Active Kids, Busy Parents

My wife and I have always thought it was important to have our kids involved in a variety of activities. From the time they could sit in mommy’s lap and attend some sort of “singing/hand clapping for babies,” (probably not the actual name, but I’ve lost the brochure) we’ve had them doing something.

But now it seems “something” has become “maybe too many somethings?” and we’re trying to figure out how it will all work.

My daughter does cheer sport (competitive version of cheerleading) and she sings. My son has recently started playing hockey and is signed up to play on his first team this year. In addition, we have just signed him up for drum lessons. I like that the kids both have one sport and one music lesson. The thought of having a six-year-old banging on a drum set in my house is horrifying, but these are the sacrifices that parents make.

On top of that we need to sign the kids up for swimming lessons! Everyone seems against me when it comes to the swimming lessons (my wife worries we won’t have time to breathe, kids are kids and who ever enjoyed swimming lessons?), but I just don’t think it’s an option for the kids to be anything but great swimmers - how else is this going to happen?

And in case you didn’t know, cheering has two practices a week (each about two hours) plus at least one “tumbling” session. Hockey is twice a week, swimming, singing and pounding, er, I mean drum lessons are once a week.

Is it feasible? Sure. Is it going to be easy? Um...yeah.

There are going to be a lot of nights where one of us rushes home from work, picks up the kids from the sitter’s, grabbing whatever we can find to eat, barely catching our breath as we sit rinkside/poolside/gymside/musicschoolside while one child plays or performs and the other tortures us by repeating, “This is boring!” until it’s time to go home.

What about homework? Kids in Grade 1 and Grade 4 have a lot more homework than I did when I was their age and it’s not going to be easy to find time around all these activities to get it all done.

We’re going to be busy- wish me luck!

How about you? Do you do too much with your kids or too little? What are your thoughts on getting them involved in things? Interested to hear your stories!