Do Five-Year-Olds Really Need Structured After School Activities?
My daughter, if left to her own devices, would eat candy all day, play with Barbies and watch mindless television.
Seriously, I get that. She’s a lot like me, and if I don’t have structure in my life I tend to spend the majority of my day playing World of Warcraft and Twittering about it.
This means I need her to have a thing. It doesn’t have to be anything fantastic, and I am not expecting her to be an Olympic Gold Medalist or anything, I just want something to keep her away from the Twizzlers.*
We’ve tried several different after school activities– and she’s had fun at most of them, the only problem is–when they get too competitive, she runs. The thing is, she’s five. I don’t really blame her for not wanting to go straight from school to practice five days a week. But that’s what always happens. I think there is a time and a place for daily practices to get good at stuff, I’m just not sure kindergarten is that time.
I get that we should challenge our kids, make them try hard and teach them the importance of hard work, but what about just wanting to play sometimes? Isn’t unstructured play the place where their imaginations take hold? If we always give them a task, won’t they be worker bees for the rest of their lives?
Why are all these programs designed to get kids so involved at such a young age? Does it help foster development? I want to read the research that says this sort of thing is good for my child– but i can’t seem to find it anywhere.
What do you do? Is your elementary school-aged child serious about one thing? If they get too involved, do they quit? What’s the right thing here? And, can’t we ever just take the day and go to the lake?
Jamie, I’m a mom of 4. Two are teens and two are toddlers. My teens are brilliant (if not big pains in the arse) and both have a gpa in the high 90s. They are 15 and 13 years old and have already set goals for themselves. What do they remember about Kindergarten and 1st grade? There teachers and their best friend. Absolutely nothing else. We took a lot of field trips when they were that age, we had a lot of fun moments that I remember clearly, they both went to the local library twice a week for summer programs, and they remember NOTHING. I thought it was just my kids, but when I asked around, other moms of teens tell me the same thing. Sheesh, my teen’s friends tell me that can’t remember much before 3rd and 4th grade and all these girls are high honor students. My 2 cents is, don’t stress it too much, just enjoy the summer with her cause you only get one for each year and soon the summer will come where she won’t have time for you. trust me.
@vanita, Oh my gosh… that is SO TRUE– like, i can’t remember any of that crap EITHER!!
Thank goodness for built in defense mechanisms!
This really weighs on me from the opposite direction. My kids lives are full of unstructured playtime and I love listening to them make up stories to insert themselves into. But they haven’t had much in the way of lessons. We did one stint of soccer one summer, and a couple months of hula dancing of all things, but my oldest said she’d rather be at home with her family – and how to argue with that? Seriously. But I worry she might not find something she truly loves because I’m not putting her out there more. Hmm.
I have one book title for you:
Confessions of a Slacker Mom
Read it: it’s great validation for being a “slacker mom” and letting your children grow up on a normal childhood schedule instead of being the crazy, weird, super-parent pushing her child to do the crazy, mind-numbing, olympian-at-six thing.
Incidentally I got it from my Mother-in-law as a birthday gift. It was only after I read the whole thing that I realized it was a compliment to me and the way I was raising my own kids–slackerishly.
hugs and raise your babies the way you want to~
Since I don’t have an elementary school aged child, I’ll tell you about my experience. I never had the opportunity to do things after school until I was in high school. For the most part, I spent most of my days outdoors, climbing trees and playing with friends.
(And I’d spend late nights on weekends playing video games. A LOT.)
I don’t think she needs structure. When she finds something she loves, she’ll do it. But for now, let her enjoy the quiet chaos that is childhood. Maybe encourage her to go outside more. And buy her lots and lots of Legos. Those saved me AND encouraged my imagination.
P.S. I HATE Twizzlers. Also, it took me about 20 glances to figure out that was a picture of Twizzlers.
@Jen Stayrook, heh… I totes decorated the twizzlers pic to make it look all CRAZY 🙂
quiet chaos. Love that!
First, love the new look! So fab!
We let each of our older kids (the four oldest) do one activity a season. They have to choose what they will do. Except for chess club, because that is only one hour after school once a month, so it doesn’t interfere with anything and is actually good for them. Anyway, that is what works for us. My husband played baseball until high school and he definitely had years where he was burned out from playing year round. We are constantly evaluating when we will allow our kids to do a more serious level of sports. We certainly don’t want them to be behind their peers but we don’t see a need to “specialize” at an early age. We encourage them to try new things too. There is zero reason to have a kid doing something every day, especially at your daughter’s age. She needs to have fun first and worry about skill-level and competition when she is older. Watch out for the crazy sports parents!
@nicole, I LOVE the idea of one activity per season. I am so in for this.
Of course free-play is important – you’re absolutely right about that. My 2nd-grader plays piano and goes to dance class – dance is on Saturday mornings, and piano is a daily-practice thing, but that’s it. And he does benefit from doing those things, as well as from having free time every day to play. Your kid can have her “thing” and have free time, too.
The key is to let the thing be something that is her thing, not something you’re making her do. As long as this isn’t about you living out your childhood dreams through your kid, having a scheduled activity or two (at the most) can be a good thing. But over-scheduling has been shown to stress kids out.
