Anonymous wrote:Only start young if it's convenient and a fun activity for YOU. Keep the focus and fun and socialization rather than skill.

I had friends stressed about taking their toddlers and preschoolers to a zillion activities. Their calendars were so busy and they were always running around. We did nothing other than lots of free play until starting one organized activity for each kid in first grade. Parents taught swimming and bicycle. By late elementary school, kids asked to add or switch to another sport or dance.

Now that the kids are in middle school, there is zero difference in skill level for most things for the early starters compared to the late starters. It's important to stay active, but kids build more social skills if they get to self direct activities and learn how to problem solve in kid-led environments. I'd recommend a free and convenient neighborhood playgroup over an expensive series of classes for those reasons.

+1 still no organized activities for us with a 4 year old and 6 month old, with two working parents and daycare I like our weekends to be less structured and don’t want to have to be rushing my kid off somewhere. Can totally understand doing it if you stay home or have a nanny. But kids really don’t need it at that age (and for some kids it can be too much). Generally trying to limit doing too many activities is a goal for us based on what we’ve heard from parents of older kids.

My DD started ballet at 2 and soccer at 3. She’s 3.5 and just started basketball. It’s been great for getting her introduced to sports, taking instruction from other adults, socializing, taking turns, following directions, teamwork etc. All good stuff!

I agree only do what works for your family. We found that morning activities are a great way to get us all out of the house and in a routine on weekends. But we didn’t know that its other benefits were friends that our kids and us as parents made at these activities. Likely who your kids start soccer with end up being elementary school parents since the kids stay on the team together for years. I know you’re not thinking that far ahead, but don’t think of these as “must do”
activities (people in the DMV put crazy pressure on themselves as parents ) but social activities that will enrich your lives. Of course it doesn’t have to be soccer or ballet, there’s so many options in this area.

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.

I think it depends on your situation with childcare.

When we had a nanny, we had her take my kids to activities at 3 and 2 just for something to do.

Now that they are in daycare, I think last year of preschool is a more appropriate age.

Having been to the earlier activities, if it requires parent participation, it's not really about skill in the sport or activity but just for fun, which is great if you can swing it!

Around 2 - 2.5 for classes where she needed to follow directions and since 6 mo this for adult/baby classes but this was pre-covid. Our kids are home with nanny so socialization is all it is really.

New baby, 14 months does one outside gym class because of covid.

OP it depends on your goal.

Most little kids are in activities so the parents or nannies have something to do a couple times a week. It's not to actually learn how to play soccer or whatever.

I think around 4 or 5 kids might start asking to do specific things they like.

My kids haven't shown a ton of interest in organized activities, so I've just offered them some options and let them pick 1 per "season".

Anonymous wrote:Only start young if it's convenient and a fun activity for YOU. Keep the focus and fun and socialization rather than skill.

I had friends stressed about taking their toddlers and preschoolers to a zillion activities. Their calendars were so busy and they were always running around. We did nothing other than lots of free play until starting one organized activity for each kid in first grade. Parents taught swimming and bicycle. By late elementary school, kids asked to add or switch to another sport or dance.

Now that the kids are in middle school, there is zero difference in skill level for most things for the early starters compared to the late starters. It's important to stay active, but kids build more social skills if they get to self direct activities and learn how to problem solve in kid-led environments. I'd recommend a free and convenient neighborhood playgroup over an expensive series of classes for those reasons.

Not necessarily true IME. Hockey for one. There are others.

I tried a mommy and me creative movement class at Dance Place when DD was 2 since she seemed to enjoy yoga at daycare. She was wayyyyyy more interested in being the class clown, but other kids, including some younger than her, were fully participating and having a lot of fun. She's 4 now, still the class clown, and has been asking about ballet. We're going to try daddy and me ice skating instead.

We're doing a music together class for our almost 3 year old because we want more socialization exposure. It's not really for skills development.

We started that stuff around kindergarten for both kids. That said, they were in daycare prior to that so had plenty of engagement and activities. If I had been a SAHM then most likely I would have done some classes a bit earlier for them to have opportunities to learn how to socialize.

Only start young if it's convenient and a fun activity for YOU. Keep the focus and fun and socialization rather than skill.

I had friends stressed about taking their toddlers and preschoolers to a zillion activities. Their calendars were so busy and they were always running around. We did nothing other than lots of free play until starting one organized activity for each kid in first grade. Parents taught swimming and bicycle. By late elementary school, kids asked to add or switch to another sport or dance.

Now that the kids are in middle school, there is zero difference in skill level for most things for the early starters compared to the late starters. It's important to stay active, but kids build more social skills if they get to self direct activities and learn how to problem solve in kid-led environments. I'd recommend a free and convenient neighborhood playgroup over an expensive series of classes for those reasons.

You can start whenever you want!

There are baby ballet classes if you really want to sign up for activities. However, in my experience the classes are mostly for the parents up until age 5/6. At that point the kids start learning real skills, but it’s still mostly play. You’ll get kids who just want to twirl at ballet and kids picking clovers during soccer games, but this is definitely the beginning of learning the foundation skills.

Soccer 5, but just running around a field once a week with some other kids. Ballet around 4, she started doing it with a bunch of friends from preschool.

How early do you start? Where do you find the information? Sorry, newly pregnant and I am curious.