Parenting: 4 & 5-Year-Olds Community

We signed DD up for soccer for 8 weeks. That's it. It's two nights of practice and a Saturday morning game. Honestly, even that sounds like a lot to me!

I signed the boys up for swimming lessons and Henry has religious education on Wed. nights. I feel that is enough.
This winter I am thinking of martial arts and /or basketball. Trying to decide.
Both boys requested swimming again. They absolutely love it so I will keep that going as long as they want.
I do not want to overschedule . When I was little we didn't even to extra activities until around 4th grade...!

We do swim lessons 2 mornings a week (pre-K is in the afternoons), and Sunday School starts this weekend. I don't want to overschedule either, but if DS tells me something else he wants to do, then we'll try it out!

With starting full time we are taking a low key approach until he is settled into school. He will continue his swimming but that is it.

We only do one thing at a time. We are doing football now. In November we will start wrestling and in March/April we will do ball.

We live in a very sports orientated town. So if the boys want any hope of playing in HS we have to start now. Cristopher told me he might want to do basketball instead of wrestling so we will see as that gets closer.

Since we just started full day kindergarten with no nap, we are doing no activities now. We did soccer last year and it was painful. Ava had no interest and really hated it. So we are not doing that this year. I've been looking into dance and gymnastics but am just waiting for the chaos of a new school year to die down.

Yesterday Ava said "Mom, school is tough being all day with lots of activities and no nap." Lol....she has no idea!

I learned a lot about DS last spring/early summer when he started having terrible melt downs and behavior problems and will do my best to lighten his load so we can avoid similar problems this fall. He really wanted to continue with the 3 extracurricular activities that he'd been doing through preschool (tennis, taekwondo and swimming) but it proved to be too much in combination with Kindergarten

This year his school load is more demanding so I knew he wasn't going to be able to handle much but we compromised on one with physical activity (rock climbing) and one mental activity (chess) per week. He's only been in school for 2 days and has not had school and an activity in the same day so we'll see. He's was very bummed about missing teakwondo and tennis but is coming around now that he has started first grade.

My oldest is still more scheduled than I'd like but she is so competitive, happy and active in her sports that I won't stop her unless she shows signs of emotional or physical stress. She plays tennis 2x a week after school, does teakwondo 2x a week and takes a one hour dance class. She did have to give up swim team in order for us to give her the go ahead to join the competitive tennis team though.

My 3 year old is a lot like her big sister and wants to play every sport she comes across but is only participating in 30-40 minute classes of dance, swimming and gymnastics.

my anxiety free activities include not doing any for now.

We just started 4k w/ out naps & it's a little rough for DD. DS is taking it in stride. I am interested in swim lessons for both & maybe dance or gymnastics for DD. I will do just one thing at a time though.

We are trying to keep the number of activities down -only 1 or 2 at any given time. He is taking his Young Child/Kindermusik class again this fall - one more semester after this to complete the whole program. I offered to let him to a sport but he didn't seem interested and I didn't want to push him. We will probably offer him basketball in the January and then soccer again in April but again, I won't push him to do anything - it is totally up to him.