Extracurricular Activities for Children can Have its Limits

It’s always that time of year! Time for our children to start another extracurricular activity.

Participation in group activities can be a great experience for kids.  They can think creatively, expand their interests, meet new friends, get instruction from other adults, learn to work cooperatively and the list goes one. But extracurricular activities can also be time consuming and expensive!

How do you decide which activities are best for your child? How many activities should you enroll your children in? With my children, I simply ask them, “What activity do you want to do this year?” They always have no problem telling me exactly what they want to do – surprise, surprise! The problem is often putting a limit on the activites.

A limit is necessary in our family, and I think it is in most families, for two main reasons – time and money. With three kids, my time is limited. As much as I love chauffeuring around my children all afternoon, it’s not good on my budget or my sanity. Like many families, we are a one income family. Classes and sports cost money and there is only so much of it to go around these days. Therefore, we try to limit each child to one or two activities at a time. Not only does this keep our costs down, but it also ensures that we are not spending every moment outside of school and bed time at an activity or on the way to one. 

We value our family time together. My kids are still little, my oldest is only 6, so I know the day will come when we won’t be able to have family dinner together very often, but as one of the heads of my family I want to do all that I can to have dinner together as a family as often as possible. I am lucky in that my husband’s job affords him the ability to be home by 5:30 every night and I want to savor these moments together as long as possible. This is difficult to do when you are at a different activity every night. 

Even as I try to keep the limit on activites low, I still find it difficult to not find myself in the car driving around all the time. You have to make decisions on what’s best for your family and your own values. Maybe sitting around the dinner table isn’t as important as cheering on your son or daughter at a family-favorite event. Whatever you decide, if it starts to feel like it’s too much, it’s OK to pull back. Our kids won’t suffer from a little extra time at home with mom or dad! The time you spend with your children is more important than the things that they get to do without you.

So, are there any good local activities for our kids? Yes! I would like to mention a few of my family’s and friend’s favorites! They are: 

• Our town’s soccer club and Little League
• Happy Notes music with Miss Kathye,  www.childrenshappynotes.com
• Swimming lessons (we have done them at Camp Hemlocks in Hebron and the New England Athletic Club, but there is also the YMCA in Middletown)
• Art classes at www.teachart2me.com
• Theater classes in East Hampton at Epoch Arts, www.epocharts.org; Podium Players, www.podiumplayers.org, Young People’s Center for Creative Arts, www.ypcca.org
• Dance classes (there are too many to list!)
• Karate – Defensive Edge is a great school, www.easthamptonkarate.com
• Girl Scouts/Daisies and Boy Scouts
• Library classes