Reply to What age to start putting kids in activities such as soccer or ballet?

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Reply to "What age to start putting kids in activities such as soccer or ballet?"

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[quote=Anonymous]We have a 4 yr old and haven't bothered with soccer yet. Largely because I find the schedule a pain for us and I think my kid would get a minimal amount out of it at this age. She's shy and not aggressive at all and I am just envisioning her not wanting to participate. I'd rather wait until she gains more confidence through school, and until we can find a program that really emphasizes fun and being active over competition.

But we did put her in a weekly ballet/dance class. It's not really ballet -- they don't teach the positions or anything at this age. It's more of a movement class grounded in ballet. They make it really fun and appealing for the kids, and each week they tell a story and then use movement and dance to act it out with props. It's perfect for my kid. The class is small and it's about following along, so she's never really on the spot. Plus they get to wear ballet clothes and they listen to ballet music and she's really gotten into that aspect of it.

We did a gymnastics class for 3 yr olds also and she also really enjoyed that. Again, really just about basic movement and they made it into a game. We would have stuck with that but I wanted a class she could take weekly with the same group of kids and same instructor and the gymnastics place wasn't like that. I think consistency is really good at this age.

I also think you could do nothing until they start grade school and it would be totally fine. I think I was incentivized to do something earlier because Covid has made it harder for her to build up social skills at school (hybrid for a long time, still shorter hours, plus masks) and I think it's made her socially anxious. So for me it's more about creating a safe social environment for her to spend time with kids her age, than about training her to be a ballerina or something. I also would have done music or a story group or karate or whatever, it's just this is what I found and she liked it.[/quote]

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