after school activities

what activities do your kids do?

DD1 isn't into sports, she did some soccar and netball this year but she was uninterested. She liked the social aspect but wasn't into the game. We have done swimming lessons for a while but the cost is huge $12 a lesson thats only 20 mins long. And last term she just did the same 4 or 5 exercises all term and was told she had to stay in that same level next term. So it didn't seem worth it.

She says she wants to do ballet. But I think its very expensive and rather limiting.

I was thinking she might like theatre coz its singing, dancing, dress up, music and dance. She did really well in her school production.

I did brownies as a kid and liked it so was think that maybe too.

Or am I just getting too far ahead of her age. She is 5.5 yrs.

When the soccar and netball come around again next year I will ask her to join again, as a year might make a difference. One of the things with sport is she is rather short and doesn't run as fast as the kids so she was overlooked in both games.

one of the first things you need to know is what you want out of it? At 5.5 years she is still really young and school is pretty full on and wears them out. At that age I would only be doing something if she really really wants to rather then just because its there. If you get them into proper sport too young, it can actually make them bored of it by the time they are tweens/teenagers which is really when you want them to have an activity like sport to use up all that energy and also keep them occupied. Stuff like swimming you could do together rather then putting her in a class and keep it fun!

Its easy to feel that kids must do extra curricular activities, but to be honest its only worth it if they are going to absolutely love it. They have so much stuff happening at school and they are still so young its really easy to overstimulate them. Kids really need free play then anything else at that age and they don't get that at school. If you use up the home time by filling it up with scheduled activities then kids miss that opportunity that they need to play at the only time in their life where they will do it. smile

Our DD started ballet when she was 4. She really wanted to do it and we figured it was good for her to learn coordination, following instructions and working in a team.

We aren't into kids doing lots of activities. I know a family that had their kids in 4 things! I just don't know how their kids cope and how they afford it!

I understand that oc. DD1 has only done 1 thing a week and we have stopped swimming lessons but go as a family once a fortnight to swim.

What i want out of it is for her to have social outlet other then school. We are new to this city and I found it good to see the same kids and mums. The soccer and netball was great for her and me to meet some families.