We have 2 kids and we are dying.

One kid : 1x gynmastic, 1x swimming, 2x foreign language, 1x chess & 1xplaydate. Soccer has not started yet (1x practice &1x game)
2nd kid : 1x ballet, 1x gynmastic, 1x swimming, 1x, 1xplaydate & 1x art

They are both in aftercare till 6:30pm if no activities. Nothing is competitive, and I take care of everything on top of working full time.

People seem to be touting some picture of childhood from when I was growing up in the 80s as a latchkey kid. Back then we played outside, played pick up games, roamed by the creek, busted into a construction site. This kind of thing does not happen nowadays in DCUM approved neighborhoods. Kids are going straight from school to swim or math or dance, or they come home to eat a snack before heading to soccer practice twice a week. If both parents work inflexible hours, the kid is in aftercare. On the weekends, surely, these kids will roam around outside just being bored and looking for other kids, right? Well no, because they've got soccer games or dance competitions or taekwondo. And you can't be outside by yourself anyway, some middle aged mom careening down the street in a white suburban will run you right over without so much as tapping the brakes.

With 2 people working from home, could you streamline your meals some to have more time before the 6:30 activities? My kids are a bit older and in various activities in the afternoon/evening. I’m solo most weeknights. Meals need to be quick and ready to eat. I work from home and am able to throw something in the crockpot most days. It’s not my favorite way to cook, but gets everyone fed.

For example this week - Salsa chicken in crockpot on Monday (intentionally made extra), some leftover chicken becomes the base of chicken taco soup in the crockpot Tuesday, pot roast and veggies in crockpot on Wed, remaining chicken gets prepped into enchiladas during the day and set to cook in oven during practice for Thursday, leftovers for Friday.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We do activities before dinner. So like 5-6 and eat at 6:30 or 7. No HW as my kids are 2nd and younger.

Just wait until they do have homework and activities that run through dinner.

Then we adjust what and how we do things.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School+aftercare or school+activities is plenty. Your oldest is way over scheduled and “working” more hours than you do.

OP here. I thought this -- she also does religious/cultural school on weekends too. But I have asked her several times about dropping or choosing favorite activities and she gets annoyed and says she likes it all.

Kids like activities typically. But more and more research has been showing that TOO much structured activity is not great for kids. Team things are great for some skills, but kids actually learn executive function skills from unstructured play especially without much adult involvement. Many kids in high school and college are struggling with anxiety, depression, etc much more than before and one theory is that the increase in structured activities is partly to blame. Too busy, too much focus on succeeding and being better, and not enough time to learn those really important skills to manage disappointment, frustration etc. People who work in these areas are seeing this over and over. Good books on it are Raising a Kid who Can and the self driven child.

I get that no one wants to hear this because it is the generally agreed upon approach especially on dcum to do as much as possible and everyone says well my kid likes it. But in my opinion, if you want more family time it can’t be your only assessment of whether you should do it. Balancing the whole family’s schedule, stress level, down time as a family, time with siblings, unstructured time with friends is not something a kid is going to think about when assessing whether they want to do something.

OP here. I totally agree about this. My parents didn't make me do any sports or arts (lack of time or money), and I've always regretted it. So I don't want her to succeed at life but just to have the experience of learning new non-academic skills.

I'd really love to have her play unsupervised with other kids after school, but there aren't neighborhood kids running around. All her friends' parents work. Because younger sibling is 3, I have to intervene and supervise still, definitely in a couple of years I plan to have them just both at home playing after school while I work (before dinner and activities). I am not sure how else to get this unstructured playtime in.

Anonymous wrote:We do activities before dinner. So like 5-6 and eat at 6:30 or 7. No HW as my kids are 2nd and younger.

Just wait until they do have homework and activities that run through dinner.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this a joke?

My kid does a rec sport. He doesn’t need it to keep friends. The kids he socializes with outside of school are not from team.

Swimming - summer. Some kids take longer to learn than others. But most kids I know do lessons in summer while in preschool and can swim by kindergarten. Heck no to dragging my kids to swim lessons in the winter.

I have never met anyone in real life who uses those math programs. Kids are away at school for 8 hours with transportation. If doing that is your preference, that’s fine. But people need to realize it’s a small subset who does that.

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the people posting here about having ONE activity. It doesn't line up with people saying:

-Elementary boys needs to be in sports to keep friends and be involved
-Everyone needs swim lessons for safety!
-We are supplementing Beast Academy / Russian Math / Mathnasium, aren't you?

If you have your kid in ONE activity, what is it? And when do you plan to encourage more or give permission for additional activities?

No it's not a joke. You and a couple of PPs may not know people at your school are supplementing, but many are. They just don't talk about it. Half my neighborhood does Beast Academy at home. I'm putting my top level 1st grader in math camp this summer. I also know many kids in 1st grade who are on travel teams or club teams that have significant time commitments, but parents are more willing to talk about those.

It’s all Indian and Chinese

You’re a racist troll but I know plenty of white kids doing Beast Academy and mathnasium. I don’t know about Russian School but given the name I’d assume there are

90 percent sorry. How is that racist

Anonymous wrote:If you wanted to add in all those other activities, you’d really need to pick up the kids after school around 3, not 5.

