Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy curbing ballooning activities?

I'm sure plenty of you have dealt with this issue before, or are thinking about it: how and when do we step in and let the kids know that they can't do everything and need to make tough choices?

I'm wondering about this because I can see that DS9's extracurricular activities will go crazy this fall. He loves lots of things and it will be hard to talk him out of any of those activities. This past year was somewhat crazy but he handled well. Given that his school days are so boring and almost all the excitement about learning comes from the after-school activities, I let him go for it. But it is likely that he will sign up for more this fall, and I'm uncertain what to do. In a few activities he is very advanced and the teachers/coaches do expect advanced kids to put in more practice. I see the value of these activities both in terms of intellectual development and character builidng. But I'm also one of those parents who really value leisure time, I think it's important for kids to daydream, to relax, to just play "meaninglessly". So I'm not sure whether I should let him go for the activities as long as he wants to, or whether I should restrict the number of activities that he can do from now on...

Suggestions?

This is a big discussion in our household too. My DH (who is PG) is good at everything but great at nothing (from his perspective). As a child (and even now), he had difficultly focusing on one passion.

He actually wishes his parents would have evaluated his skills and interests along with the future in the area to help him focus on a few key things. Questions like: Was he ever likely to use skill as adult? Would he ever become a professional baseball player or musician? Could he get a job as a physicist?

I know the book Smart Boys by Kerr & Cohn addresses this to some extent too. (I'm paraphrasing here . . .) They find that gifted men in the workplace never achieve eminence because they were never taught to focus as children. Typically, people focus on the one thing that they are good at- since gifted children are often good at lots of things, they never focus and fail to develop a true passion.

Now, how you go about deciding when and how to cut activities? No clue. Sorry!

My DS9 is in Indian Guides which is monthly and one sport at a time that has 2 week day nightly practices and 1 sat. I think that is enough if they feel content. We live in a neighborhood with lots of kids. My son enjoys books, toy race track, rockenbock, computers games (30 mins. limits a wk day, 1 hr wk end) We try to get outside to play after dinner. I say start with this as a plan and see if your child is content. When we have been over scheduled in the past it bugs him. I also remeber my daughter asking, When can I do a show for her and had to anwser in 4 days. That made me stop and think, save time for the little stuff. I try to limit to one child activity a day so I can get some house stuff done. My kids are not bored very much. When they say they are bored, I say use your creative brain to come up with an idea or offer a activity that has been put away for a while. I want the kids to feel good at home and not always run around. Hope this helps

Yep, also struggling with this one! I've tried to curtail things a little this term and feel like I've had some success. Miss 8 does piano (Mon) and art (Wed). Miss 5 does piano (Mon), violin (Wed) and 2 x gymnastics. I ensure that they have Tues and Thurs free for free choice play, and have so far managed to keep the weekends free so that they can deconstruct and recover from the school week. I am finding that tiredness is an issue this term, mainly because Miss 5 seems to come home from school VERY GRUMPY and Miss 8's art lesson goes until 6.30pm on Wed night which makes it a late night. I feel that we're in a pretty good place at the moment and will probably add swimming back into the mix when the weather warms up... jojo

Thanks to all the replies. Yes, not having the time to focus is something I worry about, too. I'm hoping that DS9 will explore a variety of activities in elementary school, and start making choices once he enters middle school--I hope this makes sense in the end. In terms of time, last year DS had about 3 hours of free time every weekday after school and all the homework, practice, etc. We arrange a few activities on Saturdays for DS9 and DD4, but Sunday is always completely free. Many of my friends say that this is plenty of free time. I hope we can keep it this way this year but I think it will be very hard.