       |
I’ve just come back from my daughter’s ballet class. It’s at 9:15 on Sunday mornings. On Saturdays she goes to a music class at 10am.
We’ve signed her up for these weekend activities because during the week she is in preschool 9-3, five days a week. She won’t nap in school (big sigh, we’ve tried every strategy, including bribery, the answer is still no) and is pretty tired afterwards, so going to a music or dance class is out of the question. But she loves music and pretends to be a little ballerina all the time, so we found these weekend classes.
It’s not ideal. We have to plan our other weekend activities around these times (although because they are pretty early in the morning this is somewhat easier) and hanging out in pajamas around the house in the morning isn’t really an option. It makes weekends feel less relaxed somehow, but on the other hand, having somewhere to go takes away the “What should we do today?” question - or just delays it til after we’re done.
Do your kids participate in activities on weekends or do you try to keep weekends relatively free?
This entry was posted on Sunday, September 16th, 2007 at 8:25 am and is filed under Work/Life Balance, Your life.
Tags: kids activities, weekends
September 16th, 2007 at 11:10 am
My daughter does participate in activities on the weekends, but not by choice. She loves soccer and has been playing for a few years now. Her soccer games happen to fall on Saturday mornings. And Sunday school at our temple falls, well…you know.
If I had a choice, I would not schedule anything for the weekends. I find the hang out in your pajamas time as valuable and necessary as the ballet or music classes.
September 16th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Hey Nataly, my son, your daughter’s future prom date, has swim class on Saturday mornings and it really kind of sucks the life out of Saturday because we have to get all the gear packed (swim suits, towels, change of clothing for 3 people) and get there. The class itself is great but the “get showered and dressed” portion afterwards is a nigthmare because my son is a big ol’ monkey who will not listen to orders like “don’t run on the wet floor!” By the time noon rolls around, we are all pretty much exhausted. I am interested in hearing about the music class!
September 17th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
We tried Gymnastics classes on Saturday mornings, thinking it would be a fun dad/son activity. It was while he was in the daddy & me class, but when he moved into the class that required parents to be bystanders, it sucked the fun out of it and just took away from family time. So we discontinued the classes.
My son will also NOT nap at daycare (he goes from 8:30-5:30) and he needs downtime on the weekend to relax. We have chosen not to interrupt the building of train tracks and lego towers to rush off to activities. He has enough structure at daycare throughout the week that we let the weekends go at their own pace.
September 18th, 2007 at 9:29 am
Don’t worry, when they get older, the weekend activities just sort of happen to you.
September 19th, 2007 at 5:25 am
Amara has dance class every Saturday morning. She will be in swim class on Saturday afternoons shortly.
I feel the same way you do - after preschool during the week, there’s no way Amara - or I - could handle any extracurriculars after class. But then there’s the catch 22. I just want to relax on the weekends and I end up being shuttle bus driver because Dad2Amara of course is never a part of any of this! It kinda blows up anything we’d like to do on the weekends so I end up cleaning or something mundane like that. Sad, I know!
September 19th, 2007 at 11:40 am
At preschool age, I consider preschool itself to be an activity–a BIG one!–and therefore, for my daughter(s), I would never consider formally scheduled classes or activities on weekends (or after school). I feel pretty strongly about kids having “downtime” to just play. It may be at home, or it may be at the park or the children’s room in the library, but it’s not another scheduled class we have to get to at a specific time. Think how many years these kids have ahead of them of classes and schedules and activities! I want weekend days, and non-preschool days (and afternoons, since preschool is just mornings for my daughter) to be unstructured, unscheduled time to do whatever we want with. Plus I don’t want to have to get dressed early on a Saturday to go anywhere, either!
January 27th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
I’m going to kick in here. I’m older than most of you all and I’m past the stages ya’ll are talking about, being that my daughter is 17 (almost 18) going on 35. However,
We had her in dance class after school and on Saturdays until about 13/14, as well as the Navy League Sea Cadet program from 12 - 15/16 (that was a weekend/month). For the last year, she’s been working on the weekends, getting a MAJOR dose of real life and making her own money as a portrait photographer for the Portrait Innovation studio chain.
My thoughts on this are DON’T overschedule the kids. I’m 53 and I wanted her to know what it was like just to be able to be a kid and not be overscheduled because we’re trying to cram so much into them that we didn’t have. Sure, I had music lessons…..after school. Didn’t have dance ’cause there wasn’t any place within 50 miles to take that. However, I got to wander the mountains, go to my grandparent’s farm, etc on the weekends. Too many times, I think we have our kids too involved in things and don’t give them the time to just be kids.
Don’t get me wrong here. I think ogranized activities are wonderful. And Lord knows, we need the time to do things while they’re occupied for a few hours. But so many kids today really don’t know what it is to do something on their own, without it being organized OR even what to do with themselves if they don’t have something scheduled. I really feel sorry for those kids and imho, the parents are to blame for it.