We were all about the "swimming is a mandatory life skill," until we ran up against SPD. DD9 can never, ever progress past the very first level of swim class, no matter how many years she spends on it, if she will not put her face in the water. We eventually stopped pushing once she demonstrated the ability to tread water for long enough to not drown if she falls in. DS5 doesn't even have that.
That's me! After many years of swim lessons (mandatory at school) I could never do it. I finally learned to tread the water for a minute or two on my own around 3rd grade and learned to swim on my own in 7th grade. I still do NOT put my face in the water and can't stand water in my eyes but I have no issues swimming long distance than my sister who learned to swim when she was in preschool. Our boys 5 and 3 have yet to take swim lessons. DS5 has the same SPD issues I had so with him we won't push it at all. Plus he has cold allergy so swimming isn't really recommended for him because of the temperature changes. DS3 will have to start soon because as soon as he sees water, he wants to jump head first. (I had to jump for him into our friends pool once last year ... wasn't a big pool but plenty big for a kid to drown. That and his autism (we're calling it autism until it's proved otherwise), in his case it truly is a life skill he needs to learn just in case. But I cannot be the one to teach him. His dad will, probably in the winter.
We are not doing any extracurricular just yet. Though we will be testing waters with gymnastics for both boys for 4 weeks in September just to see how they do with something that's more organized. Definitely want to do some music later in elementary school and probably earlier at home, though no formal lessons. I did have formal lessons for 7 years and hated it and always really liked just picking up a different instrument, learning on my own, playing by ear for fun.
