Anonymous wrote:Serious question here: what do you all do during this "family time"? Honestly, I like having busy weekends with lots to do. I would hate to have to come up w/ things to do w/ the kids on the weekend.

Unless the kids are pre-K, you don't have to "come up" with things to do with the kids. There is this thing called unstructured playtime where the kids figure out how to entertain themselves. Children nowadays are constantly entertained or kept busy by someone else. They never have to think for themselves what to do. They have never felt boredom, because there is always mommy and daddy planning "fun stuff" to do.
Weekends are for families to just spend time together, as well as apart doing your own things. Send the kids outside to play and they will figure out what to do.

Serious question here: what do you all do during this "family time"? Honestly, I like having busy weekends with lots to do. I would hate to have to come up w/ things to do w/ the kids on the weekend.

Nanny here. There's a reason I work 14 hour days on weekends and have 2-3 days off during the week.

We have 4 kids. Our schedule looks like this too. This is my thought ...
I don't expect to make everything myself. I do expect to see at least 2 games per kid per season.

I pick 2 -3 things
Husband picks.
Carpool it and have the kid go himself (for our older ones)
Get a sitter (though we usually have an aupair , right now we don't have one)

We will do birthday parties if it fits in the schedule or its a best friend thing. Else we decline birthdays.
I also don't cry about it if a kid misses something.

Evaluate each activity and the value to the kid.

I am feeling a bit like my life is nonexistent, so I am now starting to schedule in my activities. 1 per weekend. Same priority as the rest of the family.

That schedule sounds really hard to me. We like to spend weekends together as a family with our elem-aged kids. There is an occasional bday party for one or both but between those, sports in the morning, and running errands, we need the hours in between to be together and have fun. I would cut down to one activity per child or maybe choose something they can do on weeknights instead of weekends.

You get your kid driven to the travel game by another parent. You do the driving for other people whenever you can. That bunch will be helpful, since they really care about attendance and the obligation is big.

You don't have to watch every game.

Of course, you're overscheduled. What did you think that meant? I've got 3 kids who are allowed one sport per season. My DH works on weekends and I have to do drop off at some games/practices because of conflicts. I'm grateful I know enough parents that I can drop off at their house or they'll drop my kid home after the game. I return the favor. If a party conflicts with a game, the game is priority.

We are busy too - it's the way of this area. One thing we stopped doing is we stopped going late and leaving early for the same kid. So if one kid has a soccer game and a birthday party - we don't leave soccer early to rush to the game - it's so stressful and annoying to the team. The kid picks the game or the party and that's that. So, even if we are busy, we aren't annoying people by leaving early or coming late and we don't feel like we are rushing. We go through the schedule and figure out how to make it work and that's it.

For a time, our (only) child attended a parochial school where families were tight with one another. I noticed there was a lot of carpooling to birthday parties and other events. On an email invite chain, a parent would ask "Might it be possible for someone to take Catherine, and bring her back?" And someone would always agree, very quickly.

If it's this difficult, you're over scheduled. As a matter of course, we don't do 95% bday parties and one sport for each season. This leaves us time for extra curricular family activities, which we believe are most important.

Anonymous wrote:Travel or Rec for the same kid. No kid gets both.

1 sport per season.

We have one Travel (Sunday games) and Rec (Saturday game-DH coaches).

Occasionally there is a travel tournament with 3-4 games in a weekend. No parties that weekend.

I grew up playing travel and did play in college and it was a great experience. It gets a bad rap on this forum.

I only have 2 kids. Next year both will do travel so looking forward to free Saturdays and some Sunday conflicts with their games.

Travel or Rec for the same kid. No kid gets both.

1 sport per season.

We have one Travel (Sunday games) and Rec (Saturday game-DH coaches).

Occasionally there is a travel tournament with 3-4 games in a weekend. No parties that weekend.

I grew up playing travel and did play in college and it was a great experience. It gets a bad rap on this forum.

I would just kiss travel sports good bye. I know I will get crap on here but it's bullshit. It's not like most of these kids are going to get scholarships it pro offers. It isn't worth the stress imposed on family time.

This post is an example of what seems to be a fairly common misperception about the benefits and goals of travel sports. For anyone who is interested, there is a good discussion of this topic in a thread in the Sports and Fitness forum titled Does Travel Soccer Really Provide an Edge.

I'm sure that travel sports have many benefits. What I don't get, however, is having the same kid play both travel and rec soccer, while trying to take two other kids to weekend activities.

K kid drops soccer and does a weekday activity. This puts you down to only 2 weekend activities and each parent can take one.

Older kids pick ONE sport. Baseball or soccer, not both.

If bday party conflicts with game, they sacrifice party. Because they made a commitment to the sport.

Two sports is a lot for a kid. That's your problem. Don't say yes to all of the birthday parties.

Wow. And I thought I was over-scheduled with 2 kids!