This. Kids cannot do many activities if they are tired or short of time. All the commuting takes a lot of time - not just the travel time but also waiting for the bus and its circuitous route. Then, commuting to various EC activities are also a big time suck.

We did everything to cut down the commute time for our kids - dropping and picking them (and sometimes their neighborhood friends) from school, making sure that my kids had pillows, snacks, blankets in the car so that they could rest enroute (school was 35 minutes away), as well as paying extra to have tutors and teachers to come home to teach them Music (singing and instrument), Art, Chess, Dance, Math, French at home. My kids did sports at school and were on the track team.

I was also working 10 hr - 4 days from home, and Friday off. I used to get up at 5am to exercise and then cook for the whole day before my kids were up. During the weekend, my DH took them to competitions and performances connected to their EC, or sports, he also outside chores (shopping, dry-cleaning, bank, car maintenance, yard work) or outings as a family. We also entertained a lot - at least hosted a dinner every two weeks. So, on Fridays, I basically did the laundry for the week (I have a big laundry room with 2 washers and 2 dryers) I also cooked for weekend entertaining.

I had a cleaning lady who cleaned my house on Fridays, I paid her extra for helping with some food prep (cutting, chopping), she also folded laundry, set up table for hosting etc.

The only way to get in your exercise, have home cooked meals, kids doing multiple activities, have a clean and functional home, socialize etc, regardless of if you are working or at home - is to divide and conquer tasks. Outsource what can be outsourced based on your income, and realize that your kids are physically only capable of doing a fixed amount of activities in a day. They also need a lot of free time to decompress, to do basic grooming and self-care, to finish homework, to socialize etc.

Anonymous wrote:This is all of our lives. Try to do sheet pan dinners during the work day. Listen to audiobooks while you fold the laundry.

+2. Luv this response! It’s so true. There isn’t really that much time in the evenings. Just a few hours and yet we all must oversee homework and do dinner.

Anonymous wrote:We do activities before dinner. So like 5-6 and eat at 6:30 or 7. No HW as my kids are 2nd and younger.

This is what we do. Or if activity starts at at 6 or later, we eat dinner and do other things before hand so we are ready for toothbrushing and bed as soon as we get home.

Kid does get homework twice a week but it only takes 5 minutes.

Instrument practice often happens in the morning, or we split 10min in AM and 20min in PM.

We do activities before dinner. So like 5-6 and eat at 6:30 or 7. No HW as my kids are 2nd and younger.

You need too many activities during the week. My daughter has four different activities. Only two of them are on weekdays (Mon and Wed) and the other two are on Saturdays. She also is in after care, but we get plenty of family time 5 days a week (including Sat, since her activities are am.)

We're lucky in that our kids don't ask for TV or iPad time - the time a lot of kids spend on those things are when we have family time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this a joke?

My kid does a rec sport. He doesn’t need it to keep friends. The kids he socializes with outside of school are not from team.

Swimming - summer. Some kids take longer to learn than others. But most kids I know do lessons in summer while in preschool and can swim by kindergarten. Heck no to dragging my kids to swim lessons in the winter.

I have never met anyone in real life who uses those math programs. Kids are away at school for 8 hours with transportation. If doing that is your preference, that’s fine. But people need to realize it’s a small subset who does that.

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the people posting here about having ONE activity. It doesn't line up with people saying:

-Elementary boys needs to be in sports to keep friends and be involved
-Everyone needs swim lessons for safety!
-We are supplementing Beast Academy / Russian Math / Mathnasium, aren't you?

If you have your kid in ONE activity, what is it? And when do you plan to encourage more or give permission for additional activities?

No it's not a joke. You and a couple of PPs may not know people at your school are supplementing, but many are. They just don't talk about it. Half my neighborhood does Beast Academy at home. I'm putting my top level 1st grader in math camp this summer. I also know many kids in 1st grade who are on travel teams or club teams that have significant time commitments, but parents are more willing to talk about those.

It’s all Indian and Chinese

You’re a racist troll but I know plenty of white kids doing Beast Academy and mathnasium. I don’t know about Russian School but given the name I’d assume there are

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this a joke?

My kid does a rec sport. He doesn’t need it to keep friends. The kids he socializes with outside of school are not from team.

Swimming - summer. Some kids take longer to learn than others. But most kids I know do lessons in summer while in preschool and can swim by kindergarten. Heck no to dragging my kids to swim lessons in the winter.

I have never met anyone in real life who uses those math programs. Kids are away at school for 8 hours with transportation. If doing that is your preference, that’s fine. But people need to realize it’s a small subset who does that.

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the people posting here about having ONE activity. It doesn't line up with people saying:

-Elementary boys needs to be in sports to keep friends and be involved
-Everyone needs swim lessons for safety!
-We are supplementing Beast Academy / Russian Math / Mathnasium, aren't you?

If you have your kid in ONE activity, what is it? And when do you plan to encourage more or give permission for additional activities?

No it's not a joke. You and a couple of PPs may not know people at your school are supplementing, but many are. They just don't talk about it. Half my neighborhood does Beast Academy at home. I'm putting my top level 1st grader in math camp this summer. I also know many kids in 1st grade who are on travel teams or club teams that have significant time commitments, but parents are more willing to talk about those.

It’s all Indian and Chinese