Mine is one who is very very happy being scheduled and having a sport or activity (or two!) every day. But I don't fully pack his schedule because 1) I think he needs downtime to veg, even if he might not think so, and 2) To do things well, he needs time for that. Right now his "thing to do well" is string instrument ensemble. So he spends 2-3 hours per week on that (private lesson and ensemble), but to get through all his rep he needs to practice at least 25 minutes a day. To do it reasonably well, he needs to be doing more. The kids have similar needs with sports. If he took football, he'd have to have 2x/week practice with the team, plus I'm sure they'd encourage throwing the ball around once or twice a week. Swimming, soccer, golf, chess, math competition, or tennis - same story. I think it's great to let kids try a variety of things, but I'm also happy to encourage that one of those things be done well.

Anonymous wrote:I am always amazed that a parent can do that much in terms of money & effort spent on top of having a cooperative kid willing to do all these activities happily......I maybe wrong, but I assume that either the mom is either a SAHM or work part time or have job flexibility working an easy job full time , at least middle class, and the kid must be either obedient to parents, or talent in some activities or the only child that gets bored at home all the time. I am an Asian immigrant myelf, and I still find it amazing with all these packed class schedules.

Also consider the time it takes to find and sign up for these things. It's easy to find local soccer, math, or whatever, but to have 6 days per week of activities is hard to arrange without conflicts.

My kid is 6/First grade:

Monday - piano
Tuesday - playground with friends
Wednesday - swimming
Thursday and Friday - playground with friends
Weekends - free

As the one who is carting them to every activity, I have a personal limit of two things. Plus, they desperately need outside unstructured playtime.

At 8 my kid had:

1) Scouts every other week
2) baseball (2 practices, one game)
3) A couple of hour long after school clubs

There was plenty of time for free play and hanging out with friends in the neighborhood.

At 9 he had

1) Scouts every other week
2) baseball/soccer (2 practices, 1 game)
3) Math once a week for 2 hours
4) A couple of hour long clubs after school.

He still had plenty of time for free play and hanging out with his friends. He was in bed between 8 and 8:30 every night.

None of these are that time intensive. He didn't have homework 99% of the time, the few times he did it took less then 20 minutes. Your kid can have an activity a day that is 1-2 hours long and have time to hang out if they are coming home straight from school. DS had friends in pretty much every activity that he did, with the exception of the math class. Scouts was as much about socializing and hanging out with friends as it was learning about whatever the topic of the week was.

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.

Free play is really important for development.

I liked our ES aftercare where some days they got specials (like soccer, dance, gardening, capoeira, choir, violin) for an hour and then a lot of free play outside with enough supervision to stay safe but not overly adult directed.

Got the kids to experience a variety of activities and saved parents a lot of driving time.

In older elementary, one of mine still loved this and the other needed a break from the stimulation but was able to free play around the neighborhood.

Anonymous wrote:M-tennis
T-violin
W-tennis
Th-piano
Fr-tennis
9 year old

Tiger

10
M: sport
T: sport
W: scouts, every other week
Th: sport
F: nothing
S: theater class
Su: sunday school

8:
M: sport lesson
T: art class
W: sport lesson
Th: tutoring
F: nothing
S: same theater class as 10
Su: sunday school
S: Theater

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

I had that question too! my kids at 4 yo went to bed between 6:30-7; at 8 yo they went to bed between 7-7:30. I do know some kids who really drive a structured schedule - one of my nephews is a gifted athlete and could be playing one or two sports every day all year long and just loves it and begs and begs to play more. He is 8 now but has been like that since a toddler. But most of the time, parents are the ones driving such jam packed schedules. It seems like a race to nowhere at the expense of potential burnout and healthy childhood.

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!

8 year old
M: nothing
T: before school club 30 min+ 30min math class
W: 30 min math class + flag football 2hrs
Th: theatre club afterschool + 30 min math class
Fr: flag football 2 hrs evening
Sa: nothing
Su: flag game mid-morning

Every season is basically a repeat of the above although the sport changes each season and so do practice and game days. He does theatre club afterschool because I have a meeting during that time and I cant meet him to walk home but he enjoys it and its a good diversification from a kid that basically just likes sports.
Any afterschool activity we sign up for. In 4th grade he will choose instrument or choir.
No more than one sport per season plus swim team in the summer.

7 year old and 4 year old, Spring:
M Baseball practice
W Math
S Baseball game
S Swim

They aren’t on the same teams/lessons but they go to the same place at the same time (except for games). The sport changes for the season. Summer just has swim team/lessons.

OP, my kids love KUMON, really. But we only go to the center once a week because that’s what works for our family. If you feel like the math is too much, this might be something good. Also, people on this board love to hate on kids learning math outside of school!

I am always amazed that a parent can do that much in terms of money & effort spent on top of having a cooperative kid willing to do all these activities happily......I maybe wrong, but I assume that either the mom is either a SAHM or work part time or have job flexibility working an easy job full time , at least middle class, and the kid must be either obedient to parents, or talent in some activities or the only child that gets bored at home all the time. I am an Asian immigrant myelf, and I still find it amazing with all these packed class schedules.

M-tennis
T-violin
W-tennis
Th-piano
Fr-tennis
9 year old

9 year old:

Monday: Nothing
Tuesday: Violin
Wednesday: Nothing
Thursday: Nothing
Friday: Nothing
Saturday: Theater in the morning, sport in the afternoon
Sunday: Girl Scouts a couple times a month

The double booked Saturday is new and I'll probably try to avoid it in the future.

Monday/Tuesday: sport practice
Wednesday: math