@Ishta Mercurio, That’s what’s so hard! How do you balance it? Like– how do you balance getting them to work hard and putting too much pressure on them? I just know know!
@Jamie Harrington, for me, it’s about teaching him to follow through on commitments and follow things through to the end. He wants to quit dance because it’s hard, but since it’s a recital class, I’ve told him that he needs to see it through to the end of the recital. After that, if he’d rather do something else instead like play soccer or softball or something, he can decide to do that.
As far as the piano goes, he wants to quit every week right before he finally masters a piece – it gets really hard, and he’s so close, but he wants to quit! So I remind him how much he enjoys it once he’s learned a new piece, and he actually becomes self-motiveted: he’ll play something well and I’ll tell him he can quit for the day, but he’ll want to play it one more time to make sure he’s really got it. So that’s one way to know for sure if it’s something to push her on: if she wants to continue with it until she feels she’s improved, then when it gets hard, you remind her how close she is to getting over this hurdle.
It is hard. I think parenting is one of those things that’s never really easy.
Don’t worry too much about it. She’ll find something she likes. My 4 yo is in her 3rd yr of dance class. All of a sudden she hates it. I’m pulling teeth to get her there once a week. After recital she won’t be going back. Why the change of heart? Who knows, but I can’t force her to keep going. She has taken ice skating lessons & loves them. Maybe she’ll be a skater? She takes swimming lessons & excels at it & can’t wait to get to the pool. Maybe swimming is her thing? At this point, we’re trying new things. Whichever one she finds passion in, we’ll keep doing until the passion dies & she moves on to something else. My 15 yo is still looking for his niche. So don’t worry. She’ll find her thing. In the meantime be there to support all her efforts & have fun with her no matter what she does. She’ll be grown & gone before you know it. Good luck!
@Niki, Mine did that SAME thing with dance… it was like out of nowhere she decided she HATED it!
I always feel guilty for not having my child in music lessons, some kind of karate or judo, and a sport like soccer. Are you saying I’m not a bad mom? That it’s okay? I have some relatives to call and tell them you said it’s okay not to micromanage my children’s lives! That playing with their friends is okay.
Thank you!
Heather
@Heather Rosdol,
I wonder if free play will be a distant memory one day. I shouldn’t joke it’s not funny.
@Catherine Johnson, Man, I hope not!
I think there is too much pressure on kids to perform. To be successful not be happy, have fun. Here are some things to consider that aren’t traditional or super competitive.
– Rock climbing
– Hiking
– Mountain Biking
– Swimming/Diving (this can get a little crazy)
These are individual focused sports that might be in your area.
Also, you are correct Twizzlers are waxy and an East Coast preference. I did taste test and West Coast is all about the Red Vines.
@Kari Young, I am all about the hiking! And the best part is– they LOVE IT!
I had the same issues when mine were small. We did t-ball for a bit but they lost interest. We went to summer library programs and took day trips to museums and things we though they would be interested in but we did not follow the “fill every moment with something competitive” route. They survived fine, are both in college and were active in band and debate and yearbook and academic competitions in high school. Sooo I guess my point is – they survived just fine. I think you have to take you cue from your child. If they like doing those things then fine but at the same time I see no reason to go into debt for that unless you are planning at kindergarten to have them go into the olympics or get an athletic scholarship…
It is okay to teach them about the realities of finance as well. We were not well off and they understand that you can’t have everything you want right now. It is difficult when they are small, to make choices for them – especially when they may not be the popular choices. I thought when I got out of high school I would be done with the clique thing but it goes on to a whole new club of parenting lol I’m glad for the choices we made and that every waking moment was not completely scheduled. The are growing up to be good people and I like being around them. They seem generally happy and I think that is the best I can hope for. Good luck to you 🙂
@Dee, Isn’t that all we can hope for… just that they get to be Happy 🙂
I think it’s a good thing to strive for!
So nice to hear a mom say that Jamie, I have super-club parents left and right of me. I’m sure they think I’m a slacker because son only plays soccer or goes swimming. For a start ice hockey is really expensive and I don’t think a kid can make up his mind not to waste all that money at his age. Luckily a children’s specialist just happened to be interviewing me at the doctor’s a while back and said one activity is plenty at their age and she gave me a (I agree with you smile) 🙂
@Catherine Johnson, YES! I didn’t even mention the CRAZY costs… I mean, I WANT to spend money on my kid– but I hate when I sign her up, buy the uniform, and then she begs to quit… that has happened more often than not!
I have twins in kindergarten. This summer we will be trying out flag football and soccer for the first time. I think it’s important to have activities, but I don’t know if I have the emotional energy to support an obsession.
I know it’s selfish, but I’m a working, single parent. I need to be important too, so not every moment of free time can be devoted to activities outside of the home. I also don’t think their is anything wrong with free play.
@Katherine Morgan, I’m with you. I want to do some of my stuff, too. Is it wrong for a mom to NOT want to spend every day sitting in the gallery watching her kid?
Reading these posts made me feel so much better. There is such pressure from society to have your kids in so many activities. My son is 7 years old. We tried t ball but he didnt like it. We also had him in karate which he liked. I think it is important kids try different things but not to worry if they are not interested.