Reply to What age did your kids find their "thing"?

Forum Index » Elementary School-Aged Kids

Reply to "What age did your kids find their "thing"? "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I'm going to disagree with some of the consensus here.

First, I think doing activities in kindergarten or even younger can be great. I have an only child, and we started enrolling her in activities at 4 in order to encourage more socialization. We looked for things that were age appropriate and that played to existing interests. She likes music and dancing, so we put her in preschool level dance and gymnastics classes, and took her to music and movement classes at the local library. She loved all of these, but especially ballet.

In K we also added soccer at her request (a lot of classmates in K were doing soccer). But it turned out she didn't really like it, so we only did it once. She's also done basketball through an after school program but she didn't like that either. We won't ever discourage team sports, but we are getting the sense that at least at this age, it doesn't really suit her.

We made her take swim lessons because that's a fundamental skill. And for a long time she hated it but we made her go because we want her to be at least competent in the water. And then she got competent in the water and discovered, actually, she loves swimming. At least for now

So now she's in first and just doing ballet and swim. Recently she told me she loves science and asked there are any "science camps" in the summer. So I'm looking to see if there's a STEM camp for her age group for next summer.

I don't know if ballet or swim or science will be her "thing" or just passing interests. We are totally fine either way. I think some kids latch onto activities early and never lose interest, and others don't, and I don't think either one is right or wrong. Developing an early interest like that has some advantages, as others have noted regarding sports that kind of close off to kids who don't start them early enough. But if she winds up doing ballet 5 days a week in high school, that could also prevent her from exploring other passions, or just being a kid. So there are tradeoffs.

But I don't think here is anything wrong with signing your kindergartener up activities and, if there's anything they latch on to, encouraging that interest. Whether it becomes their thing or not, they will learn something and make friends. Good enough.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics