We give our weekends over to sports. There is no choice if DS wants to play and he always wants to play. We have four sports annually.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope ,we love having sports on the weekend.

Same!! It’s great for them both physically and mentally. Learning teamwork is a lifelong skill.

What would you do with your child if there were no sports on your weekend?

Do you really think kids can't entertain themselves without activities on the weekend? What did you do growing up?

Our kids are not really into sports. They do swimming and have a couple of extracurriculars on the weekend. Even so, I always prioritize things like friends' birthdays and I wish their friends were more available to just hang out. IMO it sucks that the American model is to have them so overscheduled. It shouldn't be between "weekend sports" and "staring at the walls."

I totally agree.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope ,we love having sports on the weekend.

Same!! It’s great for them both physically and mentally. Learning teamwork is a lifelong skill.

What would you do with your child if there were no sports on your weekend?

Do you really think kids can't entertain themselves without activities on the weekend? What did you do growing up?

Our kids are not really into sports. They do swimming and have a couple of extracurriculars on the weekend. Even so, I always prioritize things like friends' birthdays and I wish their friends were more available to just hang out. IMO it sucks that the American model is to have them so overscheduled. It shouldn't be between "weekend sports" and "staring at the walls."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope ,we love having sports on the weekend.

Same!! It’s great for them both physically and mentally. Learning teamwork is a lifelong skill.

What would you do with your child if there were no sports on your weekend?

Do you really think kids can't entertain themselves without activities on the weekend? What did you do growing up?

That’s not what I said at all. Simply asking OP what she would rather do with her time. Seems like the perspective of someone with younger children- you can dictate their schedule. Once children are older there’s plenty of activities they want to engage in. I can’t imagine keeping my kid out of an activity whether it be dance, martial arts, sports so I can hit up the brewery every weekend with neighbors.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope ,we love having sports on the weekend.

Same!! It’s great for them both physically and mentally. Learning teamwork is a lifelong skill.

What would you do with your child if there were no sports on your weekend?

Do you really think kids can't entertain themselves without activities on the weekend? What did you do growing up?

DP but played rec soccer. My sister played a lot of softball and my brother was really involved in martial arts. It was active for all of us but we also had a lot of friends in these activities. It was fun. I have a lot of memories of going to get ice cream after my sister’s softball games or going out to eat with the family after watching my brother at karate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope ,we love having sports on the weekend.

Same!! It’s great for them both physically and mentally. Learning teamwork is a lifelong skill.

What would you do with your child if there were no sports on your weekend?

Do you really think kids can't entertain themselves without activities on the weekend? What did you do growing up?

Anonymous wrote:Nope ,we love having sports on the weekend.

+1, gets everyone dressed, out of the house, and active. Plus I love to watch my kids play.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope ,we love having sports on the weekend.

Same!! It’s great for them both physically and mentally. Learning teamwork is a lifelong skill.

What would you do with your child if there were no sports on your weekend?

We would go on family hikes. Visit museums. Go strawberry picking. So many things to do!

If that's what your kid wants to do then just do that. But if they want to play sports and see their friends then you need to resign yourself to what weekends with kids looks like.

This. But lol at one soccer game taking over your weekend. One of my kids has a 2 hour game with 1 hour warm-up plus an hour lesson in another sport each weekend. Other kid devotes between 7 and 15 hours of the weekend to one sport depending on the weekend. They don’t miss games and very rarely miss a practice, but then they’d rather be playing sports than picking strawberries.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^we like to leave time on the weekends to get together with other families we're friends with. Our kids love these get togethers, too, at least for the time being. Yes, sometimes those are outings to the pumpkin patch or a farm brewery with a playground, etc.

And you can’t plan these things around a one hour soccer game? Of which you have the entire season scheduled in advance? Play One sport doesn’t take up your entire weekend. Hell, my kids play multiple travel sports and it still isn’t take up our entire weekends.

I have two kids in travel sports and we still make the time to go to a brewery or pumpkin patch. Sometimes we might do that on a school holiday like Columbus Day, sometimes it’s a random weekend when we don’t have games. It’s not either/or.

Anonymous wrote:^^we like to leave time on the weekends to get together with other families we're friends with. Our kids love these get togethers, too, at least for the time being. Yes, sometimes those are outings to the pumpkin patch or a farm brewery with a playground, etc.

And you can’t plan these things around a one hour soccer game? Of which you have the entire season scheduled in advance? Play One sport doesn’t take up your entire weekend. Hell, my kids play multiple travel sports and it still isn’t take up our entire weekends.

^^we like to leave time on the weekends to get together with other families we're friends with. Our kids love these get togethers, too, at least for the time being. Yes, sometimes those are outings to the pumpkin patch or a farm brewery with a playground, etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope ,we love having sports on the weekend.

Same!! It’s great for them both physically and mentally. Learning teamwork is a lifelong skill.

What would you do with your child if there were no sports on your weekend?

We would go on family hikes. Visit museums. Go strawberry picking. So many things to do!

If that's what your kid wants to do then just do that. But if they want to play sports and see their friends then you need to resign yourself to what weekends with kids looks like.

+1

My friend had all these grand plans for what she wanted to do, but forgot to ask her kids. They weren’t interested.

Ignore the "but what will your kids dooooo" posters, OP. What do(es) YOUR kid(s) want to do? What do you and your spouse/partner want to do? How do you want your family life structured? That will look different with, say, preschoolers vs. teens, of course, but you have input into these things.

We have three kids, 10, 8, and 6. What has worked well during the school year is mostly weekend activities with predictable schedules, e.g., martial arts, swimming, Scouts, and one or two weekday activities. Our DD has done Girls on the Run before school, which is great. The boys have done programs at school, after school, also great. If our kids expressed real interest in all the team sports, we'd absolutely try those out, but they haven't, so we don't push it. I was an athlete for years (HS, college, after), and there are plenty of ways to get into that, if and when the time comes.

Summer is all about the pool, swim team, etc., so that looks different, but it's time-limited and we all love the change in pace.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope ,we love having sports on the weekend.

Same!! It’s great for them both physically and mentally. Learning teamwork is a lifelong skill.

What would you do with your child if there were no sports on your weekend?

We would go on family hikes. Visit museums. Go strawberry picking. So many things to do!

I don’t think there’s much strawberry picking available in the fall around here.

You can do an activity that doesn't have games or meets. If you do a team sport, you commit to the weekend games, and you do the other stuff (museums, etc.) after the game or on the other weekend day.