongolian, etc. 2nd generation kids at music lessons and orchestra but maybe 1% Indian kids in a fairly Indian-heavy community. We did chess for awhile and it was 80% Indian. I'm just curious, since Russians/Chinese/Indian culture are geographically and in some ways culturally similar, except that Russian and Chinese really excel in music while I don't see any Indian musical talent. Is it discouraged?

I forgot to say that I see chess, music, and math as being very closely linked and Indians absolutely dominate at chess (and historically chinese and russians too), but only Chinese and Russians dominate in classical music.

Indian kids are busy learning Indian classical music, vocal and instrumental. Most girls learn classical dance as well (Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kuchupudi).
Just like Western classical, these are hard to master and require a decade of committed practice.

sure they are

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:many Asian tigers on this board obv with the violin, piano, tennis, math enrichment

I mean if we are going to speak that generally, Russians also love music and math for their children. What I have not been able to figure out in driving kids to activities - where are the Indian musicians? I see American, Russian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Mongolian, etc. 2nd generation kids at music lessons and orchestra but maybe 1% Indian kids in a fairly Indian-heavy community. We did chess for awhile and it was 80% Indian. I'm just curious, since Russians/Chinese/Indian culture are geographically and in some ways culturally similar, except that Russian and Chinese really excel in music while I don't see any Indian musical talent. Is it discouraged?

I forgot to say that I see chess, music, and math as being very closely linked and Indians absolutely dominate at chess (and historically chinese and russians too), but only Chinese and Russians dominate in classical music.

Indian kids are busy learning Indian classical music, vocal and instrumental. Most girls learn classical dance as well (Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kuchupudi).
Just like Western classical, these are hard to master and require a decade of committed practice.

Interesting! Is this usually through heritage school (like Chiense and Korean have Saturday or Sunday school for language and culture) or through religious groups, or just private studios? Is it competitive in the US?

[Anonymous]

I follow my kids’ leads. They want to sign up for the activities and I don’t mind supporting their interests. At these young ages, I think it’s important to explore different activities. They have plenty of free play time. We know kids who are more scheduled than this.

8 yo
Monday - sport 1
Tuesday - sport 2
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - sport 3
Friday - nothing
Saturday - sport 1
Sunday - sport 4
Another activity this is every other week.

11 yo
Monday - sport 1
Tuesday - sport 2
Wednesday - instrument
Thursday - sport 3
Friday - club
Saturday - sport 1
Sunday - sport 4
There is another club that is monthly. And another activity every other week.

[Anonymous]

This is timely. I'm worried I signed up for too much summer activity. Summer swim team for 2 months, 3 weeks of which is also taken up by morning camp or sport. And tutoring and piano lessons once or twice a week. The last 3-4 weeks of summer will be travel, family time, no lessons or camps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Insane for the super young.

My kids are 6 and 4. Six year old is in an eight week basketball program on Wednesdays after school. We go to church as family on Sunday. That’s it.

We were doing swimming lessons in the fall, but the schedule didn’t work well for us for spring. We’ll start again this coming fall.

Look, you parents of 8+ year olds, I won’t presume to know what makes sense at those ages, but a kid who is seven and under should not be in that many structured activities PLUS a full day of school. Let your kid just play for god’s sake.

As you acknowledged, you don’t have a ton of experience here. Unstructured play is absolutely important, but in defense of signing up for more than one activity at a time for kids in K-2, it’s easier to go through the trial and error stage to see what your kid likes/doesn’t like or what they have aptitude for. The kids are nicer to each other when they are younger and they are less self conscious of the struggle part of learning a new skill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your poor children. My kid comes homes and plays. Then he does his homework and chores. He does one activity each week- rock climbing. I cannot imagine it is healthy to be on the go all of the time like that.

I have an only child. We have tried just coming home to play but nobody else is around, and building legos or playing outside on his own is fine. But he often has more fun and more social time if I put him in 2/week soccer or a team so he can be around friends.

Mine is an only child too. He spent his days at school with other kids. He doesn’t need to spend every night and weekend with them too. Family is important. Chores are important. Free time is important.

[Anonymous]

10yo: goes to aftercare on school days

Has a 30 min instrument lesson on Saturday, followed by a swim lesson. Then on Sundays has one hour of karate.

And I think the kid might be doing too much!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Trying to gage what is normal… can you share your dc’s weekly activity schedule?

For us, 8yo dc has M: Tennis, T:, Soccer, W: Math, Th: Lacrosse and taekwondo, F: Theater, S: Taekwondo, Sun: Soccer and taekwondo.

4yo has M: Kumon, W: Kumon, F: Taekwondo, S: Baseball.

Way too much!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trying to gage what is normal… can you share your dc’s weekly activity schedule?

For us, 8yo dc has M: Tennis, T:, Soccer, W: Math, Th: Lacrosse and taekwondo, F: Theater, S: Taekwondo, Sun: Soccer and taekwondo.

4yo has M: Kumon, W: Kumon, F: Taekwondo, S: Baseball.

Way too much!

Not for Asian tiger this is average

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What time are all these kids going to bed? Mine has to be up at 6:40 for school.

9pm. The days he doesn't get home until 830pm are a little rough. This is a 10 year old.

At younger ages we didnt do as many evening activities because bed time was earlier. Until 2nd grade he went to bed around 730pm.

But we are in Fairfax so he doesn't need to wake until about 8am so a little later now is fine.[/quote

Your threshold for activities definitely depends on what time your kids need to wake up. My kids have activities until late but it works because they wake up at 7:30 am, not 6! That's one fo the reasons I think people end up talking past each other in these activity conversations, different kids have a different number of hours in the evenings because of times they finish schol, bedtimes and school wake up times.

[Anonymous]

I have ten year old twins.
Kid one has:
M: sport 1, T: Sport 1, W: Theatre, TH: Sport 1, Sat: Sport 1

Kid two has:
M: Piano, sport 1, T: Sport 2, W: Sport 1, TH: Sport 2, F: Sport 2, Sat/Sun: Game for sport 1 and/or sport 2