As I mentioned in an earlier post when I was a child I wanted to grow up to be Madonna. My mum had a friend, who at the time was the closest I had come to a professional performer. Her friend you see had done one term at a famous theatre school (before dropping out). She had also performed as one of Snow Whites dwarfs in a local amateur theatre companies Christmas show.
Obviously, this meant she was the lady to ask when it came to what skills I needed to perform professionally. She informed me that I’d need to take dance lessons. Also acting and singing classes. So I enrolled at a local dance school to take ballet, tap and modern dance lessons, which I loved. I also joined a local youth theatre to hone my acting skills (I later discovered I had all the acting talent of a packet of jelly babies, but that’s another story…).
At the same time as all this, I had already spent a number of years learning to play the violin. I had taken it up at the advice of the school. It also happened that my Auntie and Uncle were music teachers so they gave me extra classes. Of course this also meant attending a local orchestra or two.
As a coincidence the same aunt that taught me violin, was a member of a local swimming club. So naturally, it seemed like a good idea for me to join and swim with this club once a week. I loved swimming, and I was pretty good at it. Also, I made a new friend who introduced me to Nirvana and smoking, while waiting for our parents to pick us up.
Now as you can imagine these activities where not enough for a girl like me. I wanted to join the guides. My mum didn’t think this was a good idea. Probably because I had been chucked out of brownies for being non conformist (they wanted us to sit in a circle I merely enquired why it couldn’t be a different shape). So as circumstance would have it, when we were shopping one day the St John’s Ambulance where at the supermarket. Noticing some of them were my age we realised that I could be a St John’s Ambulance cadet. I had a great time wrapping myself and my friends up in meters and meters of bandage. Really a skill for life!
So there’s me dancing, acting, playing violin, swimming and bandaging. You can imagine with school on top there wasn’t a lot of free time. I ate meals in the car travelling from one activity to the next. My mum became a taxi driver, and looking back it must have cost her a fortune.
Don’t get me wrong I loved all my activities. I never once asked to stop any. I’m sure if I had I could have done. But I look back and I wonder if all this is why I’m not very good at entertaining myself. Why I find it pretty tricky to be on my own without feeling lonely.
I have three children. As my eldest starts school and starts requesting lessons in this and that I have a decision to make. I really think that children need free time. Time to be bored, because boredom spurs creativity. I want them playing in the garden, bug hunting, bouncing on their trampoline and digging in their sand pit. I want them to be using their imagination through play. Most of all I want them to learn to be self sufficient, to enjoy their own company.
I also want us to have time to have family adventures. I want to go on walks in the country and collect acorns. I’d like to have picnics in the park (obviously featuring plenty of cake). We can play board games on rainy Sundays, and start family wars over monopoly.
So, what do you think children should be doing in their free time ? Am I wrong and denying my children opportunities ? I’d love to hear how other parents approach this, please me let me know your thoughts on this.
I have 5 children and have avoided the temptation to schedule them… Please let your own decide – let them dictate the pace. I have a post on this topic which might be of interest? http://primerascanciones.blogspot.com/2010/11/parenthood.html
My eldest is a well-adjusted 21 and my 18 yr old is fabulously self-sufficient. All 6 have fab imaginations and are creative (of course I would say that!!). If they said they wanted to join a group or class then of course I tried my best to facilitate this – but by and large they have created their own fun… I am also a busy f/t professional – I (maybe selfishly) didn’t want to share my time with them ferrying them to lots of other things. I have noticed that their regimented pals hadn’t a clue what to do when told to just play…they had to be directed continually.
Hi, thanks for your comment (I’ll pop back and look at that post when I have more time).
I agree with you.
Some of our childrens’ friends have 5 or more activities a week. One little girl had 3 activities on her (school free) Wednesday, so had no time for arranging to play with friends.
We try to keep the activities to two or three, and if I can find something that both children can do together, all the better.
I imagine it must be a really tricky one when your kids are in school. My kids have loads of after-school activities: swimming, gymnastics, art club, climbing, badgers and dance.
But they don’t go to school, so they have hours all day to do the things you talk about.
Have you read ‘Idle Parenting’ and other things by Tom Hodgekinson? I do agree with you that plenty of time to just ‘be’ is so important, and would also struggle with the worry that I wasn’t giving them opportunities to try more things if they were in school.
I had very few programmed after school activities. Swimming classes was about all my mum’s budget stretched to during primary school, but then I used to work at the local stables during my teens in exchange for riding lessons. Both activities were my choice. I therefore had a lot of free time. I spent a lot of it at the local farm, helping with the animals, and a lot of time reading.
The result of this is that I love reading, and never ever get bored. I think being on your own and having to entertain yourself or your friends with no structure helps with that.
When my daughter gets older I will let her choose her activities, and make sure she keeps physically active with long dog walks and nature trails. I think living in the countryside means it is easier to keep kids busy without the need for structured classes every evening and all through the holidays.
Thanks for all your comments. Seems like the best plan is to go with whatever works for my kids. Will be taking my children’s lead on this one I think.
I do think it’s important for children to have time to play and use their imaginations, and to have time with parents/carers/siblings as a family, but I also think it’s great for them to go to classes or activities to meet other children with similar interests, to learn skills and be involved in something they can be proud of. I suppose, like all things in life, it’s about finding a balance.
Also, with classes I suppose it’s also a matter of money. I have three children and so far only my eldest is asking to do classes, but I would hate to say she can do x, y and z only to find out that when the time comes that her sister also wants to do some things, I can’t afford to do them all each week. At the moment, my eldest is just about to start a ballet class on a Saturday. We talked about all the different classes and activities in our area and she chose dance as they one she was most interested in, ballet in particular.
I suppose I’d say work out how much you could afford to spend on activities, and then take the children’s lead on what they want to do. If you become concerned that it’s costing too much of their time or your money, maybe ask them to choose a couple of their favourite activities or classes and cut down on the others.
Great advice thanks, for now I think we can afford two activities per child. At the moment all three do swimming, so that’s one extra activity each.
Have been stressing about this recently. More so because my two don’t do that much but common sense tells me this is ok in the long run. I would get in a flat spin if I followed the schedules of some Mums round here. My daughter has two after school activities and my son has one. They are 8 and 7. They play with pals after school once or twice a week. Weekends are family time and we try to get out for a walk/visit something etc.
I was brought up in the 70s. I had no after school activities but I had a great childhood playing out with my pals. Such freedom. Now I’m rather sad as trying to find other kids with free time just to play is difficult as they are so scheduled. They are all taxied to various ‘islands of childhood’ for football, gymnastics, drama, dance, music lessons blah blah blah, then the parents complain about trying to fit in homework. Thankfully we have a caravan and allow our kids the freedom to roam, explore and make new friends. I do not feel like I’ve under achieved in adult life. I took up hobbies in late teens and 20s that have stayed with me for life. Everything is so competitive now. Kids can’t seem to do something just for fun, it has to be a skill honed to extreme levels. I learned to swim so I didn’t drown, nowadays it’s ‘what level is your child at? She can swim 14 lengths? You should get her into swim club!’ Why? I ask myself. Is there something wrong with just doing something for fun?
If we allow our kids every experience now, what then, do they have to look forward to when they want to make their own choices in life? I couldn’t wait to go and explore places as a young adult. I still love doing this. I am still looking forward to the day I trek South America. I have a very fulfilled life. If the hyper parenting continues then how will our children fare in the big wide world when we are not there pushing them to achieve and having already visited every continent before the age of 12?
Thanks for your comment. Sounds like you have the perfect balance. I have great memories from caravan holiday when I was a child.